Resources

Hi Everyone! Here are some resources that I use for my German Learning. I try and keep things as inexpensive as possible - there are only a few things that I pay for, most others are free to use, and some may require legwork or input from your side to get them how you want them to be.

IMPORTANT TO NEW LEARNERS: German grammar sucks, but its a must-have. Many, many things in German stem from one knowing the articles (der, die, das, die) of the nouns and the cases (Nominativ, Akkusativ, Dativ & Genativ). If one is a native English speaker, both of these things are horrible, terrible, inexcusable curses on the human race but none-the-less ... incredibly important to your journey with German. Never, ever underestimate their importance early on - this will become more and more apparent as you increase your knowledge and skill in this wonderful language.

IMPORTANT FOR NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS: In terms of grammar and sentence strucutre, German is a 'case(s)' based language, whereas English is a 'positional' based language. If we think of the sentence 'The dog bites the man' in English, this sentence and its meaning can only be said one way - but in German, there are two ways: 'Der Hund bießt den Mann' & 'Den Mann bießt der Hund'. Wait! What?!? English speakers say to themselves 'impossible' - how can 'the man bite the dog', and it be the same as 'the dog bites the man'? In German, even when nouns (subject or direct object) change positions (z.b. Hund, Mann), the sentence meaning can stay the same - remember, is not positional, it's because of the cases (Nom., Akku, & Dat.). A very important, little tiny thing to remember! German = Case(s) Based / English = Position Based

VERY, VERY IMPORTANT: Say EVERYTHING which is written, thought, preceived or notioned in German, in GERMAN and out loud - whatever it is ... say it out loud. You MUST train your mouth and your brain to start understanding that they are going to be doing new things. Say EVERYTHING German out loud and in German. Get in the habit. Do it now ... do it always.

WEB RESOURCES

Lingolia

I really enjoy this thorough website - the interactive answer boxes make it so one will need to think about their answers before moving forward. I pay for the Lingolia PLUS which is 12 Euro every 3 months (i.e. 4 Euro/month).

German.net

This website has hundreds of FREE exersises - the only thing that separates this and Lingolia is the answers are not interacitive - one must complete the lesson and then the answers are shown.

Language Reactor

Pretty cool website that transcribes podcasts on Spotify, among other things. I use the free plan and it suits my needs. Quite fantastic features if one wants to upgrade, although not necessary.

NLL

NLL = Natural Language Learning. I came across this website on YouTube. NLL takes time, patience and legwork - he sets out the framework and what you should do, but you will need to put a bit of effort in to tuning it to your personal needs. In the end, an incredible technique if you have the patience and persistence. If you like repetition, and more repetition, and THEN more repetition, and on top of that MORE repetition ... this is your way to learn languages. Amazingly effective.

Start with either the '7-Day Challenge' or his 'Conversational' challenge

Narakeet

Narakeet is a fantastic text to audio generator. To make audio files to go along with your text files:

Ask your LLM to make you 50 (or however many) sentences - one column German, the other English
Copy and paste into Narakeet
Covert it to audio and save

Quillbot

Quillbot has a great Grammar Checker included for free - it also comes as a Chrome extension. Fantastic for checking your sentences before you send them, or helping you write sentences and checking grammar.

Wörterbuch

I don't really know how many websites this company operates, but its vast - this is comparable to Ponds or Leo, but has a dozen other websites linked to this one that expand it's reach. The explanations one can get from inputing a noun are more than any would understand in a lifetime. To say that it's comprehensive would be an understatement. It comes with some annoying ads, but well worth it.

There is also a mobile phone app for around 10 Euro - a fantastic app I use frequently

Gemini

Gemini takes the cake for me in terms of LLM's and learning languages. For the simple reason: the basic plan is FREE. As many questions and answers as you please, plus basic Nano Banana included. ChatGPT basic has a daily limit - that sucks. You have to pay 20/month to upgrade - that also sucks.

TIP: Use the Gemini App on your mobile phone for speaking conversations between yourself and the AI

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