Hammer's German Grammar and Usage (Routledge Reference Grammars) (German Edition)

I bought this 7th edition (the current one as to Sept 2024) of Hammer's German Grammar and Usage to replace the 4th edition, since both the German and the English languages change, and the German text data base continues to grow.This is a book for the advanced learner and user of German. I lived in Germany for two years when I was a teenager around 1954 (US Army dependent), majored in German at Harvard (after which I went off to medical school), and still read the language nearly every day, and speak it when I get the chance - but I still find this book heavy going. With frequent asides of "Yeah, that's how you say it, but I never understood why before" and "Uh-oh, I've been saying that wrong for the last 70 years."The book walks you through what you remember of English grammar (you DO remember the pluperfect subjunctive, of course!), and proceeds to compare and contrast how German handles the same situation, in unbelievable detail. When to say sollen and when to say müssen, which prepositions govern the genitive case in formal and informal usage, how gender and plurals happen (with the exceptions, and the exceptions to the exceptions). I find it best to read it in small doses!Every grammatical principle is followed by copious examples (sometimes translated and sometimes not), drawn from a huge data base of German texts, and sometimes followed by attributions (to individual authors, newspapers, and other public sources). An occasional minor impediment for the US user is that the translations of the examples are into British English.This is NOT a book for beginning German with (I don't know how many semesters it takes, since I didn't learn the language in school), not a stocking stuffer for your grandchild who's taking first year German. I think you need Hammer's German Grammar when you know you need it.I'd be curious to know what the book looks like to a native German, and how useful it would be for someone competent but not native either in English or in German. I noted some favorable reviews in Spanish and Portuguese.

German desk grammar reference!!++++++

I'm sure the authors spent a lot of time to help the learners read in what I believe to be the most effective text book.

Now I'm going to spend my summer studying German!

Despite being voluminous and having lots of grammatical details, the book does not have a table that lists all the possessive adjectives/pronouns (my, yours, his, her, theirs. . . ). It only lists them for the first person. There are smaller cheaper books that have the complete information on the possessives.

You can bring it up on goodreads but when you buy something for kindle it should be able to be downloaded to a kindle.

Nice affordable copy