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Exactly Where to Practice German Online: The 8 Best Sites in the Entire Online Ocean
How deeply have you explored the great, big internet?
Sure, there’s a whole load of fun stuff out there, but the online ocean also has a vast array of materials and resources dedicated to helping you improve your German.
In this blog post, I’ve rounded up my eight favorite resources to practice German online.
Contents
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
Why Should You Practice German Online?
The internet is absolutely packed full of information, facts and data on every single subject you can think of.
And, yes, this applies to the subjects of German speaking, listening, reading and writing at all levels. There’s a sea of material to practice German online.
If you’re not quite sure about the subjunctive, noun genders or compound nouns, all you have to do is have a quick online search and thousands of entries will come up in the results. There’ll be everything from in-depth explanations to simple quick tips.
There are also thousands of possibilities to practice your writing. Blogs and online newspapers often have comment sections after each article, giving you the chance to give your opinion in German.
If you don’t feel confident about writing long, flowing sentences, there are also plenty of sites that feature online crosswords. What better way to learn German spelling?
And let’s not forget all those online videos and programs which are just waiting to be streamed. So, you might not know any Germans to practice your listening skills out with—but the internet has got your back, as always!
Finally, one major advantage of practicing your language on the internet is having the chance to instantly look up any word that has you stumped. If you’re reading an engrossing article on Die Zeit but are flummoxed by some tricky vocabulary, just open a new tab and look for an online dictionary.
You’ll be able to continue reading completely problemlos (smoothly)!
Practice German Online: 8 Fresh, Versatile Resources
LEO
LEO is a fantastic online dictionary. It can translate from German into a handful of languages. But what makes LEO unique and helpful to practice German online?
Two words: discussion forums.
If a user has a tricky phrase that they’re not quite sure how to translate, they can start a post and other users will be more than happy to give their ideas.
So, not only will this website help you with any vocabulary issues, but it’s also a great opportunity to flex your German writing muscles. And you never know, you might have pearls of wisdom to pass on to your fellow language learners!
FluentU
FluentU uses short videos combined with annotated subtitles as the foundation of its German lessons. Videos are categorized by difficulty level, topic and format and include clips from movies and TV shows, music videos, news segments, interviews, speeches, vlogs and much more.
The content focuses on culturally-relevant topics, so you can learn more about the people whose language you’re learning while knocking out the actual studying at the same time.
Each video is a self-contained mini-lesson. Before you watch, you can browse the list of key words you’ll encounter and read the transcript. You’ll find a convenient English translation in the transcript, but you can also hover over any word for a full translation and more information.
Similarly, you can click on a word in the subtitles as the video plays to pause playback and see the full info-card for that word. The definition is always contextual, so you’re getting the right meaning for the situation that you see the word in.
In the information card, you’ll see example sentences, clips from other videos that show the word in use, audio recordings of the word and its examples and a full grammar breakdown including part of speech, tense, gender, etc.
As you watch, you can add words to flashcard decks of your making. When the video is over, you’re presented with a quiz that tests your understanding of the important vocabulary you just heard.
You can also complete quizzes for your flashcards. These exercises adapt to your level of comfort with each word, showing you words at personalized intervals.
FluentU is available on your browser, but you can also get it for iOS or Android. Plus, the app version has speaking questions integrated into the quizzes, which give you a chance to practice your pronunciation.
BBC Bitesize
Known by all U.K. students, the BBC’s Bitesize revision materials have gotten many a stressed student through their GCSE exams! Their German exercises and chunks of information can be utilized by absolutely anyone with an internet connection.
It’s primarily aimed at beginner and intermediate learners, so if you’re just starting out on your German adventure, this is an awesome place to begin. Most of the exercises are made up of fun games to keep you interested. Everything is broken down into difficulty levels so you know exactly where you stand.
Once you have swotted up on a specific topic there’s a final “mock exam” to test how much you really understood.
Duolingo
Duolingo is a popular smartphone online German course with mini-quizzes to test your German. The aim is to progress through the levels as they get harder and feature more complex German.
You can even get some realistic German conversation practice online with the chat-bot feature!
It’s a resource for beginners to use as a starting point, but advanced speakers should also give this app a look—it never hurts to refresh your grammar and stay sharp!
Now you don’t even need a smartphone to take advantage—all the tests and exercises are available on their website, so you can practice German online from your desk or laptop if you prefer.
The Mixxer
It can be difficult finding native German speakers in the States. Even if you do know a couple, they might not be so keen on speaking German every single time you meet up—after all, chances are they’ll want to practice their English too!
And not everyone has the time or budget to fly off to Germany just for the benefits of the language exposure. But don’t despair, The Mixxer has the solution!
This totally free language exchange website will pair you up with a German buddy via Skype for German conversation practice online. You can chat for as long as you like about anything and everything in German!
The Mixxer was created by Dickinson College and designed to be an education-focused, friendly and pleasant online space for language practice.
The Foreign Language Library Online
Have you gotten through your German reading list already? Or maybe you never had one in the first place? Then this is going to be your next stop.
If you aren’t sure what to add to your bookshelf—or Kindle—next, The Foreign Language Library Online will inspire you.
The great thing about this online library is that it has all the English translations alongside each text. So if you get started on a riveting tale but end up getting confused because of the language barrier, you can always have a sneak-peek at the English to bring yourself up to speed. Even if you do understand what you’re reading, it can be a good idea to quickly skim over the translation just to be sure you didn’t miss anything important.
German Practice Channels on YouTube
This is probably a really obvious choice, but I just can’t leave out YouTube! It’s got such an excellent, diverse selection of videos.
You can check out the latest German music videos and see what German TV shows are up for streaming. And if you have an opinion on something you see, there’s always the comment section to let the Germans know what you think. So that ticks off listening and writing practice!
If you’re not sure which videos to check out, I have a couple of suggestions. This video about the use of Hochdeutsch (standard German) is very clear and easy to follow.
Or if you want something funny, there are also a lot of videos showing native German speakers trying to get a grip on tricky tongue twisters!
Lexisrex
Crosswords are great for keeping your German spelling in check. All those cryptic clues and tricky hints are fab for keeping your brain and mind fit and healthy.
Lexisrex features daily German crosswords that you can use to leisurely test out and improve your vocabulary. If you’re not a fan of crosswords, they also have hangman games and other options. If you hate games for some reason, you could simply use their lists of useful German words to shape up your vocabulary.
Just go to the lefthand sidebar to view all their materials to learn German online.
Now that you’ve finished reading this blog post, there’s only one thing left to do… go forth and try out all these free resources to practice German online!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
After studying German and Philosophy at The University of Nottingham, Laura Harker relocated to Berlin in 2012. She now works as a freelance writer and is also assistant editor at Slow Travel Berlin.
