5 h 58 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 5 h 58 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if learning German starts with a conversation, not a table of rules?
In Studies and Chats: First Series, Sigmon M. Stern puts talk at the heart of learning German. This reader for English speakers brings together short dialogues, simple stories, grammar notes and glimpses of the German-speaking world. You meet phrases in everyday exchanges, where words have a purpose beyond their place on a vocabulary list.
Stern is an American teacher of languages whose approach joins speech with practical use. Here, cases, verb endings and word order belong to the texts you read, with notes to explain their patterns. The book also connects language with culture: the customs, places, songs and habits of thought that give words meaning. It offers a window into nineteenth-century language teaching.
What you’ll discover
- Conversation comes first Meet German through short exchanges, and find phrases you can practise for yourself.
- Stories give words roots Read brief stories that place vocabulary in a setting rather than an isolated list.
- Grammar with a purpose Explore cases, endings and word order through the language of the dialogues.
- Culture behind the words Consider how customs, places and songs help give a language its meaning.
- A classroom from the past Discover an old-style approach that brings conversation and short readings alongside grammatical rules.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy language learning, old classrooms, folk tales, German poems, and the warm company of a teacher and his pupils talking their way into a new tongue.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Conversation gives German a setting
- Confidence begins with a full sentence
- Familiar words open the next door
- Objects give new words a home
- A poem carries grammar into conversation
- Familiar tales make grammar move
- Meaning grows beyond individual word explanations
- Customs reveal language in daily life
- Understanding gives memory something to hold
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- Large print hardcover
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Studies and Chats: First Series in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Studies and Chats: First Series
A teacher in New York talks four friends into German with roses, clocks, fairy tales and poems.
Easy read2–5 hours to read2 languages
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In short
What if a language book barely changed in fifteen years because it simply worked? The sixteenth edition, with its preface dated New York, June 1, 1895, says just that about Studies and Chats, a German reader by Sigmon M. Stern for English speakers.
Studies and Chats: First Series at a glance
- Reading time
- About 3 h 45 min2 h 55 min fast, 4 h 25 min slow
- Length
- 53,100 words
- Library level
- Easy short sentences, plain words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Begin by answering simple questions aloud
The book opens with Mr. Meister holding a brown book and asking Bella whether the grass is green. She answers in a full sentence, and he repeats it back in agreement. Question and answer, again and again, is the whole method of the first chapter.
The questions start with colors, the seasons, and the rose in the garden in December. Each answer reuses words the pupils have just heard, so they never face a wall of new vocabulary. Then Mr. Meister counts. He builds the numbers up to a million in a few minutes and explains seventy as seven times ten.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- Language
- English
- Level
- Easy read
Cite this edition
Stern, Sigmon M. Studies and Chats: First Series. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/studies-and-chats-first-series.
Stern, S. M. (2026). Studies and chats: First series. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/studies-and-chats-first-series
Stern, Sigmon M. Studies and Chats: First Series. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/studies-and-chats-first-series.
@book{stern2026studies,
author = {Stern, Sigmon M.},
title = {Studies and Chats: First Series},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/studies-and-chats-first-series}
}
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What is Studies and Chats about?
It is a German reader for English speakers, told as lessons between a teacher, Mr. Meister, and four pupils in New York. They talk, tell anecdotes, read letters and poems, and hear fairy tales.
Who are Mr. Meister, Louis, Anna, Bella and Otto?
Mr. Meister is a German-born teacher. Louis, Anna, and Bella are his pupils, and Otto is Louis's brother, who already speaks good German and helps explain words to the others.
Which poems and fairy tales are in Studies and Chats?
Among them are Rückert's little tree, Goethe's little rose and Erl-King, Hoffmann's sheep poem, Schiller's Hostage and Diver, and the Grimm tales of Mother Holle, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella.
The author
Sigmon M. Stern
Writer
Sigmon M. Stern was an American teacher of German who died in 1902. He wrote this reader for classroom use in New York, and it reached a sixteenth edition by 1895. It was meant to give beginners lively conversation and stories, and to lead them into serious study of German literature.
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