How to learn German for Free

From Apps to Youtube Channels, everything we know about learning german
 
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First of all, I just want to say that learn German is one of the hardest things in life. There’s even a quite famous quote from Mark Twain (or Oscar Wilde, who knows? The internet seems to be enigmatic on this matter) that goes: “Life is too short to learn German“. I’m sure you’ve heard this one before, especially if you are too, learning German like me. Have you ever asked yourself “How to learn German?”
Probably I’ll make your student life a bit easier – and your wallet a bit happier – with this post here. You can thank me later if this happens in the comments down below. Here you’ll find a pretty vast list of websites, apps, plugins and more… the answer to your question “How to learn German?” is here somewhere in this post!

I will tell you everything I know that can help you to learn this beautiful language that is German. 




How to Learn German for free on your phone

I’ll start the list with my favorites, the apps. I love how practical, easy and inexpensive learning a language can be nowadays. It does not matter if you have an Android or an iPhone, everybody can learn from apps.

Duolingo

I will start with Duolingo because it’s my favorite from this list. The most exciting aspect about Duolingo is how it came about. This fantastic app was born as an answer to the super interesting question: “How do I get 100 million people to translate the internet for free?“.

All the content inside Duolingo comes from the wonderful world of the interwebz. And besides the cool factor, this keeps the content relevant. And by doing the exercises, students help the translation of other languages! And all those translations are then combined and sold as a way to keep the app free of ads and costs.

Duolingo works like a game between your friends, and you can beat everybody in the language you’re learning by accumulation XP points. Each course has its ranking, and each user has its friends on this ranking. One of our favorite ways to learn German.

Memrise

In the second position comes my second favorite app: memrise! This great app offers a super cool and unique approach to learning a language. While on the basic level you’ll only see flashcards for memorizing vocabulary – and it’s the best one so far, at least for me – it actually combines a spaced-repetition system with mnemonics to maximize your learning capabilities! Uhhhh science.

Learn German with DeutschAkademie

The super famous German School has its own app, guys! If you live in Berlin, of course, you’ve seen DeutschAkademie’s ads on the U-Bahn or know anybody that is learning German with them. It is one of the best-ranked apps for Android and now they have a version for IOS.

Anki

Flashcards made it better! I got this tip from one of the many courses I did here and, whenever I don’t have anything else better to do, I play Anki either on my phone or laptop.

Busuu

Between all the apps here on the list, it is the app with the most extensive community for sure. Their website says they have over 40 million native speakers as part of their worldwide network. Busuu is an app that offers loads of community-based learning, and they have their video chat platform. Busuu is free, but there’s a paid option with more features.

FluentU

FluentU has a free and paid version this one, guys. This app has added a unique touch to the language learning process. FluentU uses real-world videos and turns them into language-learning opportunities! The users watch news, videos and other things and at the same time immerse themselves into the language learning process. You’ll learn more than just German, you’ll learn about the German culture.

Bravolol

A very nice app for daily situations. It is a way to learn your day-by-day in Germany. Bravolol has many useful German words and phrases for different life situations.

How to learn German with YouTubers

Since there are only a few things in life that consume my free time more than endlessly browsing YouTube to find the perfect video, let me help you. Do you want to learn German? From your laptop? Free of charge? Who’s with me? Why not turn Youtube’s idleness moments into something useful? I’ll give you 10 of my favorite YouTube Channels, and later, you can choose your favorites. I know how personal this can be.

Deutsch für Euch

Deutsch Für Euch (“German for you”) is aimed at people wishing for an alternative to school books and dictionaries to learn German. Its targeted audience are native English speakers, but of course anyone is free and encouraged to give it a go – if you speak English, you’re good to go 🙂 The project’s main focus is giving both extensive and accessible grammar explanations; a concept that’s pretty unique in this form on YouTube.

Learn German with GermanPod101.com

Learn German with GermanPod101.com – The Fastest, Easiest and Most Fun Way to Learn German. 🙂 Start speaking German in minutes with Audio and Video lessons. GermanPod101.com is an online German language learning website. You’ll learn to speak, read, write and hear German. You’ll have fun learning with listeners around the world.

Easy Online German

Learn German easily and for free. Repeat grammar, improve your pronunciation and test your listening comprehension. Watch videos in German with subtitles for a better understanding. Try the free website http://www.easy-online-german.com which is created for foreigners who want to start learning German or improve their German. One main emphasis is put on correct pronunciation.

DeutschMitJulia

Learn German with Julia. It’s German lessons for beginners and advanced learners! ‘Deutsch mit Julia’ began in 2009 during a period of unemployment in Ireland. Julia is posting ever since and has even published one of her courses with www.alison.com, an Irish online learning network.

Deutsch Happen

This is the YouTube Channel of Deutsch Happen. Here you can learn German online with videos that go a bit deeper into German grammar, vocabulary, idioms and other topics in addition to my exercises on www.deutschhappen.com.

girls4teaching

Free lessons with our beautiful teachers Welcome to the first video-based learning project totally for free! Our purpose is to share the knowledge of different languages among the students all over the world. We will start with the most spoken languages,gradually adding as many languages as possible because we are convinced that every single languages worth being learnt.

smarterGerman

Smart and crispy German teaching. Learn the German Grammar in little bits of 3-5 minutes and make use of it a lifetime. Experience the beauty and true simplicity of the German grammar and don’t hesitate to ask any question or make a request for another video if I haven’t covered something yet.

Get Germanized

Learn German, get to know Germany and German culture and have fun doing so! My videos are directed at English speakers that want to learn about my country, its language and culture online for free! Put your dictionary and grammar books away and start studying with me instead!

Easy Languages

Learn languages from the streets! – And find out more about foreign cultures and countries at the same time 😀 On our channel you find weekly new episodes in… … English (Tuesdays) … French (Saturdays) … German (Sundays) Apart from that you find many many more languages irregularly as well as episodes on with grammar explanations, vocabulary trainings and verb conjugations!

Learn German with Herr Antrim

Learn German grammar, German vocabulary, and tips on learning German from an actual German teacher. Mondays, I upload stories (Märchen), songs (Lieder), and resource reviews. Wednesdays, I upload German Learning Tips. Fridays, I upload 3 Minuten Deutsch (3 Minute German) videos, which are short grammar lessons.

German Graffiti

How to learn German in a real class for free

If you live in Berlin, every single week you can have your German courses for free in a cool bar in Neukölln. The name of this cool project is Deutsch für Dich, and on their facebook page, you can see when you can go. Classes go from real beginners to advanced, passing through only conversation and more. And even tho I say it is for free, every class you can pay whatever you think it’s fair for the classes and keep this fantastic idea going.

How to learn German with real people

One of the best things to learn a language is to talk to a native speaker. The name for this exchange of knowledge is called TANDEM. On Facebook, there are endless groups dedicated to this kind of practice, but there are some apps and website where you can find a partner too!

Here are some ideas:

And beside those links, you can always try to meet people interested in learning the language you speak. I’m teaching Portuguese to my German friend, and he is teaching me German every week. How to learn German is not so much about grammatic as it is diving into the language. It is by far the best way to learn in my opinion.

How to learn German with games

And here is where the fun starts! One of the aspects that I like the most about Duolingo and Memrise is the gamification of this painful process that is to learn German. Here are some cool games you can play and learn

  • Babadum.com– Play Babadum, get the right answer from the four options and see your afternoon goes away while you get lost in this super addictive game.
  • Lyricstraining.com – Why not learn German with some cool music? Translate your favorite tunes and get knowledge in exchange!
  • Quia.com – A bunch of cool games you can play

Other ways to learn German

Here is the final part of this post and where I’ll put some of the best tricks and links I know that couldn’t fit into one category.




Learn German can be quite hard and sometimes expensive and we all know that. If you have any more useful links, apps, plugins or whatever, leave it here in the comments below. The more extensive this list gets, the better is for everyone!

And don’t forget that you can always contact our friends and us on our facebook group, so whatever question you may have, people are there to help! I also want to say that we have a fantastic newsletter that monthly will give you tons of useful information about travel and life in Germany, you may find this useful on your quest to find out how to learn German easy and free. And don’t worry, we hate spam more than you could ever hate.