does anyone here speak/read german? if so, can you make recommendations for some slightly more accessible texts i could easily get my hands on during christmas break? my college requires at least two semesters of a foreign language, and as a philosophy major (and fan of the many geniuses from german-speaking countries) i decided that german would be a good language to have under my belt.
now that i have passed my first semester (and am considering a minor, major if i weren’t already a junior) of german and have a couple of reference books, i’m looking to expand my vocabulary and overall understanding of german.
i was considering trying to find some marx because he’s pretty easy to understand, especially since i’ve read almost the entire communist manifesto and all of alienated labor. i’m trying to stay away from wittgenstein, heidegger, nietszche and hegel because they’re difficult enough in english.
any recommendations for places to acquire these works? please keep in mind that i am a non-working, full-time student so i can’t afford to jump onto amazon.de . i’ve also only got about three weeks to explore, so any long waiting periods between order and arrival will be detrimental to my goal.
many thanks guys/gals. i’m sure i’ll be posting more this next semester once i start modern philosophy, though i’m sure i could have gotten plenty of stimulation about kierkegaard over this last semester.
Wittgenstein might actually be easier in German given the very precise terminology that he uses. You can get a version of the investigations with the German and English side by side too.
Otherwise, given the budget constraints, you might wanna look on Project Gutenberg which has a pretty extensive selection of German texts: gutenberg.org/browse/languages/de
Viel Gluck!
i looked through the list before, but that was when i had specific targets… now that i look without a target in mind, i’m seeing so many names that i know: lessing, kant, and even a couple writers translated into german (which obviously isn’t much better than translated into english).
i suppose a better writer to focus on might be goethe, being as i remember reading some of his works in high school (in english of course). i’m willing to assume that goethe would be significantly easier to understand than kant…
lol. Regarding Kant, I’m reminded of Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Man of the Crowd’ where he says (badly) “er lässt sich nicht lesen”. Kant certainly falls under the category of not permitting himself to be read. 
I dont think Nietzsche or Wittgenstein would be such a problem if you already have a decent grasp and just want to expand your vocabulary. Its true there are lots of interpretative problems with those two, but that should just be another incentive to get the words in their original form.
Seriously though, go with what you want to read. Ultimately thats the only thing that will make you want to learn.