You’ve started your journey in language learning, possibly using Duolingo to try it out. You want to improve your language skills and know that this will mean some dedicated learning. One of the best ways to advance your language learning is to get into the meat of the language and learn some grammar! You know in your head that you need to use a textbook for language learning, but you’re just not sure how to start your journey in even finding a textbook, let alone finding the right textbook. This article will discuss what you need to make the language leap from vocabulary with Duolingo to starting your journey with textbooks to help master your language.

This post is going to look at specifically textbooks and grammar books. If you want to know how using reading books makes you master a foreign language, you will need to go to this post here.

Grammar Books And Textbooks

There is a variety of textbook options out there for you that will go some distance in helping you in your language learning. For instance, are you looking for a grammar book or a textbook? While these terms may be used interchangeably at times, there is a difference.

Grammar Books	Text Books
– Focuses only on the grammar of the language	– Gives cultural and historical information as well as day-to-day living information alongside some grammatical information
– Have in-depth grammatical explanations for more nuanced occasions	– Have more brief grammatical explanations for everyday needs
– Usually comes with written questions to practice grammar	– Contains a variety of activities including listening and reading comprehension, as well as written response questions

Grammar books deal specifically with the grammatical rules of your language. Some of these will have associated workbooks for you to practice what you are learning. These usually don’t come with much context for what you are learning, and the grammar is usually standalone. These books can be dense and contain seemingly endless grammatical events for your target language. They can feel overwhelming if you just pick one up and aren’t sure where to start.

Grammar books are great for instances where you need more information and practice for a specific grammatical facet of your target language. These kinds of textbooks can be very helpful for you in learning a language in this context.

What this means is that if you want to learn about a specific piece of grammar, a grammar book is what you want. If you prefer to learn your grammar in context and perhaps with less explanation than a grammar book, then a textbook may be your answer.

Textbooks should also include grammatical explanations, but these will be fewer and less detailed. They will however include examples of your grammar used in context, which can really bring your language learning forward in leaps and bounds. Textbooks can also help you learn your language by providing you with cultural information. They will often have exercises for you that are written, aural as well as reading comprehension questions.

While textbooks are usually thought of as boring old books needed in schools, they are quite useful even if you’re learning a language by yourself at home. Of course, newer technologies, such as the online language learning app Duolingo is a useful tool for language learning, this doesn’t take away from the use of textbooks for learning a language.

Grammar Books

If you are looking for a grammar book, I would recommend looking for a book that includes a level below your own level, as there are likely to be some grammatical concepts you may have missed or not have fully fleshed out.

At some stage in your learning journey, you will need to learn specifically about grammar. Hopefully, this need will coincide with your skill level reaching a stage where you need it. This will really tie in with the idea that reading will help make you master a foreign language.

This need won’t be straight away, but is likely to be more and more necessary as time goes on. Depending on what your learning goals are, this may be only learning grammar by feel and with practice, rather than using a grammar book. This is of course how you learnt your native language, but this also took many many years of constant talking with your friends, family, and at school to be proficient. You may want to learn your target language faster than that this time round.

The alternative to this is a grammar book. If you do decide to find a grammar book, be aware that you may also need to enhance your understanding of your own grammar as well as grammatical terms, as often when we are learning our mother tongue language, we don’t actually know the grammar to it.

For example, in English, should we say “I have fewer textbooks than her”, or should be it “I have less textbooks than her?”

We probably intuitively know that it should be “fewer” rather than “less”, but we may not be able to explain why. Often the answer we come up with is that it feels right or that it sounds better. The technical answer is that because the noun (textbooks) is countable, we use fewer. If we were talking about something that is uncountable, like sugar, we would use less.

One great place to start for any textbook or grammar book is your local library. They are sure to have some textbooks and grammar books available for you to borrow to get a feel for what you may want to look at.

Failing that, you can also look at reviews and see if you can see example pages inside the textbooks to get a feel for their use for your purposes.

For German grammar books, the ones that I have used and would highly recommend include a smaller German handbook called “The German Handbook: Your Guide to Speaking and Writing German“. Besides this, there are some larger German grammar books such as the “Modern German Grammar” and it’s associated “Modern German Grammar Work Book“.

Textbooks

It is important to consider if textbooks are for you. I have written more specifically on this topic here. Beyond this, however, regardless of the type of book you are after, you’ll need to know if it suits your level. The best way to check is to first check your target language reading level. For example, my skill level in German is about at the point of reading Harry Potter. Compared to my English reading level, this feels quite low, but there’s no point in finding a textbook that gives me mainly information on beginner grammar, or very advanced grammar. I have given some more detailed information about the benefits of trading specifically Harry Potter in my post discussing reading books. You can find all the information you need here.

For a textbook, make sure you look for a textbook that includes topics or vocabulary that you think you will find interesting. Textbooks tend to use different topics such as sports, free time, home life etc, in order to teach vocabulary and grammatical concepts. If the topic isn’t interesting to you, you aren’t likely to learn effectively. Not all textbooks use the same topic so shop around and see if you can find one suited to you.

Some textbooks can be quite small and easy to use, while others can be dense and have all the information for any possible grammatical interaction that could ever happen. Depending on your level of interest, time, and skill, you may want to start slowly.

There are some textbooks that actually come with their own reading books, that introduce new grammar to you at the same time as you are learning about them. This is one of the ways that reading can make you master your foreign language smoothly and easily! An example of this is the Latin textbook linked here, and its accompaniment in reading, here.

The other thing to consider is that textbooks may be easier to learn in conjunction with a teacher, or perhaps if you are using a language tutor, you may also consider this approach. No matter the way you are going about your language learning, make sure that the textbook is helping you in this. It can be easy to feel directed by the textbook and end up feeling that you are cramped and not able to learn what you want to learn. While textbooks should guide you in what you are learning to some degree, it should also feel that you are learning things that are useful and relevant for you in your language learning journey.

Using Textbooks To Increase Vocabulary

Using a textbook for learning a language is certainly a variable method and something I recommend for most people. While you’re using the textbook, I would also encourage you to continually increase your vocabulary flashcards. You can learn all the grammar you want through textbooks and grammar books, but this isn’t going to help you very much if you don’t have the necessary vocabulary to actually say what you want to say.

Make sure you’re using a flashcard program and continually increasing your words. If you’re up to using a textbook, you should also be up to finding lots of synonyms for words you already have to make your mastery of your language improve. While using Duolingo is a good thing for learning a language, I won’t give you all the vocab you need.

If you haven’t started using flashcards already, I recommend that you do. Using flashcards is a great way to help with your language learning, so make sure that you are implementing this as much as possible.