Free Resources For Learning German

An established way to learn German (or for that matter any language) is to listen to the language as spoken in native tongue. Spoken language however, normally, comes at a cost. Either one stays in Germany or other German speaking countries, or buy expensive German Learning Courses. Among the German Learning Courses I found Rocket German the best for gaining initial confidence. It is also the least expensive of all other similar course.

However, after spending a considerable sum of money in buying books, CD's and German courses, I recently chanced upon this huge pool of free resources that is available on Internet. My earlier Google searches on German Language had not thrown up this site.

As it happens, Deutsche Welle has some fantastic German courses - all available for free. The material is very effectively designed (with the help of Goethe Institute in some cases) and can hold your interest for a long time - which helps when you are learning a foreign language. The language courses are graded and so one could pick up from the level one is comfortable with.

For example, the language course that goes by name of "Deutsche, warum nicht" is a set of four courses with increasing difficulty and contains upward of 1200 hours of recorded material. "Mission Berlin" is a gem of a language course. (There is also Mission Paris and Misja Krakow - for those who wish to learn (preliminary) French and Polish). The course is presented as a fast paced computer game. Check this out too.

And there is a lot more to explore.

Yet another method of learning German is to get a German sentence everyday by e-mail. You have the whole day to memorize the sentence. I find this very helpful. Check out http://www.german-flashcards.com. I found this site good to boost my vocabulary. The primary membership is free where you get to learn words and sentences on flashcards. Just spend 10 minutes a day to improve your vocabulary. Very effective. The premium membership helps you with the pronunciation too.

The book that I most refer to for brushing up and clearing doubts is Teach Yourself German. I would strong recommend this.

And finally my own home-grown method. I discovered this only last month when I was in Germany and browsing through a book shop. I wonder why it didn't strike me before. If you are into Tintin comics, then buy these comics in German (or in the language you are learning). You will learn the language faster and enjoy it all the more. By the way, Tintin is known as Tim und Struppi (Struppi = Snowy) in the German version.

Note: The photograph used belongs to Dale Eurenius. Please go here to see more such photographs.