Course description
For the beginning and intermediate classes, we use "Ultimate German Basic-Intermediate" by Living Language. There is also an optional eight cassette or CD package that accompanies the book. For the advanced classes, we provide handouts at no charge.
Beginning A (chapters 1-6)
Topics - Greetings and good-byes, introductions, a telephone call, the weather, the family, and in a restaurant.
Grammar and usage - Pronunciation, subject pronouns, "to be", cognates, articles, gender, plural, present tense of regular verbs, numbers, word order, questions, days, months, negation, nominative case, accusative case, questions words, possessive adjectives, verbs with stem changes, flavoring particles, etc.
Beginning B (chapters 7-12)
Topics - Grocery shopping, in a hotel, the train station, shopping for gifts, the post office, and at the airport.
Grammar and usage - Additional accusative, additional verbs, imperative, time, verbs with separable and inseparable prefixes, modal auxiliaries, dative case, colors, additional word order, coordinating conjunctions, etc.
Beginning C (chapters 13-19)
Topics - A drive on the highway, car repairs, at the doctor's, at a trade fair, at the north sea, the cure, and the house.
Grammar and usage - Two-way prepositions, distance, the genitive case, subordinating conjunctions, present participles, reflexive verbs, reflexive pronouns, additional word order, time expressions in different cases, present perfect tense, past participle, etc.
Intermediate A (chapters 20-26)
Topics - Moving, sights, exchange, in a café, on the Rhine, sports, and in the mountains.
Grammar and usage - Past participles of strong verbs, additional infinitives, Da-compounds, Wo-compounds, predicate adjectives, unpreceded adjectives, adverbs, ordinal numbers, positive adjectives and adverbs, comparatives, superlative, demonstrative pronouns, etc.
Intermediate B (chapters 27-33)
Topics - Studies and professions, daily routine, a visit to the dentist's, at the hairdresser's, pharmacies and drugstores, the lost and found, and computer and internet.
Grammar and usage - Simple past, relative pronouns, relative clauses, past perfect tense, future tense, passive voice, substitute constructions for the passive voice, etc.
Intermediate C (chapters 34-40)
Topics - At the bank, the theater, elections, festivals, the media, museums, and literature.
Grammar and usage - Stative passive, subjunctive, special subjunctive, past and future subjunctive, conditional, "to like", idiomatic usage, etc.
Advanced Classes
Topics - Discussion of articles, issues, literature, etc.
Grammar and usage - As appropriate related to conversation topics.
