Hammer's German Grammar and Usage, Third Edition - Martin Durell > Reviews (3)

--Hammer’s German Grammar and Usage--

In the last week I’ve been spending more time using Ciao, having a look around, and generally becoming more familiar with the site and everything it offers. There seem to be great opinions on just about everything under the sun, from makeup to music, condoms to curries. This section is looking more than a bit neglected though, so I thought my next op should go here!

Hammer’s German Grammar seems to be one of the most popular books around for German grammar at this level. I bought it a year ago when I’d just started university, as it was one of the books recommended by a lecturer. I think it cost about £20, maybe a bit less. There were other grammar books on the list, but some looked too basic for what I was looking for and some were written in German, which just seemed like unnecessary work for me! I also prefer this book because the layout is clear and well organised, so I never have trouble finding the information I’m looking for.

The book is divided into 23 sections for different subjects e.g. “use of tenses”, “word order”, but each section contains different subsections, so it’s very easy to find exactly what you’re looking for just by reading the contents page. However if this doesn’t work there are three separate indexes at the back of the book for German words, English words and topics. The print is fairly small, but they’ve made good use of bold and italic print, and tables to make the layout clear and easy to use. Each section includes plenty of examples to illustrate the point, which I often find more useful than the explanation itself. The explanations are all in English, and since this is the third edition of the book, published in 1996, they are also all up-to-date and include all new spellings.

This book is aimed at university students but you basically just need to already know and understand the basic grammar rules. So if you’re an A level student who finds grammar really easy it might be a good book for you, whereas a first year degree student who finds grammar difficult might be better with something else.

I wouldn’t use this book to just flick through and read, I prefer just to use it occasionally as a reference book if I’m writing something and get stuck. But that’s my personal preference; if you do want to use it to just learn grammar points then there’s also a work book available to go with it (“Practising German Grammar: A Workbook”). I’ve seen both books in many different bookshops, so you shouldn’t have a problem getting hold of them.