Learning German with textbooks and worksheets only gets you so far. After a while, you need to start putting the pieces together by speaking to people, watching German movies, reading blogs and newspapers or German short stories. Once you feel comfortable reading…
Author Archive of André Klein
Read Free Stage Plays & Sketches To Improve Your German Conversation Skills
After having released my first book of easy German dialogues last year, I’ve been thinking a lot about the immediacy of the spoken word, and how this more direct way of storytelling can be helpful for language learners. There’s something about the…
4 Sites To Help You Improve Your German Pronunciation Which Aren’t Google Translate
What do you do when you don’t know how to pronounce a German word? It’s a simple question, right? But there are many answers! Today I’d like to share some resources that will help you find the right pronunciation of…
From “Sneeze Shame” to “Hygiene Knights”: 10 Strange New German Words Created By The Pandemic
After more than one year in the grip of a global pandemic, our daily lives have changed extensively. The way we work, travel, socialize and decompress have all undergone strange transformations. And these changes have begun to be reflected in the…
7 Literary Classics In Simplified German
How do you make the leap from studying German textbooks, flipping flashcards and poring over worksheets to reading (and enjoying) classic literature? Even native speakers who make their first acquaintance with the classics in high school often find themselves bewildered…
Learning German with Stories: The Short & Funny Tales Of The Schildbürger
Let’s escape our current timeline for a bit, shall we? Let’s travel back in time to the Middle Ages, to the fabulous city of Schilda somewhere in the middle of Germany. Its inhabitants were called “Schildbürger”, i.e. the citizens of…
The German Prefix “be-” Explained
Once you’ve started learning a few German verbs, you’ll notice that there are a number of awkwardly similar verbs which have a slightly similar yet sufficiently different meaning. I’m talking about those pesky German verb prefixes which sometimes are just…
“I Can’t Get No …”: N-Declension In German
Welcome back to another instalment of our German grammar series in which I answer some of the questions that have popped up on the newsletter. Today’s question is by Douglas: My question: why do some German nouns add a final…
New: Dino lernt Deutsch Episode 11: “Lockdown in Liechtenstein”
The wait is finally over! Dino is back, and although his world has gotten a lot smaller, he still finds himself at the center of much mischief. Get volume 11 on: 📙Amazon 🍏Apple Books 🔽EPUB/PDF 📕Kobo 📘Barnes & Noble This…
Demonstrate This! – Demonstrative Pronouns in German – A Brief Overview
This is another instalment in my grammar series where I try to answer some of the questions posed by readers of my newsletter and (hopefully) shed some light on certain bewildering grammar topics, always with a practical focus on how…
Learning Languages With Netflix Has Just Become So Much Easier
Many language learners are watching movies to improve their listening comprehension and pick up new words. Some like to just immerse themselves in the foreign language with foreign subtitles, others watch it with foreign audio and subtitles in their native…
When Learning Online Is The New Normal
When I quit my teaching job more than ten years ago to strike out on my own as an online language teacher, I was met with stares of consternation. Old acquaintances warned me of the perils of pennilessness and urged…
