18.1 at the bakery

I asked a German friend about Bauernbrot and apparently is is a sourdough bread.

I do have issues with lots of the RG translations. Genuine RG mistakes apart I suspect that some of my problems derive from the way that German relies heavily upon context is to define meaning and some from German having apparently redundant words or even phrases scattered around for emphasis. I have wasted hours trying to make sense of an unexpected 'aber' or 'sich' which makes absolutely no difference to the translation. 

My translation would be ' ... and that half farmhouse loaf over there.' , implying that the loaf was already cut in half and wasn't immediately in front of me or perhaps there were several other half loaves about and I wanted a specific one. 

By the time that I had got the cases and context right the bread would probably be sold to somebody else or have gone stale anyway.  

PS Bauernbrot is a pretty standard loaf in bakeries containing all the things that you mention plus milk.

I think a lot of the redundant words you talk about are modal particles - ja, denn, doch, aber, wohl etc. This is why I think the RG course should explain what they are. Like you, I wasted quite a bit of time puzzling over them until I discovered  modal particles.

Aha, them's the buggers!  Many thanks.

I wasn't implying that they didn't have a purpose but just that at my level they didn't seem to make that much difference. Having done several courses it's obviously not only RG that fails to mention them. In my trusty Collins German Grammar they are called emphasisers but the explanation is pretty short.  At least now I know what they are called I can look them up online and try and try and wrap my head around them. 

For me RG is still the best practical German course that I have found even though it has some mistakes and weaknesses. However, the main trouble with it is that it runs out of steam towards the end of Level 2 and after that it is simply German practice with some particularly long things to remember and extra vocabulary thrown in.  
 

I certainly agree with you about level 3, it didn't really take things on much from level 2, just extra practice material with some new situations and some more vocabulary.

I think to take it forward they would have to break out of the mainly phrase learning paradigm and do more explaining.

I agree that a bit more explanation about the grammatical niceties of German would be beneficial. Phrase learning has its place in language learning but you need to understand how to use the phrases that you know to create other phrases. That isn't quite so straightforward in German because of cases and declination.

Perhaps also a slightly more gradual buildup to 'difficult' German. I found that one minute I was coping fine with simple sentences and then suddenly I was expected to start repeating multi-sentence phrases with constructions that I had never seen before and lots of new and difficult words. Most offputting! 

 

Hallo Fred und Simon, 

danke für die Anmerkungen! 
This is going to be very helpful when reviewing our German course.
We will take your remarks into consideration. 

And yes - Bauernbrot is sourdough bread that can be eaten at any time of the day. Bavarians especially like "Brotzeit" - which is basically something like tapas in Spain. We have traditional Bauernbrot with a variety of sausages, cheese, spreads and salads. Very delicious!

Ich wünsche euch fröhliche Weihnachten und ein gutes neues Jahr!
Leah von Rocket Languages

Leah
When you get around to revising the Rocket German course I would be quite happy to help in any way that I can. I still do a little voluntary teaching in Germany and have other hobbies but I am now retired so I have plenty of time. 
Merry Christmas
Fred

I would be happy to help too although I can't claim relevant teaching experience.

Hallo Fred and sfpugh, 

thanks for your offer to help with the course review! 
We are working with various German experts on the matter. 

However, feel free to send us any suggestions though our contact form (https://www.rocketlanguages.com/contact).

Danke und liebe Grüße, 
Leah von Rocket Languages