Reddit reviews Graded German Reader: Erste Stufe (World Languages)

You mentioned below that you were interested in German... check out this book if you're a beginner and like reading. I don't know how the managed it, but it's a 240 page small print book that you can literally pick up and read through starting on your first day of German. It starts with about 500 english to German cognates, adding new words slowly (with definitions at the bottom of the page to help) until you're eventually reading pretty comfortably at maybe a low B1 level or something. Won't get you all the way there, but it was pretty well handled I thought, pity all graded readers aren't like this.

I liked "Graded German Reader: Erste Stufe"(for example, here - but, buy it used. It's out of print, so the new versions are super expensive).

I also like "German Easy Reader" (can be found here). I found the stories in here less varied and interesting than in the Graded Reader, but they have a lot of repetition. You'll find certain phrases repeated a lot, and this actually helped me pick up which case follows certain prepositions in what scenarios. The author also has a pre-intermediate, and I think 3 intermediate readers to follow up on this. They're all pretty cheap too.

I am in the exact same boat. Except I still live in the states.

Here are some things my german gf and I have been working on:

• If I want to learn more vocab in a certain area we find news articles about these things and discuss them. I memorize new vocabulary in the news article.
  
  
• I keep a free account on dict.leo.org and try to add 30-50 new vocab words every week. It is a couples-activity for my gf and I to go over the word list together a few times a week.
  
  
• Make yourself read. It sounds like reading is hard for you so far, but push through! Read childrens' books like The Neverending Story (Die Unendliche Geschichte) or a translation of Harry Potter, or whatever you are into. If you like more serious things, there is a lot German literature from the 30's and 40's that is written in a very simple style - I'm thinking of stuff by Wolfgang Borchert or Remarque and it is possible to find readers that have a bunch of german stories together with vocab. Something maybe like this. A good online resource for simple news article material is bild.de, if you can wade through the silly, insipid news articles. Hell, they even bold-text the important parts of news articles because they assume their readership doesn't want to read the whole thing... ;) You can pick up some good vocab, though.
  
  
• Learn to ask your wife about what you want to say. If you don't know the word for "transmission" ask her about "The part that makes the wheels go" or something similar and let her tell you what the word is...and try to remember it!
  
  Hope that helps and that I didn't write too much... Good luck!

Yes! As for books these one's have really helped me:

• Everything Learning German This one is super great for grammar. It has exercises at the end of each lesson so you can practice too :)
  
• Collins Complete German This one is probbbbably my favorite. I love it, it has a guide for pretty much everything you need to know in the grammar, it explains everything well, and it has verb tables so you can study the conjugation. It has some vocabulary in the back too.
  
• Graded German Reader This one is also really awesome. You can find a used one for 10 bucks on amazon, just the new ones are really expensive because I don't think they are made anymore. This starts with simple reading passages and gradually gets more difficult while adding new words- but it's at a perfect pace so you don't get overwhelmed, and you will probably be able to completely understand.
  
• Cafe in Berlin Another german short story book. This one is great too.
  
• German Pre-Intermediate Reader Another reader- this one incorporates the top 1000 words in German.
  
  I know I have more but these are my favorites! As for movies/shows.. when I watch like youtube videos (try 'easy german') or kids shows I tend to watch them without subtitles. If I'm watching an adult movie/show I pretty much have to use subtitles otherwise I can't pick up anything. I usually put the subtitles in German though, because I read better than I listen!
  
  Let me know if I can help you with anything else :)

In addition, there's the much more recent Graded German Reader: Erste Stufe. Out of print but still in copyright, but there's a PDF floating around.

Studien und Plaudereien is very cute but obviously pretty outdated / old fashioned.