How to Learn to Read Theological German

Today I finished my 30 day German program.  I wrote a review about the book I used on Amazon.com.  I have reworked the review a little and pasted it below. 

I started out with no German, worked through German Quickly: A Grammar for Reading German by April Wilson in 30 days, used no other resources, and can now read German with a dictionary.   

I have to learn to read German to pass my Duke Divinity School "Doctor of Theology" (Th.D.) reading exam.  (For more about my program, see my Ph.D. category page with all the posts about that).  For the test, you have two hours to translate two pages of a journal article with a dictionary.  (About 1/4 of Duke Divinity School's theological journals are in German).  I have not taken the test yet but I will update this post when I do.  [Update: See below.  I didn't pass my test the first time].  But I can say that I started out with zero German and can now translate the German journal articles I have tried to read (with a dictionary). 

I followed the 30 day schedule on page 265 of German Quickly.  It took me about 2-4 hours to do one day's work, plus another 1-2 hours studying vocabulary.  (I am trying to learn more vocabulary than just the * required words so I don't have to look up so many words while reading). [Update: I think I would have been better off learning the * required words perfectly]. 

I made flashcards on flashcardexchange.com for all of the vocabulary words.  If you get a $20 lifetime subscription at flashcardexchange.com you can download and print out flashcards for all of the words for free - my gift to you.  Or you can do online quizzing there for free without buying any subscription.  On that site, search the tag "quickly" for all of the German Quickly flashcards.  Or search for "German Quickly" with the title search. 

I emailed the author of the book, April Wilson, and she sent me a list of corrections and the complete answer key.  (About half of the answers are in the back of the book).  (Link to April Wilson's website).

This book is specifically designed for people learning to read German.  You will not learn to hear or speak it.  But I did not have time for that right now.  There are other CD ROM resources like TeLL me More German Premium - Complete Beginner, Beginner, Intermediate & Advanced ($265) for that.  But remember, if it takes you one hour to learn to read it, it will take you another hour to learn to speak it, and another hour to learn to hear it.  I didn't have time to learn to speak and hear it right now. 

I should also mention that it is easier to use a book like this if you have already learned another foreign language in the past because you will be more familiar with English grammar. But most graduate students will already have done so. 

Most major universities and seminaries do offer reading courses in German which, (like this book), just teach you to read German.  The author of this book, April Wilson, has for many years taught University of Chicago students to read German.  Obviously, if you have the choice, I would recommend taking a course because it is difficult to have the self-discipline to tackle learning a language by yourself.  But if you are like me and want to learn to read German during a time when no class is being offered, this is the book.  Or if you are a professor and looking for a textbook for your German reading course, I would highly recommend the book.   

There are other German grammars to consider: (1) Reading German: A Course Book and Reference Grammar, (2) German for Reading Knowledge, and (3) German for Reading; A Programmed Approach for Graduate and Undergraduate Reading Courses but it seems to me German Quickly is the best. 

While you are ordering, you might also want to order a German/English dictionary.  German Quickly has a chapter about the different dictionaries but if you want to order one now, I would recommend considering these two: Collins German Unabridged Dictionary, 7th Edition and Oxford-Duden German Dictionary: German-English / English-German.

April Wilson also sent me 10 theological reading passages on 9 pages with the answers.  I have done a tiny bit of work in Modern Theological German: A Reader and Dictionary by Helmut W. Ziefle - which has a variety of German theological readings.  But it does not give the correct translation which is annoying when you are studying by yourself.  It has a few multiple choice questions with which to quiz yourself.  You can only use this book after you have done April Wilson's book or you will be annoyed.  Others have used Introduction to Introduction to Theological German: A Beginner's Course for Theological Students by J. D. Manton.  But it hasn't been updated since 1971.

I should also say that many people have recommended going to Germany as a way to learn to read German.  I'm sure that's a great idea too!

Later note: In 2000, my Hebrew professor at Jerusalem University College and expert language professor Randall Buth who works now at the Biblical Language Center, recommended Learnables Basic Structures German Level 1 Set Book & CD.   See his comments here.  He warns that if you don't cement German in your subconscious with pictures and hear it, you will forget it.   Uh oh . . .  But Buth also believes that the best way to learn Biblical Hebrew is to learn to use it as a spoken language!  He is surely right that learning German as a spoken language is ideal.  But in order to read some German journal articles, this 30 day program is probably good enough. 

Update #1 of 2, September 8th:

I took the test September 7th.  We'll see how I did.  I did not get through all they gave me to translate.  I had to look up a lot of words.  I had an article from the journal Die Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche.

Download copy of German Exam.pdf

I had not reviewed my vocabulary very systematically since finishing German Quickly so that might be something I could work on to improve.  I have mostly been practicing translating.  I have also been auditing a German reading course at Duke called GERMAN 201: GERMAN ACADEMIC RESEARCH I.  We are using

German for Reading Knowledge by Hubert Jannach and Richard Alan Korb.  We are working through two lessons per week.  There are 30 lessons in the book and so the class is two semesters long.  This is also the book that my friend used at Boston University last spring.  I would not recommend the book over German Quickly.  It has less explanation than German Quickly and you have to look up lots of words in the back of the book to do the exercises.  The exercises also do not systematically test what you learned in that lesson.  For example, there are lots of past tense verbs used in the practice sentences before we have covered that in the explanations. 

 

Update #2 of 2, October 2nd:

I didn't pass my test the first time around.  I have a couple of alternatives: (1) Keep going with the course I am auditing at Duke.  (2) Get a CD Rom software program like TeLL me More German Premium - Complete Beginner, Beginner, Intermediate & Advanced ($265) and try to ingest more deeply the German language.  At this point, I'm going to continue with #1 but I am not thrilled with the book.