Congratulations! You’ve come quite far in your quest to speak German fluently. You can understand the majority of a lengthy casual conversation, and perhaps even watch a little TV without too much confusion. You’re doing great. But if you want to be fluent, you have to keep going. Themen 3 Aktuell – Arbeitsbuch just might be the way to go.
"You should be aware that there isn’t a single word of English in the lessons, so you only have your German skills to rely on!"
Before you grab this book, you should be confident in reading German without a translation. You should be aware that there isn’t a single word of English in the lessons, so you only have your German skills to rely on! This is great if you can read with some level of fluency, but if you have to have a dictionary by your side the whole time; it may be a bit much for you.
As the name states, this is a workbook chockfull of practice lessons to help you improve your current language skills. The exercises include filling in charts, changing tenses, fill- in-the blank exercises, and constructing sentences. Many of the exercises are based on German grammar. The lack of focus on vocabulary building means that you’ll have to give extra effort to studying vocabulary outside of this book.
The book is a bit middle-of-the-line when it comes to content and layout; it’s not overly boring and tedious, but it’s nothing that unique, either. The cartoon drawings that pop up every once in a while add a little bit of fun to the appearance and overall learning experience; other than that, the book is still a pretty basic, straight forward, black and white workbook.
If you are a German teacher, this will be a good book for your upper level students. You can easily assign portions of each Lektion as homework without much discussion or instruction prior to assigning an exercise. You will have to be careful as the answers are in the back of the book. It may be a good idea to cut them out before giving your students the book just to avoid the temptation to cheat. If you are a self-taught student of German, then having the answers clearly come in handy. If you pace yourself correctly, you can make your way through the entire workbook in a matter of months.
Few books ever offer a complete package; this “Artbeitsbuch” is no different and it doesn’t claim to be. It does, however, make for a great practice workbook. With extensive exercises, you can sharpen your German writing skills in no time.
