Mastering German: Hear It, Speak It, Write It, Read It/Level 2 (Foreign Service Languages Institute Series)

The best Product on this site. I believe this product from Barrons actually will make you fluent. its old but its better than the modern programs thats just trying to get your money

Part 2 of a 2-part series, this continues the excellent tradition of an FSI course. It is imperative to get the audio to go along with it! Overall, this is one of the best ways to learn if you are dedicated and self-disciplined. Cons:It was designed to teach American diplomats going to a German-speaking country, so the level of formality is above what most of us would ever use. It assumes all the working roles are by males. It was made some 40 years ago, so some of the language is outdated and the technology since then is not included (computers, cell phones, etc). It instead talks about placing a long-distance telephone call, etc. There are a lot of typos. Pros: Extremely comprehensive, it aims to teach real, spoken German, and succeeds. This is not "German light for Americans," this is German as spoken by native German speakers. It strives to show the learner the relationship between English and German grammatical forms, such as modal verbs, comparatives, etc, which is extremely helpful and makes German seem "not foreign." Level 2 is units 13-24. Each unit begins with a series of conversations. New vocabulary is introduced along with the conversation. You are intended to listen to it and orally produce it before looking at the text. The conversations are then repeated (on the audio) at normal conversational speed. Then come a series of drills which increase in complexity and difficulty. These also are intended to be done entirely audio/oral. The book is to look at later if you can't understand. The first drills are substitution, the next are variation, then vocabulary (which drills around 12 new vocab words or phrases in context of making sentences out of them), then unrecorded translation drills and response drills followed by a short narrative. If you work at it 2 hours a day, a unit will take around 2 weeks. YOU MUST HAVE THE AUDIO. The audio has time for you to formulate your response to each drill, then the native speaker gives the correct response. If you are serious about learning German, this is for you. If you're just going on a short vacation, this is probably way more than you want or need.