13. Der Käse stinkt von allen Seiten - The cheese stinks from all sides
14. Der Flüchtling aus Fernost - The refugee from the Far East
15. Eine endgültige Abmahnung - A final warning
16. Studententreffen - Student meeting
17. Aupair in England - Aupair in England
18. Der historische Kunsthändler - The historic art dealer
19. Der Rezesions Club - The review club
20. Ein Michelin Stern ist nicht genug - One Michelin star is not enough
21. Klassische Novelle: Ein Landarzt von Franz Kaffka
22 . Klassische Novelle: Ein Traum von Franz Kaffka
23. Klassisc he N ove lle : D ie gr ie c hisc he Tänze r in v. A . Sc hnit zle r24. Klassisc he N ove lle : Die Wanderung von Stefan Zweit25. Klassische Novelle: Schwere Stunde von Thomas Mann
The Stories and their value as teaching tools
Each story of the collection is reasonably short and split into easily digestible chapters.
Content wise, all the stories are of cultural interest and abundant in terms of language in a way that beginners and intermeditate learners can still easily digest. However, the language, the words and phrases you’ll encounter are useful and practical for everyday German speaking.
You will be exposed to a variety of tenses in each story; a nice blend of future, present, and past tense verbs. As such, you will grow more confident in your abilities to understand German in many different situations without feeling overwhelmed, or confused.
Often books similar to this one contain what is called “parallel text.” This is text alongside the original, in English, that translates the entire story. While it is a popular method of learning due to its ease, it has many downsides. Without fail, new learners focus on the English translation over the German text, simply because it’s less challenging. However, that struggle to understand is an important part of learning and improving your German.
To make the text more comprehensible, harder words are bolded and their definitions are displayed in English at each chapter’s end. As such, you have no reason to leaf through a dictionary mid-story, which is not only tedious, but will distract you from your purpose.
Next, at the end of each chapter are summaries that ensure you don’t miss anything vital in terms of the plot.
The benefits of extensive reading when learning
German as a second language
Reading stories exposes you to natural German as well, which will greatly benefit you in the long run.
Furthermore, reading for pleasure is popularly called “extensive reading”. It’s not like reading a German textbook, which contains short paragraphs, or lines of dialogue, you read in-depth with the goal of understanding each and every, single little word.
Over time, you will build an intuitive understanding of how German functions. This differs from a more theoretical understanding put together via learning rules and conceptual examples: 1. One important aspect of a successful learning process is a feeling of accomplishment, and enjoyment because that will keep you coming back.
2. You learn simply by reading.
3. Read the story from start to finish to thoroughly enjoy it.
4. It’s more important to reach to finish the story without stopping, then to understand each and every word. The simple truth is that you won’t get everything your first time around. This is completely normal.
Short stories for beginners and intermediate level - What learners can expect The first ten short stories are for beginners and intermediate level learners. All the stories are divided into easily digestible chapters with many page breaks, making progress simple, and with each section your read, you’ll feel as if you’ve actually achieved something.
The last ten short stories have slightly more challening vocabulary and phrases, but still, the vocabulary will be introduced to you at a reasonable pace, so you’re not overwhelmed with difficult words all at once. Here, you won’t have to look up every other word, but you can simply enjoy the story and absorb new words simply from the story’s context.
The German contained in here written using easy-to-understand grammer and vocabulary that both, those at the beginner and intermediate levels can understand, appreciate, and learn from.
Some stories, espcially the ones you find towards the end of the collection are more focused on dialogue. These stories contain loads of natural dialogue, so you can learn conversational German as you read. This is doubly beneficial as you will improve your speaking ability as well.
Each chapter includes summaries of the plot, word reference lists, and reading comprehension questions, so help is there when you need it.
Particularities of using and reading the text Some particularities include the letter ß. This letter, also known as "sharp S" has become quite obsolete in modern German literature, and is getting more substituted by the common form ss (double ss); for a better readability and a better general understanding I have only used the German double ss form.
In German many words are written together with so called word links; which had become the norm rather than execption, especially after the various grammar and spelling reforms over the last decades, and although some of the German scholars still detest the new rules, word links are an important part of the German language. Therefore, we have used as many word links as possible to give the reader a better understanding of the context and to show examples of how the language structure can be used in an understandable yet progessive fashion.
What can be done if you don’t understand
something?
1. The first step is to see if you recognize the word in any way. If you’re a native English or Spanish speaker, you will probably recognize certain elements of German vocabulary.
2. Read the sentence again and again. You can often glean the meaning of a word simply using the context of the sentence and the rest of the story. Take a guess at the meaning of the word; it’s not as difficult as you think! If you understand the general meaning of the story, it’s usually enough to recognize the smaller parts.
3. When all else fails, use the vocabulary list. This is a final move sort of tactic; the previous steps are better designed to help you actually learn German without an aid. Your reading will improve drastically as you develop this skill.
How the material can help you
You come across a bolded word. What does it mean? It means, these are important words and their definitions in English are given at the chapter’s end. This takes out the need to use a dictionary completely, which is not only tedious, but will take your focus off of the story.
Second, at the end of each story you find plot summaries, which can help you ensure you do not overlook any important details.
Finally, every chapter contains a set of comprehension questions to test your own understanding of the chapter. Plus, they give you some added motivation to read in-depth and not try to skim over anything.
What you need to know about German classic short storiesThe German short story – Origin and today's value
Already for decades, short stories have been an own art form in literature. But that has not ever been like this.
As its history proves the commencement of the American short story is very important, though there are strictly speaking three different reception phases to be distinguished.
After the early reception of the short story in 1900, the new reception in the twenties and the problematic incident during the Nazi-time, new interest in short stories came up after 1945 as a changing in speech, literature and moral values has been required. In that context the adoption of the short story seemed to be contemporary from the point of view of authors, readers and educators and made the short story to the most popular narration form until the balance between the different forms shifted about twenty years later.
In Germany the novelette and the short story are basically distinguished. Traditionally the novella is an opposite pole which has only artistic characteristics.
