Learn German With These 20 Resources and Tools
Whether you’re starting with German or feel stuck at your skill level, these tools will give you the push to finally become fluent.
Learning a language is a real challenge. You can encounter various setbacks, or you might feel that you aren’t making any progress. Fortunately, thanks to the Internet, you have access to tons of resources to help you overcome those obstacles. In this article, you’ll find some great tools to help you feel more confident in your German skill.
Break a Big Goal Into Bunch of Smaller Ones
Before we get into the tools, I’m going to transform myself into a productivity guru for a moment and give you a little advice. Never depend on your motivation. Motivation is fickle.
Instead, make it as easy as you possibly can for yourself to follow through on your ambition.
And the way you can do that is by having a plan. It doesn’t have to be super detailed plan, but you need some kind of strategy.
It doesn’t matter at what stage of your language learning journey you are. Take a pause and think of a goal.
Don’t set up vague goals like: “become fluent in German in one year.” It’s way too big of a task. Right now, you might be feeling up to it, but once your motivation disappears, you’re going to get overwhelmed and most likely procrastinate.
Take the end goal you have in mind and break it up into multiple tangible milestones.
For example: “learn 1 000 German words by 1 March 2021” or “Master Konjunktive by 15 February 2021.” You get the idea.
Think of these smaller goals as puzzle pieces. Eventually, all of these are going to create the picture you’ve had in mind. Maybe that’s reaching a certain niveau or being able to read an entire book solely in German.
Improve Your Grammar, Listening, and Reading With These Resources
I don’t have any affiliation to the mentioned websites or apps.
Apps
1. Busuu
This one is for the language learning app lovers. Out of all the language apps I tried, I find Busuu the best.
You can practice vocabulary, grammar, writing, and speaking.
Learning on this app is broken down into well-structured lessons. Some lessons focus more on vocabulary building, others on grammar, and so on.
In some lessons, you’re required to write a few sentences about a topic or record yourself speaking. Native speakers using the app then correct your exercise.
You can also download each lesson so that you can learn even without access to the Internet.
If you aren’t a complete beginner, you should take a placement test. That way, you can start learning based on your current skill level.
However, all these features are part of the premium version. The unpaid version is pretty much only learning vocabulary with flashcards.
2. Radio Deutschland (Radio DE)
This is a free app where you can listen to actual German radio stations.
I use the tab Podcasts the most. You’ll find podcasts about current events, history, political commentary, bedtime stories, etc.
3. Anki
You might have already heard about this app. It’s a flashcard app using spaced repetition software. I use it to learn vocabulary, but you can use it to remember grammar rules as well.
YouTube Channels
Videos at this channel have a cartoon format, and you learn with dialogues and monologues.
Since it’s intended for German learners, it’s very easy to follow. Every video has English subtitles.
There are also small series where you can follow a story or particular characters (e.g., Familie Schröder, Tina und Daniel).
Niveau levels range from A1 to B2.
This channel is very similar to Hallo Deutschschule, and it also uses the same method of learning.
In the community tab, you can find practice quizzes and questions.
6. Easy German
The creators of Easy German go out into the street and ask passersby questions about various topics.
The two previous channels have a little stiff composition, but here you can absorb German as it’s spoken among natives.
They also make videos explaining different grammar rules as well as cultural and linguistic specifications.
All videos have both German and English subtitles.
They release two videos every week, one intended for beginners and one for advanced.
They also have a podcast (Easy German), and an app called Seedlang.
Anja makes short videos mainly about vocabulary and grammar.
What I like most about her videos is that she can explain difficult and confusing grammar rules very simply.
I also really like Anja’s advice about learning in chunks. Basically, you memorize sentences or phrases frequently used by natives. It makes it much easier to speak fluently, as you won’t have to pause all the time to think about using the right article or case.
In order to learn German well enough, surround yourself with the language as much as possible. The following channels are intended for German speakers, so they might be difficult to understand at first. But once you absorb the language enough, it will get much easier.
8. ARTEde
This channel posts short documentaries and reportages about world issues, war conflicts, environmental crises, geography, history, religion, etc.
This channel uploads at least three times a day, so I’m sure you’ll be able to find some videos that interest you.
9. WDR Doku
Here you can also find reportages but they’re dealing mainly with current issues (e.g., politics, social issues).
10. Neue Horizonte
This channel uploads videos about topics like spirituality, life, self-discovery, psychology, etc.
You can search for other channels that talk about subjects that excite you.
I love history and true crime, so I watch a few other channels and podcasts talking about these topics.
Find YouTube channels, podcasts, movies, TV shows, and music that you enjoy. Have fun while you’re learning and integrate German into your everyday life.
Grammar
11. Lingolia
On this website, you can find grammar explanations together with exercises. However, most of the tasks can be accessed only when you get a membership (Lingolia Plus).
There’s also a section with vocabulary that you might find useful.
12. German.net
There are also grammar explanations and overviews, as well as exercises. This website is completely free, but there aren’t as many quizzes.
13. Deutsch Akademie
Here you’ll find quite a lot of different grammar exercises. There’s also an audio trainer and some courses.
On this site are multiple Einstufungstests. It’s a great resource to test your knowledge.
Besides German, there are tests for many other languages like French, Russian, Spanish, etc.
If you scroll all the way down, you can find additional German exercises.
15. Nancy Thuleen
Another resource with a ton of handouts, exercises, reading materials, etc.
Reading
16. Lingua
On this website, you can find short texts in different niveau levels, so that you can train your reading comprehension. There’s also a little quiz on the right side to test your understanding of what you’ve read.
There are other tabs like Listening, Dictation, and Vocabulary to explore.
I usually make a lot of progress once I start reading in my target language. It can be exhausting at first because you don’t understand much.
You may also the urge to look up words you don’t understand but try not to overdo it. Try to figure out the meaning of words from context. Look up only the ones that you can’t figure out.
I own a few German-Czech books, so it’s easy to figure out the meaning of a word or paragraph just by looking at the adjacent translated page.
You can find a few German-English books on Amazon. I recommend starting with children’s books, as they are much easier to understand.
Bonus Websites
17. Deutsche Welle
DW is a German public state-owned international broadcaster. On their website, there’s a section called Deutsch Lernen. You’ll discover a lot of great resources there.
Start by taking a placement test. After the test, you’ll be redirected to lessons at your skill level.
Each lesson has a short clip of a continuous story you’ll follow as you learn (Nico’s Weg). Based on this clip, you’ll learn different grammar rules, and you’ll do some listening and writing exercises, as well as learn new vocabulary.
There are many other resources on DW like audio stories, interactive videos, deutschtrainer, langsam gesprochene Nachrichten, etc.
Take your time to go through all the sections.
German is tricky because of all the articles, cases, and different tenses.
When you learn a new verb, and you want to know how this verb looks like in different tenses, you can easily look it up here.
19. DeepL
This is a translator that is a much better alternative to google translator. It’s more accurate, and it shows you a few sentences using the word. Of course, it’s important to also have an actual dictionary.
20. Forvo
You can’t go without Forvo when learning a language. If you’re not sure how to pronounce a word, this is the place to go. It is an invaluable resource to help you feel more confident when speaking.
Here goes my list of all the resources I'm using to learn German. Don’t get overwhelmed. You can start actively using just a one from each section, but bookmark all of these. They’ll come in handy. I hope you found this useful.
Viel Erfolg beim Lernen.
