Articles by André Klein

Learning German with stories can be a great way to expand your vocabulary, boost your passive grammar skills and get a general feel for the language, all while enjoying a (hopefully) entertaining yarn. But how to do it the best way? Preparing vocabulary first? Or just dive right in? Today I’d like to share a few…

German beer is inarguably one of the most famous staples of German culture, way up there with Sauerkraut, cakes, automotive engineering and wearing socks and sandals. (Sorry for that.) But have you ever asked yourself how many German beers there are? According to some sources, there are more than 7800 (!) different beers from more…

One of the most rewarding aspects of learning a new language is getting to know a whole new culture and cuisine! We have a saying in German: “Liebe geht durch den Magen.” – “The way to a (wo)man’s heart is through her/his stomach.” And the same probably goes for languages, too! Today we’ll take a…

After talking to the German learning group from Sioux Falls, I’m happy to share with you another interview today. Meet Monte! In the late 60s he took some introductory courses in college, fell in love with the language, but through the course of a busy career and family life his skills gradually declined. Being a true…

Did you know that some of the funniest, most expressive words in German aren’t actually German but Yiddish? They’ve become such an integral part of our language that even native speakers aren’t always aware of their origins. Interestingly, while American English also embraced many Yiddish expressions, these aren’t always the same ones that made it…

Listening to a gripping story as an audio book can be a great way to immerse yourself in narrative German, pick up on on speech patterns, prosody and pronunciation. But you know what’s even more immersive? Radio plays! The difference between an audio book and a radio play is that the former is usually narrated…

Café in Berlin is the book that started the Dino lernt Deutsch series, and it remains one of my most popular German story books to date. It has been an Amazon bestseller for many consecutive months, topping the charts in multiple categories, from German Language Instruction to General German Fiction and German Travel. I get many emails…

One of the fun aspects of being an indie-publisher is seeing how a book travels around the world, not just in terms of regional clicks and sales, but hearing from actual people. In the last couple of years I’ve dedicated myself to publishing entertaining and time-effective German learning books, and before long I started receiving…

So you’ve downloaded a couple of German apps, read some books, picked up a few phrases, and then you finally get on that flight to Berlin or Munich, eager to put all of your efforts to use. You’re going to Germany after all. What better place to learn German? Well, … It turns out that…