German
Recommended Resources
German learning resources by category and level, with the trade-offs of each
If you are not sure which level you are working at, the A1, A2, B1 and B2 guides set out what each one actually demands.
Pick two or three resources, not fifteen. Two overlapping grammar courses waste more time than they save; a course plus a listening habit plus one speaking outlet covers more ground than five apps used half-heartedly. Start with the free option in each category below before paying for anything.
Structured Courses
Nicos Weg
Free online course by Deutsche Welle following a story-based format with interactive exercises, videos, and grammar explanations. (Free)
Level: A1-B1
It carries you from zero to B1 without spending a cent, split into three seasons that follow one recurring storyline. We looked at it in detail in our Nicos Weg review. The exercises are auto-graded, which means they’re mostly multiple choice and drag-and-drop: fine for recognising grammar, useless for producing it. If you want to actually write or speak German, this alone won’t get you there.
Goethe-Institut German Courses
Official German cultural institution’s courses, taught by a teacher or self-study. (Paid)
Level: A1-C2
The closest thing to enrolling in a language school without leaving home, and tied directly to the Goethe exam levels that employers and universities recognise. Formats vary, from self-study through to tutor-led group courses, so check which one you are actually buying. The tradeoff is the one you’d expect from anything resembling school. It runs on a fixed schedule, costs more than any self-study option on this page, and asks for a real weekly time commitment rather than fitting around your day. Price is the thing to check hardest: the same online course sells for very different amounts depending on which country’s institute you book it from, which we go into in our Goethe-Institut review.
Menschen Coursebooks
Popular textbook series with clear progression, audio materials, and workbook. (Paid)
Level: A1-B2
A print textbook series in the traditional Hueber mold: coursebook, workbook, and audio CD, with grammar introduced in a deliberate order chapter by chapter. Nothing checks your answers or corrects your pronunciation, so it works best paired with a tutor or class rather than alone. Covering A1 through B2 also means buying several separate volumes, and the cost adds up faster than a single subscription would.
Spaced Repetition
Anki
Powerful spaced repetition flashcard software with shared decks and customisation options. (Free desktop/Android, Paid iOS)
Level: A1-C2
Anki isn’t a German course, it’s an engine: an algorithm that decides when you’re about to forget a card and shows it to you right before you do. That’s also its limit. It ships with no German content of its own, so the entire value of using it depends on picking a well-made deck (or building your own), and a bad deck will happily waste your time with the same efficiency as a good one.
Recommended Anki Decks:
Audio Courses
Pimsleur German
Audio-based learning program focusing on speaking and listening through spaced repetition and graduated interval recall. The 30-minute daily lessons build naturally from basic to more complex conversations. (Paid)
Our Pimsleur German review goes through what it does well and where it runs out.
Level: A1-B2
Every lesson is thirty minutes of audio, no screen required, which makes it genuinely usable during a commute or a walk. That same audio-only design keeps the vocabulary narrow and repetitive by construction, so progress can feel slow if you’re comparing it to an app that throws hundreds of new words at you. It’s also a subscription, and a fairly expensive one for what amounts to a fixed set of scripted dialogues.
Assimil German
Audio course with accompanying textbook using the intuitive assimilation method. Focuses on natural language acquisition through bilingual texts and native audio. (Paid)
Level: A1-B2
You read a bilingual text while listening to the native recording, first passively, later attempting to reproduce it yourself; the method is old and has a following for a reason. It also has no companion app tracking your progress or spacing your review, so all the discipline of coming back to old lessons is on you, and the production values feel dated next to newer audio courses.
Michel Thomas German
Unique audio method focusing on building grammatical understanding through guided conversations. No memorisation or written materials required. (Paid)
Level: A1-B1
The recordings put you in the room with two other students as a teacher builds sentences piece by piece, and the goal is to make you construct German on the fly rather than recite memorised phrases. It skips reading and writing entirely, so you’ll finish it able to speak more than you can read, and there’s no built-in vocabulary review system, meaning whatever isn’t reinforced tends to fade. Some learners also find listening to someone else’s lesson (rather than being addressed directly) slower going than expected.
Comprehensible Input
YouTube Channels
Easy German
Street interviews and lessons with dual subtitles. (Free with paid premium option)
Level: A1-C2
Real strangers on the street, speaking at real speed, with German and English subtitles running together so you can check yourself without pausing. Because the interviews are unscripted, the speed and dialect swing wildly from one video to the next, and below B1 that can be more discouraging than instructive. The paid membership adds grammar-focused episodes, but the channel’s core strength is still exposure, not curriculum.
Deutsch für Euch
Grammar explanations and vocabulary lessons in English and German. (Free)
Level: A1-B1
Grammar points get walked through clearly, switching between English and German so explanations stay accessible while you get used to hearing the language. It’s video only, though, so there’s nothing to test whether the explanation actually stuck, and coverage depends entirely on which topics the channel happens to have made a video about.
Podcasts
Coffee Break German
Structured podcast lessons with clear explanations in English. (Free with paid premium content)
Level: A1-B1
The hosts explain grammar in plain English at a pace built for beginners, which makes it a good fit for a commute where you’d rather listen than read. Free episodes only get you so far before the series pushes you toward a paid tier for worksheets and later lessons, and learners who pick things up quickly may find the pacing dragging.
Slow German
Simple German texts read at a slower pace with complete transcripts. Topics range from everyday life and culture to history and current events. Each episode focuses on a single topic, making it perfect for focused learning sessions. (Free with paid transcripts)
Level: A1-B2
Nina Zimmermann reads at a deliberately slower pace and sticks to one topic per episode, which keeps each listen short and manageable. The catch is that it’s a monologue: you get slow, clear narration, not the back-and-forth of an actual conversation, so it doesn’t build the skill of following two people talking over each other. Full transcripts sit behind a paywall too, though the audio itself stays free.
Streaming Content
ARD Mediathek
Free streaming service with German TV shows, movies, and documentaries. (Free)
Level: A2-C2
This is German public television’s full catalog, free, which is a genuinely unusual thing to get at no cost. Almost none of it was made with learners in mind, though, so there’s no leveling or curation to guide you toward something approachable, and you’re on your own picking shows that won’t leave you lost in the first five minutes.
Reading Resources
The level printed on a graded reader’s cover is set by its publisher, and the houses do not grade to the same standard, so a book badged A1 by one is not the same difficulty as a book badged A1 by another. Our comparison of the four beginner series sets out where each one actually starts and where it stops.
Dino lernt Deutsch Series
Popular series of short stories following the adventures of Dino, a young man traveling through Germany. Written specifically for German learners with natural dialogue and cultural insights. (Paid)
Level: A1-B1
The stories are simplified deliberately, which is exactly what makes them readable before you’d be ready for anything written for native speakers. That simplification is also the limit: this is a stepping stone toward real reading, not real reading itself, and it’s a paid series, so working through multiple volumes costs more than a single book would.
André Klein’s German Short Stories
Collection of short story books with parallel text (German-English), vocabulary lists, and comprehension exercises. Stories focus on realistic situations and natural dialogue. (Paid)
Level: A1-B2
Parallel text means the English translation sits right next to the German, along with vocabulary lists and comprehension questions built into each story. The convenience cuts both ways: it’s easy to lean on the English side instead of working through the German, which slows down the payoff. Like Dino lernt Deutsch, it’s a paid series, so the cost scales with how many volumes you buy.
Nachrichtenleicht
News articles written in simplified German, updated weekly. Includes current events, politics, sports, and culture. (Free)
Level: A2-B1
Real current events in deliberately simplified German, free, and updated on a weekly schedule rather than daily. That weekly cadence and the simplified language mean it’s a bridge toward reading actual German news, not a substitute for it, and the topic coverage in any given week is narrower than a real newspaper’s.
Speaking Practice
iTalki
Platform for finding private tutors and language exchange partners. (Paid per lesson)
Level: A1-C2
An open marketplace of tutors at wildly different price points, teaching styles, and availability, so you can find someone who fits your budget and schedule almost any time. That openness also means quality is inconsistent from tutor to tutor, there’s no built-in curriculum, and paying per lesson adds up into a real ongoing cost if you use it regularly.
Lingoda
Live online group classes with native teachers. (Paid)
Level: A1-C2
Classes run on a fixed schedule with a curriculum mapped to CEFR levels, so you get the structure of a real course with a real teacher rather than piecing one together yourself. The tradeoff is that you have less flexibility than a self-paced app, group sizes mean less individual speaking time than a private lesson, and it runs on a paid package rather than a one-off purchase.
Tandem
Language exchange app that matches you with native German speakers who want to learn your language. Features text, audio, and video chat options, plus conversation starters and correction tools. (Free with paid premium features)
Level: A1-C2
You’re matched with native speakers who want to practice your language in exchange, so it costs nothing but your own time in reciprocal practice. The quality of that practice depends entirely on who you’re matched with: some partners are patient and correct you constantly, others reply once and disappear, and there’s no professional teaching behind any of it.
ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode
AI-powered conversation practice with voice interaction. (Paid)
Level: A1-C2
It’s available at 2am, never gets tired of your mistakes, and will talk about whatever topic you throw at it, which makes it a reasonable stand-in between actual conversation sessions or when a tutor isn’t in the budget. It can also miss subtle pronunciation errors and doesn’t give the kind of nuanced correction a trained teacher does, so treat it as filler around human practice rather than a replacement for it.
Cultural Resources
Deutsche Welle Culture
Articles and videos about German culture and society. (Free)
Level: B1-C2
Written for a general audience rather than graded for learners, which is precisely why it works once you’re past the beginner stage: real vocabulary, real sentence complexity, real topics. Below B1 it will mostly be a wall of unfamiliar words, so it’s worth saving until you have enough of a foundation to get something out of it besides frustration.
Deutsch Perfekt Magazine
Magazine designed for German learners with articles at different difficulty levels. (Paid)
Level: A2-C1
Articles are marked by difficulty, so you can pick pieces that match where you actually are instead of guessing. It’s a subscription on top of whatever else you’re already paying for, and being a monthly publication makes it a supplement to fill in reading practice, not something to build a study routine around by itself.
Resource Selection Tips
- Pick one resource per category first. Adding a second before you’ve finished the first just fragments your attention across more apps than you’ll actually open.
- A course teaches you grammar in order; it will not teach you to speak. Add a speaking outlet from the start rather than waiting until you feel “ready.”
- Native media like podcasts and streaming TV pays off once you can follow most of it without a transcript, which for most learners is closer to B1 than A1.
- Spaced repetition only works if you open the app daily. A deck you built and stopped reviewing is just a list.
Nicos Weg, Anki, Tandem, and ARD Mediathek together cover grammar, vocabulary, conversation, and native listening without spending anything. If you’re going to pay for one thing, make it a speaking outlet like iTalki or Lingoda rather than another course. Structured content is the part that’s easy to find for free; corrected speaking practice is the part that usually isn’t.