This tutorial is keyed to German for Reading Knowledge, by Hubert Jannach and Richard Alan Korb, 4th edition (Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle Publishers, 1998). Each of the individual tutorials below corresponds to the same chapter number in the textbook, and so further information on the grammar points practiced can be found there.
To receive credit for doing these assignments for courses that require them, be sure you log in through the link below. Your work will be recorded that way.
The exercises in each section will give you practice with German sentences. They ask you, for example, to locate parts of the verb, to identify tenses or cases, to find antecedents of pronouns, or to join clauses in new ways. These exercises thus teach you to apply the grammar rules you know to real sentences, to help you read the sentences rather than translating them.
You are encouraged to type the correct answers into the blanks provided. Actually writing words down is an excellent help to memorization, but these answers will not be recorded permanently -- they will disappear when you log out of the section. To check your answers, click where indicated to have the correct answers pop up in a special box.
In addition, in the frame at the very left of the screen, you will find a Grammar Help, designed to clarify grammar terminology for you. It reminds you what you need to know about each grammar topic; it does not substitute for the fuller explanations in the textbook. Click on the topic, and the file will open to it; you will be able to scroll up and down in the Help File.
Also in the left-hand frame, you will find an alphabetical list of common Abbreviations (German to English), many of which occur in the exercise. Scroll down to the entry you need.
A short text on German spelling is also included in that list: a short exposition on the spelling reform being implemented in the major German-speaking countries, starting in 1998, together with some tips on older spelling conventions. The idea here is to help you be able to find in the dictionary words from texts printed using older conventions.
Finally, that index also will lead you to a tutorial on German printed script (Fraktur). It contains a parallel set of alphabets, and a text printed in Fraktur with its equivalent in ordinary type. Try to read the version in German script before you compare it to the transcription.
Comments to: Katherine Arens
This page was last modified in August, 1998.