You already have all the resources you need to learn Germany in your Pocket. Let me show you where.
Das Internet!
So you are here, you want to learn German, you want to speak it and obviously be able to understand it, right? Well, I’d like to introduce you the endless resources available to you and the best part? It’s all completely free. Because of the beauty that is the internet, there are a lot of free ways to work on comprehension, right from your computer and maybe even have some fun doing so.
.DE
First things first, if you are tech savvy you know about the Domain Extensions, it’s the part after the website name.. Most know that a lot of countries have their own extension, which is the .com, .net or .us.
Germany has its own as well, which is the .de. A a lot of the big name companies have their presence in many international internet Domains. This means sites like Google and youtube will have a website under google.de and youtube.de. Amazon and Wikipedia also come in very handy.
Musik
The internet has given me the ability to listen to some of my favorite German Bands without having to have it send to me. If you are using music apps like Pandora or Iheartradio, you can easily look up bands from Germany.
Everybody knows about “Rammstein”, it’s a really heavy rock band but believe me, you don’t necessarily want to know what it is they are saying. If you like that kind of music though, maybe look at “Unheilig” it’s a great band but the lyrics aren’t quite so offensive. For general Rock you can also look at “Die Ärzte” or even “Böhse Onkelz”. There are a lot of other bands and types of music. Just Google “Deutsche “insert genre here” band” to look for anything you may enjoy.
Nachrichten
Hey, guess what. Germans have their own news websites! This is an awesome way to read up on current events, get another countries Point of view on the news, and to practice your comprehension all at the same time. News in German is “Nachrichten”. Websites like www.bild.de and http://www.tagesschau.de/ are good reads. Their will be videos as well if you aren’t comfortable reading.
Videos
Speaking of videos, remember up top how I mentioned YouTube has its own German page? You can go to youtube.de. Do know, a lot of videos are shared between the different countries, so you can a lot of times go on youtube.com to find German stuff as well, but I find that I have to think a bit more in the language if I actually use their website to. What should you watch? Sesame street or “Sesamstrasse” is a great place to start. I always suggest it because its meant for kids, so its not complicated and it teaches a lot of the alphabet, numbers etc. You can usually find dubbed version of American kid cartoons as well. If you need subtitles, look no further than netflix. There are usually German movies on there, with English subtitles for you to watch.
PS:
I mentioned a lot of bands, and websites and maybe dropped some other names. I just want you to know, I am not affiliated with any of them, I am providing examples of things to enjoy only to assist in the understanding of the topic.
