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Dino lernt Deutsch #8
Learn German With Stories: Zurück in Zürich - 10 Short Stories For Beginners
Following their “Walzer in Wien”, Dino and Elisabeth are off to Switzerland to visit extended family and enjoy some fresh mountain air but soon find themselves caught up between high-end expenses and a strange exercise in escape artistry.
While reveling in the beauty of Lake Zurich, the old city and the alpine view, Dino grapples with the incomprehensibility of the Swiss dialect and reveals a surprising aspect about his girlfriend’s family.
Explore Zurich, learn about local customs and culture and improve your German effortlessly along the way!
This book is designed to help beginners make the leap from studying isolated words and phrases to reading (and enjoying) naturally flowing German texts. Using simplified sentence structures and a very basic vocabulary, this collection of short stories is carefully crafted to allow even novice learners to appreciate and understand the intricacies of coherent German speech.
Each chapter comes with a complete German-English dictionary, with a special emphasis on collocative phrases (high frequency word combinations), short sentences and expressions. By working with these “building blocks” instead of just single words, learners can accelerate their understanding and active usage of new material and make the learning process more fluid and fun.
While reveling in the beauty of Lake Zurich, the old city and the alpine view, Dino grapples with the incomprehensibility of the Swiss dialect and reveals a surprising aspect about his girlfriend’s family.
Explore Zurich, learn about local customs and culture and improve your German effortlessly along the way!
This book is designed to help beginners make the leap from studying isolated words and phrases to reading (and enjoying) naturally flowing German texts. Using simplified sentence structures and a very basic vocabulary, this collection of short stories is carefully crafted to allow even novice learners to appreciate and understand the intricacies of coherent German speech.
Each chapter comes with a complete German-English dictionary, with a special emphasis on collocative phrases (high frequency word combinations), short sentences and expressions. By working with these “building blocks” instead of just single words, learners can accelerate their understanding and active usage of new material and make the learning process more fluid and fun.
117 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 2016
84 people are currently reading
203 people want to read
About the author
André Klein
108 books279 followersAndré Klein was born in Germany, grew up in Sweden and Thailand and currently lives in Israel. He has been teaching languages for more than 15 years and is the author of short stories, picture books and non-fiction works in English and German.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
October 9, 2024
Great stories. Enjoy some jellyfish emojis! 🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼
August 26, 2019
This short book is perfect for boosting vocabulary and confidence in anyone studying German. I especially liked the local trivia and the mention of Swiss dialect.
Only one complaint: it ended a bit suddenly. I know it is a series but it is sold as an individual book, shouldn’t it have some kind of conclusion? Never mind, for a beginner level book it’s pretty good, I’ll probably read all of them anyway!
Only one complaint: it ended a bit suddenly. I know it is a series but it is sold as an individual book, shouldn’t it have some kind of conclusion? Never mind, for a beginner level book it’s pretty good, I’ll probably read all of them anyway!
February 24, 2019
I like how André Klein structured his books to maximise learning for German language!
October 20, 2021
I have been reading Dino's story starting from the first book. It is really interesting and exciting to read about same character within different stories. Especially for the 7th and 8th ones, talking about refugees impressed me. Thanks for sharing different vocabularies related to hot topics. I am planning to finish all 11 book in 2021. Hope to finish them all and more will be come.
Additionally, I am intermediate (B1-B2) German Learner. Sentences are basic for me to understand but there are many new words which I do not know. So, it is really interesting for me to read. However, intermediate books are more detective books. It does not interest me at all. Therefore, I am not able to continue toward these books. Hope to see more various types of books soon!
Additionally, I am intermediate (B1-B2) German Learner. Sentences are basic for me to understand but there are many new words which I do not know. So, it is really interesting for me to read. However, intermediate books are more detective books. It does not interest me at all. Therefore, I am not able to continue toward these books. Hope to see more various types of books soon!
January 13, 2019
Loved this series. So helpful.
March 26, 2021
"In der Stadt vergißt man sehr schnell dass der ganze lärm eigentlich nicht normal ist" 💔
September 30, 2024
“Kleine Kinder, kleine Freuden, Grosse Kinder, grosse Leiden”
“Small children, small joys, big children, big suffering”
This episode of Dino's journeys has him and Elisabeth visiting her Aunt Vreni in Zürich . The story involves refugees crossing the border and going through bureaucratic channels for the asylum procedures before working for family reunification. I also learned from this book that in Switzerland women weren't given voting rights until 1971. There are some very interesting signs that came from the ad campaign at the time, against allowing Women's Suffrage. While there, he discovers a different dialect of German (Swiss German instead of the High German.) Besides the usual exploration of local customs, culture, foods, and landscape, they end up in a few jams, and learn to juggle expensive local prices. Extended family, as usual figure strongly in the telling, and people are as much a part of the story as are tourism and travel.
This is book eight of twelve. By this point, after making my way through the rest of the series of graded German readers, I found my reading skills much improved and I am learning many more words in context, simply because of the way the author has set up this wonderful resource. As my fluency has picked up, so has my comprehension and word recall. I read each chapter aloud to myself once from the Kindle. I then use the Kindle format and the Audible together on my second time through before moving on to the next chapter. This way, I read along, checking and reinforcing correct pronunciation. And, the Kindle has the built in German-German dictionary for practice in looking up unknown words, and that gives even more practice in reading German definitions. It's a win-win method of German reading practice.
These stories are written on a good interest level for adult learners. The story is told across ten short chapters, that while self-contained, form a cohesive whole. I highly recommend this series as a way to practice your German reading.
“Small children, small joys, big children, big suffering”
This episode of Dino's journeys has him and Elisabeth visiting her Aunt Vreni in Zürich . The story involves refugees crossing the border and going through bureaucratic channels for the asylum procedures before working for family reunification. I also learned from this book that in Switzerland women weren't given voting rights until 1971. There are some very interesting signs that came from the ad campaign at the time, against allowing Women's Suffrage. While there, he discovers a different dialect of German (Swiss German instead of the High German.) Besides the usual exploration of local customs, culture, foods, and landscape, they end up in a few jams, and learn to juggle expensive local prices. Extended family, as usual figure strongly in the telling, and people are as much a part of the story as are tourism and travel.
This is book eight of twelve. By this point, after making my way through the rest of the series of graded German readers, I found my reading skills much improved and I am learning many more words in context, simply because of the way the author has set up this wonderful resource. As my fluency has picked up, so has my comprehension and word recall. I read each chapter aloud to myself once from the Kindle. I then use the Kindle format and the Audible together on my second time through before moving on to the next chapter. This way, I read along, checking and reinforcing correct pronunciation. And, the Kindle has the built in German-German dictionary for practice in looking up unknown words, and that gives even more practice in reading German definitions. It's a win-win method of German reading practice.
These stories are written on a good interest level for adult learners. The story is told across ten short chapters, that while self-contained, form a cohesive whole. I highly recommend this series as a way to practice your German reading.
September 30, 2024
Dino ve Elizabeth, uzun bir tren yolculuğu sonrasında Zürih'e, Elizabeth'in teyzesi Vlina'nın yanına gelirler. En başta evde bulamazlar ama sonra gelir. Bir tur şirketinde çalışan teyze Yahudidir ve savaş sırasında buraya göçmüştür. Yemekte şarap için kilere giden ikili kapı yüzünden içeride kilitli kalır. Komşlu sesi duyar ve Elizabeth'in kuzeni Anna el bir polisle gelip onları kurtarır. Doğum günü olduğu için bir yere giderler ve Dino 700 Frank hesap öder. Elizabeth'in şarjı sürekli bittiği için ona saat almaya karar verir ama saatler pahalıdır. Elizabeth ise ona telefon almıştır. Telefonda abisi Alfredo ile konuşmanın mail atıp İnternet kafeye gitmekten daha kolay olduğunu keşfeder. Abisi para yollayınca ona saati alır. Eve geldiklerinde teyzeyi Afgan komşu ile otururken görürler. Adam baklava getirmiştir. Annabel'in 700 Frank hikayesini duyan teyze parayı ona verir. Sonra da akşam yemeğine geçerler. Serinin bu zamana kadarki en güzel kitabı.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 19, 2022
As time passes, I am starting to hate that series. Not at all author's fault. It's just the design of this kind of books. When you are about the finish a series like this, vocabulary becomes so BS that sometimes you don't even know the words for some of these concepts in your native language. Like, a sailor is a sailor for me. Maybe ship-boy is a ship-boy, too. But 14 kinds of different seaman? Oh, come on!
Also fish. Yeah. Desserts and spices. At some point, it starts to feel unreal. You know if you were reading a regular book, you wouldn't see such a diverse assortment of words on a certain topic.
Rant over. Still loving them. Great series!
Bonus content: Since I'm in Zürich right now, you get to see the scenery from Uetliberg as Dino did.
Also fish. Yeah. Desserts and spices. At some point, it starts to feel unreal. You know if you were reading a regular book, you wouldn't see such a diverse assortment of words on a certain topic.
Rant over. Still loving them. Great series!
Bonus content: Since I'm in Zürich right now, you get to see the scenery from Uetliberg as Dino did.
February 23, 2019
Another good book that has assisted me in German language acquisition.
July 12, 2019
A tour de force through Zürich
June 18, 2020
Great book
An incredibly helpful book for learning German, I swear by narrative learning approaches for learning new languages. Well done! 😊
An incredibly helpful book for learning German, I swear by narrative learning approaches for learning new languages. Well done! 😊
May 30, 2021
Lustig :)
January 20, 2022
luv me Dino
luv me Alfredo
'ate me Annabel
simple as
luv me Alfredo
'ate me Annabel
simple as
May 14, 2024
My favorite Dino book yet.
Read
October 16, 2021Entertaining as always. A great way to improve German understanding.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews