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Since they have same questions on different language learning SE websites(resources for learning Russian), I'd like to write one for German language since it's a great idea to have all kinds of resources in one place.

This is a specifically created Community Wiki which gathers resources for learning German and it has been approved by the Community itself.

It should be clear that the resources are not written by one user or only by the mods, but by whoever wants to contribute.

Just write in the appropriate answer/section. If you have concerns, questions, post a meta question, so we don't clutter the comments, but you can link your meta question from the comments.

Questions regarding such resources are not allowed anymore, except for very specific and on topic requests (ask on Meta if you're unsure about your question). Follow the instructions made in the question about how to post, what can be posted, etc.


Organization

  • Answers have a type of resource each.
  • If possible, state whether the material is directed towards a beginner, intermediate or an advanced audience.
  • Do not include links that lead to illegal content or sites that host such content. If you see any, please flag for moderator attention and choose "other" so you can point us to the content. We'll delete it as soon as we see the flag.
  • Both free and commercial resources are allowed, but make sure to include a note if they are. Remember the rules about self-promotion. Include also if registration is required.
  • Include links to the sites only, don't post images, they would take too much space.
  • Add the resources in alphabetical order so they're easier to find. :)

Note: new rules could be added in the future.


Alphabetical Index

  • Audio Resources: Audio files where you hear a voice talking or reading.
  • Books: Books from German authors or translations.
  • Dictionaries: Stand-alone or dictionary files for you to use on your computer.
  • Newspapers: Famous or not services that provide news for Germany and the rest of the world... in German.
  • Online courses: Free or paid services online that teach you the language through lessons.
  • Podcasts: Audio files that feature people speaking about the language or giving tips/lessons to learners.
  • Software: This can be any software ranging from plugins for the browser over mobile apps up to standalone applications for the computer.
  • Television: TV channels, shows in German.
  • Textbooks: Grammar books that teach you the grammar of the language with theory and exercises.
  • Video Resources: Video resources which help learning German and are not TV stations
  • Websites: Sites that give help for learning German. They give material, tips, hints, and various help for self-learners or regular students.
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  • In case an entry is missing where you want to add a resource please ask us to generate it for you. You can do so in German Language Meta, ask us in German Language Chat or by flagging this post for moderator attention.
    – Takkat
    Commented Aug 10, 2015 at 9:41

11 Answers 11

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German TV-Stations

ARD
Choose Fernsehen and then Sendungen A-Z for a complete list.
Mostly News and Edutainment, it seems. Use this site to get a list with shows not original German, which are provided with "OT" (from "Original Ton", original language) too and information how to receive the OT-version.

ZDF
Again, choose Sendungen A-Z for a complete list.
A quick scan revealed only "Inspektor Barnaby" as non-German series, lots of news, cooking and quiz shows

DW Aims "not-German" people living in and outside Germany. News from Germany in German and multiple other languages. A lots of resources designed to learn German (as I can see mostly free).

Sat1
Navy CIS, Hannibal, Elementary, Criminal Minds, The Mentalist, ...

RTL
CSI, House MD (Dr. House), The Following, The Glades, etc
... and a lot of German reality trash. Note that only the shows marked with "free" are, well, free.

RTL2
Detroit SWAT, Game of Thrones, the Stargate series, Torchwood
and again lots of no-brain German shows.

Pro7
You're looking for pictures marked with "Ganze Folge", others are trailers and snippets.
2 Broke Girls, Simpsons, How I Met Your Mother, Grey's Anatomy, Supernatural, Two and a half Men, The Big Bang Theory, ...

VOX
Arrow and CSI:NY are the only American Series marked as "free" here.

Phoenix
Collaborative channel of ARD and ZDF focused on news and documentaries. It is easy to understand.

ARD.alpha
Formerly named "BR.aplha" has some German lerning program: GRIPS, Grundkurs Deutsch and Telekolleg Deutsch. Deutsch Klasse is kind of a TV series. On the right hand side you find a box named "Sendungsinfo" with broadcasting times.


In general: the german TV is divided in two parts: the public broadcaster and the private broadcaster.
the public broadcaster consist of ARD and ZDF, where ARD also consists of the following regional stations (which meanwhile are receivable supraregional): BR, HR, MDR, NDR, Radio Bremen, RBB, SR, SWR, WDR
also there are special channels of

  • ARD: One, tagesschau24, ARD-alpha,
  • ZDF: ZDFinfo, ZDFneo
  • ARD and ZDF together: 3sat, Arte, funk, KiKA, Phoenix

These channels can mostly (there are big restrictions by law) be found online in the media centers (Mediathek) of ARD and ZDF, partly as live-streaming.

A more complete list can be found in the english wikipedia or, more actual, in the german wikipedia. There also the private / commercial stations are listed, which mostly have media centers too.

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17

Dictionaries

  • dict.cc is a free, multilingual online dictionary. Read this answer for more information about the dictionary and its offline version.

  • LEO dictionary: excellent online, free multilingual dictionary. They also have a great discussion forum and links to audio files for pronunciation.

  • canoonet: Free German only dictionary. Great resource for orthography, morphology, and grammar, including conjugation tables. Cross-links to entries in DWDS, LEO, PONS, TheFreeDictionary, Wikipeida. and more.

  • DWDS: Free German only dictionary. Concise etymology entries. Many usage examples including quotes of "Die Zeit".

  • DUDEN: German only dictionary. The print edition used to be a reference dictionary for orthography. Links to audio samples of the "Aussprachedatenbank der ARD" for appropriate pronunciation.

  • Mac OS X Built in Dictionary: Can be expanded with 3rd party add ons and made to talk with high quality German voices. Is built into the OS and you can highlight any word on the web or in any text and get a definition in the correct language.

  • Hurraki: Dictionary for plain language

  • Wörterbuchnetz: Network of cross-referenced German dictionaries

  • Bildwörterbuch: Dictionary with entries supported by images

  • Wiktionary: a collaborative project to produce a free-content multilingual dictionary

  • Pons: free online dictionary by a major publisher of dictionaries; includes verb patterns.

  • Linguee: English-German Dictionary. Search 1,000,000,000 translations.

  • Redensarten-Index: A German-only dictionary specializing in idioms and other figures of speech

  • korrekturen.de: Portal für Rechtschreibung

  • DeepL.com: Using AI, you can paste whole sentences and texts into it and get a very accurate, complete translations. You can also get alternative words or phrases proposed

  • Offline: Dictionaries in text processing programs, for browsers

  • Use Wikipedia as translation service for single words: search for the term in your one language, and check the left margin to see whether there is such an article in another language

For Swiss pecularities of German

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  • 2
    I also like korrekturen.de a lot; especially the "Beliebte Fehler"-section.
    – Torsten
    Commented Jan 29, 2014 at 13:22
  • I also like linguee.com
    – Iris
    Commented Dec 10, 2016 at 12:36
  • These are great resources, but does anyone know of a digital dictionary for Swiss German <-> German? This book was recommended to me but I would prefer a digital version with a search function: Heinz Gallmann - Zürichdeutsches Wörterbuch. I'm most interested in the dialect from Zürich.
    – Bobby
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 8:51
  • 1
    I would like to emphasize that Wikipedia as translation service is very valuable. This is especially true if you are looking for the correct terms of a certain subject in a foreign language even if you are not that professional in that subject. Commented Aug 7, 2019 at 10:26
15

Books

For a list of easy to read German literature please have a look at our reference question on that topic:

The top voted answers to this question are listed here for your convenience:

Books in easy German

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  • 1
    Here are some (automatically generated) vocabulary lists for some of these books, to help people to read them: germanvocab.com
    – Neil D
    Commented Aug 12, 2014 at 17:43
  • Just read Sein und Zeit from Heidegger, that's all you need for learning German
    – tac
    Commented Jun 30, 2023 at 16:57
11

Newspapers

needs content: add links to non regional German newspapers of general interest. For regional newspapers also see Wikipedia: Liste deutscher Zeitungen.

  • Die Zeit: weekly newspaper with concise and well researched articles on all topics. Known for an elaborate language which may not be suitable for beginners.
  • Der Spiegel: One of the major weekly newspapers. Politically left.
  • Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ): One of the major daily newspapers, not really restricted to Frankfurt. Politically conservative.
  • Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ): One of the major daily newspapers, not really restricted to southern Germany. Politically left.
  • Bild: high-circulation yellow press daily newspaper with an easy to understand but sometimes rather lurid language.
  • Stern: general-interest magazine.
  • Heise Online: publisher of several renowned fairly independent monthly journals on computing with a high standard of journalism (e.g. c't).
  • Handelsblatt: A daily newspaper about business and economy. It also offers a wiki: WirtschaftsWiki
  • Auto Motor und Sport: Automotive and motorsport news, test reports, and reviews.
  • Nachrichtenwerk, German news in plain language
  • Nachrichtenleicht, German news in plain language
  • derStandard, Austrian national daily newspaper published in Vienna (no online subscription required).
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11

Websites

needs content: add links to websites with a short description only if they are not an online-dictionary, or provide online courses, and the site is in other ways relevant to learning of the German language.

Blogs

"Official" sites

Online exercises

German grammar

German history

Other Sites

Other link collections

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8

(Online) courses

Free

Paid

  • Babbel.com: Babbel is the new way to learn a foreign language. The comprehensive learning system combines effective education methods with state-of-the-art technology. Basic courses are free.

  • Rosetta Stone: professional language learning for many devices

  • memrise. Great site for learning all kinds of languages, especially since users can create memes for words (i.e. custom images) to help you remembering. They also have an achievement system to increase motivation. Besides, most courses even feature pronunciation and are free to use.

  • busuu.com: Join the global language learning community, take language courses to practice reading, writing, listening and speaking and learn a new language.

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6

Audio resources

needs content: URL, supported readers, free/commercial, short description, optional screenshot

Free

  • Deutsch lernen mit Nachrichten: you are getting LIVE-News read in slow voice and having the text to follow.

  • Vorleser.net: mp3 downloads, short stories in German.

  • librivox: "Free public domain audiobooks - Read by volunteers from around the world." (includes many German texts)

  • Deutsch – warum nicht?: An audio course by DW in four series of 26 episodes each. Developed in the early 90's so money is still in Deutschmarks. From beginner (A1) to intermediate (B2) level.

  • Radio D: Another audio course by DW. In two series of 26 episodes each. Beginner (A1-A2) level.

  • Mission Berlin: Introductory level German audio course by DW. Part of the Mission Europe series which includes similar courses in French and Polish. 26 episodes.

  • ARD Audiothek: Free audio pool of all public radio stations, website in German language only, wide range of files from radio play, audio book, over news, political podcasts, to comedy, fairy tales and children education. Depending of the chosen file, intermediate or more.

5

Video resources

  • Easy German (Youtube, Patreon) is a free Youtube channel that teaches German with interviews on the streets. Each video comes with subtitles in German and English. They also create videos explaining topics on German language, covering not so much basic grammar as pragmatic help with peculiarities like idioms, modal particles, special vocabulary etc. Very likeable hosts, and a great resource to listen to German as it's spoken on the street. There's also paid additional online learning material available via their Patreon.
  • Ticket nach Berlin (online, free, YouTube) is a niveau B1 video series from the Goethe-Institut and Deutsche Welle for those who want to learn German
  • Extr@ auf Deutsch (YouTube) is a 13 episode series designed for learners of German in High School. (There are also English, French and Spanish versions if you're interested.) Most conversation is in German, and German subtitles are available.
  • Harry – Gefangen in der Zeit (YouTube) is a 100 episode series created by DW. For beginner (A1) to intermediate (B1) levels.
  • Nicos Weg (YouTube) is a set of three series, 76 short episodes each, also created by DW. For beginner (A1) to intermediate (B1) levels. Most conversation is in German.
  • Mein Weg nach Deutschland (YouTube) is a miniseries of 8 short episodes, from the Goethe-Institut. Intermediate level.
  • DeutschPlus (YouTube) is a channel dealing in short lessons with intermediate to advanced topics (B2 .. C2)
1
  • 1
    I would like to add the youtube channel Deutschretter as a resource of very helpful videos.
    – Avatar
    Commented Jan 23, 2016 at 17:26
5

Software

needs content: URL, supported software/hardware, installation instruction, short description, optional screenshot

For the software-related basic problem of entering German characters on a keyboard layout not providing them, refer to this question and its answers.

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  • I cannot recommend this app enough: memori-n.soft112.com There are some cards available and you can easily add your own. When answering the flash cards, you can rate how well you knew the vocabulary and based on that, an interval is determined when you get asked again. Commented Jan 29, 2019 at 12:00

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