German a la Cartoon

As I was surfing the library last month for a novel that I could read, I stumbled upon this book. German ala Cartoon: 101 hilarious cartoons for understanding German language and culture, by Dr. Albert H. Small. I was immediately drawn to the book because of its cover. When I read the introduction, I became more interested in reading it. I was about to borrow the book, when I decided to scan it.

The first part of the book is good. It introduced the learning language. And I learned something new. That some German words have families. For example, we will represent hospital in German as X. Using the German language, hospital bill will become XY, in which Y are added letters. What I’m trying to say is you just have to add some letters in some German words when the basic word is related to your new word. In English, hospital bill is a compound noun, but in German, it will become a single word.

(Note: I used variables because I forgot to list down and I forgot the examples of the book ; I just used hospital and hospital bill as examples, I don’t know if the ‘family rule’ is applicable to those two terms. )

Also in the introduction, it states that I will learn the language with fun, which I expected because of the illustrations.

When I finally reached the comic section, I was disappointed. I thought “how could I learn the language if the topics are random?”

At one page, you have the illustration.


And at the bottom of the page, you have the translation:


So far, so good.



But then, on the next page, you have an entirely different illustration, meaning an entirely different topic.

It’s like random cartoons are put in one book and translations are added. How could you learn if each page is disconnected from the next. It’s like the book wants to tell you to memorize each German word and their translation. Nowhere in the book would you find how to order the words in a sentence, or in what context you use a certain word. For me, the book is interesting; however, I don’t find it effective for students like me who are just starting to learn the German language. I found the comics humorous, though. :)

In th end, I found myself putting the book back to the shelf, but for those of you who might be interested in borrowing the book, go to the University of the Philippines - College of Arts and Letters Library. Here's the call number:


Tschus!