learning german [books to read]

I noticed its REALLY easy to read German if you're first language is english. I can read and pronounce everything with little training, people tend to be in agreement on this.

So, that being said, I'm looking for a novel that helps teach an english reader german by telling a work of fiction. Maybe its 1/5 english and 4/5 german (english explains and defines the german). It would be a good learning tool because its active and you're involved and thinking. I don't even know if these kinds of books exist, it just seems like it would be the ultimate learning tool.

If they don't, write one?

German is one of the most difficult languages to learn of all. In no other language are there so many different verb conjugations, not even mentioning the hundreds of declensions of nouns and pronouns. It's pure hell.

>>3
This. Spelling isn't hard, but the grammar with the der, das and die, and den, denn and dass and so on and so on. My first language is Swedish, so it should be even simpler for me, but it's pure hell. But I'm pretty sure my German is fairly understandable. Besides, I have a minimum of three years to learn it further, unless my High school allows me to switch to Russian, which should be as hard for me to learn as German has been, since
i speak Bosnian which is a Slavic language. Sorry for going off topic here, OP.

>>3
I can see you've never met my friends Finnish, Turkish and Arabic.

>>3
It's the most difficult Germanic language. Period. Going further than Germanic languages, there's a ton of other more complicated languages.

>>1
I noticed that your German will sound like shit.
That is because no English native has ever paid any attention on how to correctly pronounce my language.
Therefore, they ALL sound like shit, be it the diplomat on TV, the erasmus student or a black immigrant.

>>4
Sup bosfag :D
How's it going up there in Sverige?
Jag är kuksugare!

>>7
It has a lot to do with the English orthography. I'm not sure how the schooling system is in Anglophone countries, but teaching kids how to pronounce through the IPA system or at least the pronounciation of a couple of "big" foreign languages would help, and they wouldn't look like douche bags who try to use the English pronounciation in every other language.

>>1
You have no idea what you're talking about. I urge you to record yourself reading out loud a couple of German sentences and post it here. I'm 100% sure you'll sound like an Amerifag failing at foreign languages.

>>8
Finfint. Jag har inga problem med fags. :D

Also, whenever I see a person whose native language is English speaking another language, I find myself being very  impressed. They could easily say "fuck it, English is a language everybody should speak". But, no. They make the effort to learn another language, even though it isn't necessary. Regarding their accents, you can't seriously expect them to speak without some form of flawed accent. Seldom have I seen anyone from around here speaking without some form of accent. AFAIK, I, along with a friend of mine, am the only one speaking without a Swedish accent.

>>11
It is necessary unless they wan't to be perceived as the typical american idiot everyone in the world makes fun of.

>>12
Well, yeah. But if you speak English, you're set for the entire industrialised world and parts of Africa.

you guys reckon german is a hard language... try learning a foreign language in australia. the only chance we have at getting good is to bugger off abroad (not so cheap) or learn a language of the immigrants (typically chinese, greek/italian, some japanese...)

i'm currently studying german at a night college. thankfully the teacher is german, so it helps to have a proper german accent when she speaks. sucks to have no use for german outside of class and watching german tv shows (mostly inspector rex lol)

>>14
the moment you mentioned you were from australia i started to read your post in an australian accent. lol

>>14
Germanfag here,
I participated in a students exchange to Australia, most of the german teachers which weren't natives were just horrible.
They made more mistakes than they did right.
By the way Inspector Rex never had widespread popularity and is heavily outdated.

>>16
lol nigga what. Inspector Rex was the most popular show on German TV for like a decade.

>>17
Yes, because Wikipedia is of course far more accurate than someone who lived in Germany in the nineties.
It had followers, and some popularity between '94-'97, even so, american stuff was far more popular.
If you had other experiences, get away from the inbred bavarians.

ausfag from post #14 here again.

inspector rex and 112 emergency are the only german shows i can think of on australian TV channels... they might be old, but they're better than australian TV :(

sigh, being stuck on this island i can only hope for good reading/written german... my spoken german will never evolve without travel. (no complaints! just hellishly expensive considering distance + euro strength.)