I, like many other PhD and MA students, am working on German. Many of us end up learning it on our own, rather than sitting through an intro German class. There are several reasons for this, but the big reason I chose not to is because I’ve already done intro Greek and intro Hebrew and have a fairly good grasp on how language works. I don’t need nearly as much hand holding for language learning as I used to.

Enter my problem— there seems to be one main intro to German reading grammar, German Quickly by April Wilson. I have this book, and I like it, it is a good reference for me. But, it is made for the intro, handholding— class. There is just too much explanation in it for my liking. Also, it is not focused on my discipline.

So, is there any other beginning grammar for learning Theological German? Unless I missed one, the answer is a big fat NO! There is an old one by J. D. Manton, Introduction to Theological German, but it is pitiful to look at. There is also Helmut W. Ziefle, Modern theological German: a reader and dictionary, but this is a reader and reference, not a grammar intro (but you should definitely buy this last one!)

I found one last option doing a google search— An Introduction to Theological German by Walter Bense. You can, if you search in the right places, find it for sale in used book stores online.
This German grammar was used at Harvard many moons ago, written by one of its teachers at the time and published in house. It is brief and to the point. It gives you the bare bones, and then tells you to go start reading (like in the Ziefle book mentioned above).

Once I got my hands on this, German was making a little more sense than it was during my first attempt through Wilson’s book. But, I didn’t like the way it was presented. So, for my own use, I typed it out, fixed it up a bit, morphed some of his lists into tables, and added a few small things, etc. Then I realized that there were probably others out there who could benefit from this. So, I emailed Harvard to be sure that I could disseminate it and to be sure that I’m not doing anything wrong in altering it. They gave me the green light.

Which brings me to the reason for this post. I’m still just a beginner at German, and am still absorbing Bense’s grammar as I practice my reading. But I do hope this renewed grammar by Bense could be of some use to others. That’s why I need some help from experienced Theological German readers. I’m looking for people to proofread the grammar as it stands right now, adding edits, corrections, and suggestions. Perhaps you have a nifty little way to remember verb endings or something that I can share with the world.

If you are interested in helping us PhD students out, please email me (danzac atsign gmail dot com). I will then email you a link to the PDF of the grammar which is online at a.nnotate and ready to be marked up with comments.

And of course, when I think the first edition is ready, it will be made freely available as a PDF right here on deinde.

Cheers!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 3:19 pm by Danny Zacharias and is filed under Theological German. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.