GERMAN Basic Course

UNITS 1 - 12
GERMAN Basic Course: UNITS 1 - 12
Table of Contents
Preface ........................................................................................................................ ii
Introduction ................................................................................................................. iii
1. Unit 1 ...................................................................................................................... 7
Basic sentences: Wir sind in Deutschland ................................................................. 7
Notes on pronunciation ......................................................................................... 11
Notes on grammar ............................................................................................... 13
Substitution drill. ................................................................................................. 15
Variation drill ..................................................................................................... 17
Translation drill ................................................................................................... 21
Response drill ..................................................................................................... 21
Conversation practice ........................................................................................... 23
Situations ........................................................................................................... 24
Finder list ........................................................................................................... 24
2. .............................................................................................................................. 28

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1
Preface
This Basic Course in German has been designed to assist United States Government representatives
who require a command of spoken German. The general concept of this text has grown out of the
plan of Spoken Language courses prepared under the auspices of the American Council of Learned
Societies during World War II. But pattern drills and other exercises have been developed extensively
at the Foreign Service Institute to provide a much fuller manipulation of forms and patterns, and a
conscious attempt has been made to adapt situations and vocabulary to specific needs of the Foreign
Service. And the course is intended to lay a solid foundation for comprehensive language skills, pro-
viding systematically for the development of reading proficiency based on oral- aural skills.

This text is the end-product of several years of work and has benefited from the labors of many mem-
bers and former members of the FSI staff. In its present form it was prepared under the supervision of
Or. Samuel A. Brown, who has had overall responsibility for the arrangement of situational material
and for the organization and presentation of structural features. Particular credit for the dialogs and
much of the drill material goes to Mrs. Use Christoph. Mrs. Christoph has been assisted by Mrs. Maria-
Luise Bissonnette, Mr Friedrich Lehmann, Mr. Gerhard Matzel, Mrs. Margarete Plischke and Mrs.
Erika Quaid. A most valuable contribution was also made by Mrs. Quaid in preparing the major part
of the typescript, assisted by Miss Geneviève Ducastel. The project has been a cooperative venture,
however, and all members of the German staff have contributed freely the fruit of their classroom ex-

perience and the gifts of their imagination and insight.

H. E. Sollenberger Dean, School of Languages Foreign Service Institute

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Introduction
AIM

It is the aim of the course to provide the student with a useful control of the structure of the spoken
language and of a basic vocabulary which meets at least some of the specialized needs of the Foreign
Service. After completion of the basic course the Foreign Service Officer should be able to make lim-
ited practical use of the language in his official duties and social obligations. He will furthermore have
the means, given the proper surroundings and personal motivation, for continued rapid and efficient
development of proficiency.

MATERIALS

The materials in this first volume of the text are organized into twelve lessons or units. Each unit
contains a set of basic sentences for memorization. These are in the form of a dialog based on one or
sometimes two specific situations in which a person might find himself in Germany. Notes to the basic
sentences are provided as necessary to clarify occasional difficulties in vocabulary and idiom and to
provide additional background on some cultural features unfamiliar to Americans. Notes on pronun-
ciation are included in each of the first eight units. Phonological features which have been found to
be particularly difficult for American students are here presented with explanations and pronunciation
practice drills. The notes on grammar in each unit single out those structural features illustrated in
the basic sentences which are appropriate for systematic consideration at that stage in the course. Sub-
stitution drills provide for the manipulation of forms by substituting specific items in fixed sentence
frames. They are intended to build habits of association, so that in a given syntactic environment the
appropriate grammatical form automatically comes to mind. As the German vocabulary is all familiar,
no English equivalents are given in these drills. Variation drills provide for the manipulation of larger
syntactic patterns. In each group a model sentence, underscored, serves as a guide. Associated with
it are additional sentences incorporating the same syntactic pattern but in which most of the individ-
ual word items have been replaced. English equivalents are given to serve as cues for recall of the
German variant sentences. Vocabulary drills provide both practice in the use of new vocabulary items
and also allow for manipulation of sentence elements whose particular form and arrangement depends
upon their association with that vocabulary item. The manipulation of both variation and vocabulary
drills depends on the use of English equivalents. Specific translation drills are also provided, howev-
er. In most cases they present the material of the basic dialog in the form of a narrative. They thus
provide content review of the basic sentences and practice in the transformation from active dialog to
descriptive narration. The response drills are question and answer drills on the situations of the basic
dialogs. Conversation practice and additional situations in outline bridge the gap to free conversation
with small pieces of supplementary dialog for acting out and situations providing for a freer play of the
student's imagination. The finder list in each unit notes all new vocabulary which has been presented.

METHOD AND PROCEDURE

This is a course in Spoken German; the forms and patterns of the language are intentionally colloquial.
The emphasis in instruction is everywhere on speech, and an indispensable component of the learning
process is the voice of a tutor, or instructor, whose native language is German. On no account should
the student attempt to use these materials without either a native instructor or recordings of a native
instructor's voice. The method of instruction incorporates guided imitation. repetition, memorization,
pattern practice. and conversation.

Working under the supervision of a linguist the tutor's role is to serve as a model for speech and to
guide the student to accurate imitation by constant repetition and correction. The student's Job is to
watch and listen to the tutor carefully and to imitate as exactly as he can the sounds which he hears.
He must be prepared for constant correction and repetition. Each time however the instructor will give
him a model to follow by repeating the item first. The student should never attempt to read from his
text but should always wait until he hears the word or utterance as the tutor speaks it for him. As far
as possible he should leave his book closed during the presentation of new dialog material and keep
his eyes on the tutor, students will be asked to repeat in chorus and individually and will be expected
to repeat many, many times, even when their imitation has been good and accurate. Only by constant

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 Introduction

repetition after an authentic model for speech can habitual fluent and accurate reproduction of the
sounds and forms of the foreign language be achieved.

The basic sentences are preceded by "build-ups" giving the component parts of the utterance sepa-
rately. Each new item which is introduced appears first as a build-up. The tutor will ask the students
to repeat the build-ups separately first, then combined into larger units and finally the complete new
sentence or utterance. The basic sentences are sub-divided into numbered sections, each to be treated
as a unit, repeated in chorus and individually, with and without build-ups, until the students' imitation
is satisfactory. Then a new section may be begun. The time required to cover each section in this
way will differ widely depending on the size and ability of the class. After acceptable imitation and
accurate pronunciation has been achieved in one or more sections they are assigned for memorization
outside of class or repeated in class until memorized. The student should be able to give either the
German sentence or its English equivalent on request or switch from one to the other and back again.
The tutor will drill by repeating each sentence for each student in the class, then by giving each student
a different sentence, repeating it for him first, and finally asking the students to recite the sentences
in order, the first student the first sentence, the second student the second sentence, etc., without re-
ceiving a cue from the instructor. Repetition outside of class, preferably using recorded materials as a
guide, should be continued to the point of over-learning. The student should not only be able to give
the correct German sentence immediately upon hearing an English equivalent, at random selection,
he should also be able to give the correct German sentence with equal ease and speed of response
upon hearing its German cue. As a final step the students are expected to act out the basic dialog in
entirety from memory, with the tutor or with other students. Only when the basic sentences have been
mastered to this extent can they be considered to provide an adequate basis for control of the spoken
language. It should be noted at this point that the English text accompanying the basic sentences is
not primarily a translation but rather a set of conversational equivalents. Many apparent discrepancies
will be found if the student, or the tutor, looks for word-for-word correspondence between the English
and German text. It does not exist. Rather, in such and such a situation this is what is said in German
and this is what is said in English.

The pronunciation practice drills are to be taken up after the presentation of the basic sentences has
been completed and memorization has been started. Items are arranged in groups according to the
particular phonological feature concerned. Words in vertical columns present the same phonological
feature in different environments. Several columns in a practice group contain related phonological
features or related phonological environments in which the same feature recurs. Words are to be re-
peated first in chorus and then individually by each student after the tutor, at first following the verti-
cal columns and later, for variation and comparison, horizontally across the page. Particular attention
should be paid to items in contrast. These are minimum meaningfully distinctive sound patterns, ac-
curate control of which is important for communication and comprehension. Contrasting word pairs
are linked by a dash, and after separate practice for accuracy the items should be repeated by pairs to
bring out the exact distinctions between them.

The notes on grammar are earmarked for home study. After each unit has been started and the first hour
or more has been spent in class on repetition of the basic sentences the student should read through
the grammar notes to acquaint himself with the grammatical points presented in that unit. During
the whole time a particular unit is being worked on in class the student should continue to study the
grammar section. Many questions which he may feel tempted to raise in class will be found to be
answered in the notes on grammar. The tutor is specifically requested not to discuss the language with
his students, and the students are asked not to ply him with questions. Time in class is to be spent
using and manipulating the language and not in talking about it. In each unit one or more grammatical
features are presented, and the basic sentences have been designed, as far as is possible consistent with
natural expression, to incorporate and illustrate those features. Each point of grammar discussed is
illustrated by sentences which are natural utterances in the language. They are taken in nearly every
case from the basic sentences of the current or preceding units. Thus the examples are already familiar
to the student, and the patterns they contain, which will be drilled and practiced in the sections to
follow, are patterns which the student has already begun to assimilate by memorizing the sentences
of the dialog.

After the basic sentences of a unit have all been repeated several times and memorization has been well
begun, work can be started on the drills. The material is designed to provide a maximum of additional

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