Online German Resources I use
Thought I ought to eventually get around to making a list of the resources I freuqently use for grammar and vocab learning. Will only be a short list :)
Anki - Anki’s a great flashcard programme where you can generate numerous card types for your language-learning needs. That legit sounds like a promotion but it’s free and very useful. If you check out Anki SharedDecks you can also download flashcard decks created by other people and work through those.
Canoo.net - Canoo.net is one of the most extensive resources on German grammar there is; if you can’t get access to Hammer’s German Grammar, try here. It’s meant to be an explanation of Grammar primarily for Germans, not an exercise resource (hence no exercise questions ;)).
Corpora Uni Leipzig - A corpus is a collection of authentic texts which one can trawl through by searching for a word. When you search for a word, e.g. lasse, it will provide you with info regarding the frequency of the word, what words typically come before and after it, any expressions it’s a part of, and example usage from newspapers. This is the tool I’ve used most at uni.
Clozemaster.com - Definitely don’t utilise this enough, but Clozemaster lets you learn a language by filling in the correct cloze for authentic sentences. The German fast-fluency track for example has 188,000 sentences.
de.Euronews.com - Lots of videos about current events and the majority of them have transcripts underneath, so you can always check your understanding. Incredibly useful resource for those at an advanced stage!
Deutschlernerblog.de - A blog which posts various resources for various levels of German (all tagged with corresponding levels). I primarily find the posts on expressions useful, but look for whatever grabs your eye.
dict.leo.org - LEO dictionary, it’s certainly a good dictionary and the forums are incredibly helpful. Lots of phrases are also often included in search results, but detailed descriptions are lacking (mostly 1-1 translation).
Duden.de - The go-to dictionary for German natives, need I say more.
Dw.de - If you don’t know about Deutsche Welle then are you even a German learner tbh. Dw.de has tonnes and tonnes of exercises for all the CEFR levels (c1 and c2 collapse into just C) and the video segments usually have transcripts underneath with a Vokabelliste and at least 2 exercises. They have lots of segments specifically on expressions and every-day German.
GRIPS Deutsch - Alas another resource I need to use more often. GRIPS Deutsch is primarily aimed at German speakers and has videos regarding stylistic devices, writing texts, grammar, rhetoric etc. There’s also subtitles ;)
Korrekturen.de - A website about spelling in German, primarily about how to spell words correctly. This is more of a general interest of mine rather than anything important, but hey if you wanted to know that E-Mailadresse should be spelt E-Mail-Adresse in German then be my guest.
Linguee.com - Linguee is a more extensive dictionary as it’s based upon a corpus, and includes corpus search results when you search for a word. Were you to search for ‘vom Gehalt einbehalten’ you will be given numerous, authentic examples about the usage of that word. Definitely good for more obscure words.
Lyricstranslate - I’m probably quite odd cuz when I listen to songs sometimes I think ‘huh hey I wonder how the Germans would say that’… well thanks to Lyricstranslate you can find community translations for [typically popular] songs.
Readlang.com - If you know of LingQ, Readlang is like that but less cluttered. With Readlang you can read through various authentic German texts and select words you don’t know - this generates a translation of said word and a flashcard to learn from.
Reddit.com/r/de - I don’t visit there as often as I should, but if you’re looking to pick up on some more online speak and colloquialisms then I’m sure the wonderful word of German reddit has plenty to offer you.
Redensarten-index.de - Lots of expressions and idioms and gives synonyms & details about specific expressions/idioms, as well as etymology. Very useful if you’ve ever encountered a ‘I know all of those words… separately’ moment.
de.wiktionary.org - German Wiktionary tends to give more information about words than Duden, as well as more example usages.
Zdf.de - ZDF is a German TV network and many of their tv shows are available to watch online… even strangely regardless of location. Almost all TV shows also offer subtitles which is so difficult to find, it’s a tru blessing. Bros seriously ZDF is where it’s fucking at.
Zeit.de - Die Zeit is a German newspaper and one of the few major online ones left that doesn’t block people using adblock. I find it to be a lot less editorial than others, and is definitely of a more higher standard than others…no names.. bild… Other good alternatives are Süddeutsche Zeitung, Tageszeitung, and Frankfurter Allgemeine, but the first blocks adblock.
I’ll do a separate post on books sometime in the future, hope this helps some of you :)
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