By maintaining a focus on building students' listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills, Deutsch Heute has become a classic among introductory German texts. Students learn grammar in a clear and concise format while being introduced to contemporary life and culture in German-speaking countries through cast of recurring characters. Familiar characters and the integration of all program components--workbook, video, and function-based activities--foster language learning and skill development. Easily manageable for two-semester courses, the text covers grammar in a logical sequence, leaving the future, subjunctive, and passive voices to the last two chapters.