One of the great aspects of the internet is the access to books that are no longer under copyright, but they are of course by nature very old. Over the past several years I’ve started to hear more and more about contemporary open access (text)books that are coming available. Some are written primarily as open access online, such as Nijay Gupta’s Intermediate Biblical Greek Reader: Galatians and Related Texts. Others, however, are conversions of print books that have been released or edited for an online setting.

That appears to be the basis of this open access German textbook: A Foundation Course in Reading German, by Howard Martin, revised and expanded as an open online textbook by Alan Ng. The descriptor notes “This open textbook is currently maintained by Dr. Alan Ng and Dr. Sarah Korpi to support the University of Wisconsin online course German 391.”

After poking through it, I found the explanations clear and the examples helpful. Let me give an example: One thing that I have struggled to find with textbooks is a good introduction to “lassen” since it can communicate various things. While short and (appropriately) to the point, this lays things out clearly: https://courses.dcs.wisc.edu/wp/readinggerman/verbs-function-like-modals/

Hopefully those studying will find it helpful.