Practising German Grammar: A Workbook

Abstract

Practising German Grammar: A Workbook is designed to accompany the second edition of Hammer's German Grammar and Usage by Martin Durrell (see review in UP, vol. 26 No. 1 [Spring 1993], pp. 115-16) and is intended for intermediate or advanced students of German who may have a good command of spoken German, but who still need to reinforce their knowledge of the structure of the language. Practising German Grammar parallels exactly the twenty-three chapters of Hammer and offers a variety of exercises that are referenced to the relevant grammar explanations. The exercises range from practicing specific grammar points to text-based exercises that show how the language works in context to project exercises that ask students to work with a text, often of their own choosing, to test the usefulness of the rules and classifications they have learned. They are encouraged even to improve on the explanations given in the grammar. The textbased exercises use authentic texts from newspapers, periodicals, business publications, and literature, and the project exercises require students to work with literary and newspaper sources or dictionaries or to interview native speakers to test the grammatical rules that they have learned. The book concludes with an answer key to all exercises with alternative answers and explanations where necessary. Chapter 6, for example, reviews adjective endings in fourteen exercises, most of which require filling the blank with the correct ending of the adjective or of the determiner and adjective. Two of the exercises are sections taken from an essay by Heinrich B6ill and a report on driving safety from the magazine Test. There are two project exercises in this chapter (ex. 3 and 7). The first asks students to interview several native speakers to determine which combination of determiner and adjective endings in the plural is found to be more acceptable (i.e., alle guten Biicher vs. alle gute Biicher) and then to compare the results with the information in Hammer and Duden, Vol. 9. The second project has students make up a list of all types of noun phrases with different determiners, adjectives, and nouns of different genders and declensions. They are then to check in how many examples endings clearly mark case, number, or gender or where endings are ambiguous. In Chapter 16, where subjunctive forms are reviewed, students must first rewrite sentences in indirect discourse or reconstruct direct discourse dialogue from a passage of indirect speech. They are hen asked to select a longer passage from a modern novel to find out how often the subjunctive is used in reported speech, and to compare the results with the rules in Hammer. A similar project has students collect at least 50 examples of subjunctive II from a modern novel or from five newspaper articles to discover how often wirdeforms occur instead of the one-word present subjunctive forms. Practising German Grammar is a well-conceived workbook that covers all the major aspects of the structure of German. It was developed from materials used with undergraduates at the University of Oxford and tested with students in London, Man ester, and Alberta. It is best suited for advanced language courses that also use Hammer's German Grammar and Usage, but it can easily be coordinated with other course materials; and individual chapters can be assigned according to he needs of students. Since an answer key is provided, the workbook lends itself to independent s udy. H lpful suggestions for the user are provided in the preface (vi-viii). The major strengths of th book are its thoroughness, variety of exercises, and the authenticity and usefulness of the language. Advanced students who work through this wo kbook will solidify their knowledge of the structure f German as well as gain confidence in using it. William E. Petig Stanford University