Reddit reviews English Grammar for Students of German: The Study Guide for Those Learning German (English Grammar Series)
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Used Book in Good Condition
I know this isn't what you want to hear, but you can't learn a language without learning its grammar. Your request is like someone who wants to be a surgeon saying he doesn't want to bother with studying anatomy. It just doesn't work like that.
Sure, with Duolingo or Youtube or a smart phone app, you could probably pick up some vocabulary and maybe even a few stand-alone phrases. Without understanding the grammar, though, you'll never be able to put those words together into meaningful sentences and arrange those sentences into meaningful conversations.
It would be like listening to someone in English who always says things like "Me want store please to go." Sure, a native English speaker will probably understand that you really meant "I want to go to the store, please." However, after two minutes of a conversation like that, the native speaker will be mentally exhausted.
So, as someone who himself didn't start learning German until he was 18, please believe me when I tell you that you will be doing yourself a huge favor in the long run if you take it slow here at the beginning and don't try to jump ahead until you get a firm grasp on the grammar. This won't necessarily be easy, and it won't necessarily be thrilling, but it *is* necessary. Having a large vocabulary and knowing cool slang words don't mean anything if you can't put them together correctly to make sentences.
Finally, you mentioned that you don't know English grammar very well. This is part of the problem, too. How can you learn the grammar of a foreign language if you don't have a frame of reference via the grammar of your own language? A grammar guide that was used in the German department where I studied might be helpful. It's relatively inexpensive on its own, but you might even be able to find it for free at a local public or university library, if you have access to one.
Finally, don't hesitate to ask grammar questions here (but help us help you by not asking 20 different grammar questions in the same post).
Viel Spaß und viel Erfolg!
I found English Grammar for Students of German to be very helpful when I was taking German. It is light on vocabulary but goes pretty in depth with cases, tenses, and sentence structure.
Schreiben Lernen was helpful, as was Deutsch: Na Klar!
Also consider using lots of flashcards, because building up a vocab is going to be really helpful.
For grammatical structure try: English Grammar for students of German.
Viel Glück!
There are four grammatical cases in German: Nominative, Accusative, Dative, and Genitive - these are pretty much equated with, respectively, the subject, direct object, indirect object, and possessive in English.
The nominative forms of the definite articles (der, die, das) and the indefinite articles (ein, eine, ein) that indicate gender will change to indicate what the role of each element in the utterance is:
-'Der Apfel ist rot.' - the apple is the subject and, therefore, the nominative 'der' is used.
But:
-"Ich kaufe den Apfel" - the apple becomes the direct object, as it is being acted upon by the subject, 'ich'. the nominative masculine form 'der' has been inflected to the accusative masculine form 'den'.
Then:
-"Ich gebe ihm den Apfel" - now, the apple that is being acted upon, through the act of giving remains in the accusative as the direct object. But we now have an indirect object in 'ihm' the dative masculine form of the nominative 'er'.
Now, this is just a basic gloss of what the accusative and dative cases functions are, but it should answer what you've asked.
Since you didn't ask about genitive I'm not getting into that, as getting the accusative and dative down can be a task in itself.
Here are a couple of links to great resources for grammar:
Schaum's Outline of German Grammar
Also, English Grammar for Students of German
Your textbooks don't explain what nominative, genitive, dative and accusative are?
The book I normally recommend is English Grammar for Students of German, but I can't guarantee it's better than what you already have.
German is one of the most widely spoken languages on the internet, so you're able to find a lot of grammar and other info. If you do decide to teach yourself, I'd highly recommend the book English Grammar for Students of German (assuming your native language is English). It might help you to get set up something where you're speaking German with someone via skype.
Fwiw, I'm really good at grammar. For me, it's a puzzle begging you to solve it.
Edit: I also highly recommend this site. It's really good and I've used it before as well for clarification on some of the more obscure grammar points.
I use:
Starter Kit
Understanding Grammar
(https://www.amazon.com/English-Grammar-Students-German-Learning/dp/0934034389/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1540389052&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=german+for+english+speakers&dpPl=1&dpID=41RAyW9uzAL&ref=plSrch)
Verb overview with full conjugations and sample sentences
Grammar exercises (this is great but in 100% German)
I have some online resources but prefer books. I also think these don’t „expire“ too soon and you can use them into A2. If you find used versions, it’s not too expensive.
If English is your first language I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/English-Grammar-Students-German-Learning/dp/0934034389 (buy a used copy)
Depending on what language you want to learn, there may be a book that explains the grammar you'll need for that language by connecting it to English. For example: German,
Spanish, Russian.
If there's a term that you're unfamiliar with, you can also poke around on Wikipedia to get a better idea behind some of the concepts. But when things get too technical, just keep looking up unfamiliar terminology and you'll be on your way.
For a little bit of fun, check out:
Split Ergativity,
where you can see this gem of a sentence:
>An example of split ergativity conditioned by tense and aspect is found in the Hindustani language (Hindi/Urdu), which has an ergative case on subjects in the perfective aspect for transitive verbs in the active voice, while in other aspects (habitual, progressive) subjects appear in the nominative case.
I am no sure if a single text can help you achieve your goals for self-study.
However, I have heard great things about the "Erkundungen" and "Begegnungen" Deutsch Als Fremdspreche series from Schubert-Verlag for existing self-study learners, which also has an online site for grammar exercises, http://www.schubert-verlag.de/aufgaben/index.htm
Alternatively, an English and progressive teaching grammar like this well known one may suit you better:
"English Grammar for Students of German"
In the same way that die can be either an article or a relative pronoun in German, that can be either a relative pronoun or a simple subordinating conjunction in English. Sometimes the same form fulfills multiple functions in a language. It's simply a different way of dividing up the grammatical work.
Edit: I will point out that we actually can make a distinction here in English, but only for inanimate vs. animate antecedents. If it's a relative pronoun, you can get that or who(m). If it's just a plain subordinating conjunction, you'll only get that.
I know who he is already here.(conjunction, so the form does not change)If you have never been taught basic grammar, you might find this book useful in drawing comparisons between English and German.
So many. There's a great book English Grammar for Students of Germen. English has so many words and a surprising number of tenses.
For beginners: http://www.amazon.com/English-Grammar-Students-German-Learning/dp/0934034389/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413161749&sr=1-2&keywords=german+english+grammar
Beginning to intermediate: http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-German-Grammar-4ed/dp/0071615679/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413161727&sr=1-6&keywords=german+grammar
Beginning to intermediate: http://www.amazon.com/Hammers-German-Grammar-Usage-Edition/dp/1444120166
Intermediate to advanced: http://www.amazon.com/Practice-Grammar-German/dp/3190272557/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413161823&sr=1-1&keywords=hueber+practice+grammar+german
Title : English Grammar for Students of German: The Study Guide for Those Learning German
3rd Edition
Author : Cecile Zorach
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0934034389/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_HHpqDbBHPH31J
I actually think this is a great book for German learners!
Hammer's German and Usage
Hammer's German and Usage Workbook
German Grammar drills
Secondary grammar book
Personally, Hammer's Grammar book is quite enough. It is around 500 pages of dry grammar. It is very well constructed and very easy to understand, get it with workbook. It is logical, as it teaches you from the most essential and easiest structures. Nouns -> genders, -> cases, that way it is easier to learn.
Secondary Grammar book is not necessary.
Advice her to use Anki, its a very helpful tool i think for the most easiest words to learn. Especially it helps a lot with German genders.
the books that I have are:
Hammer's German Grammar and Usage - it's a huge comprehensive in-depth look at everything grammatical, breaks everything down completely. good as a reference book but not really to go through and study
English Grammar for Students of German - it's a really brief overview comparing English grammar to German grammar with examples, but doesn't get really specific
Berlitz Self Teacher: German - some of the vocab is a little outdated but it's a cute concise book that's really good to carry on the subway or whatever and read in short spurts. there's special parts dedicated to helping you "think in german" which is important for fluency. it's a pretty good book for beginners I think.
I also have Barron's 501 German verbs but I actually haven't started looking through it yet.
and then if we add an audio section to this list is highly recommend Pimsleur's audio courses, though they're pricey so you may want to try and obtain them ahem another way.
If what you want to achieve is A1 and nothing beyond, you best bet would be getting one of the many course books:
A arguably better alternative would be the free online course offered by Deutsche Welle (http://deutschkurse.dw.de/KursPlattform/WebObjects/KursPlattform.woa/wo/6.1). Do register and try it. Really valuable resource. Together with Deutsch – warum nicht? (http://www.dw.de/deutsch-lernen/deutsch-warum-nicht/s-2163) you can go far. (In case you didn't realise already, both the sound files and pdf notes can be found on the right, featuring four series.)
Maybe the only problem you would encounter is speaking. The speaking test is actually like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGNd-6pDkEI), and you may panic if you don't already speak in German for a several hours. Try to find someone who speaks German and wants to do a language exchange with you. (http://www.language-exchanges.org/) is one of them. You may as well find one on Reddit.
By the way, if you really want to have a strong command of German sooner or later, there are some good, though popular (popular doesn't always mean bad) books for foundation, apart from your already awesome German for Reading:
If you insist on getting a grammar book, a nice start would be:
And eventually you may want to take down the boss:
Finally I recommend you to take a look at my favourite reading material when I started, Studien und Plaudereien (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22160), freely offered by Project Gutenberg.
I have this book: English Grammar for students of German. It compares English and German in lots of areas of grammar in easy terms. I find it pretty helpful.
Also you could probably find a better price for the book but I just linked a better description.