Is there a free resource for learning German?

German is spoken by more than 120 million people in Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland and in parts of Belgium, Northern Italy and Eastern France. It is a key language in the European Union and the new economies of Central and Eastern Europe. The German language consists of about 5.3 million words – with a rising trend. About one-third of those words were added in the last 100 years. This means, the German language contains eight times as many words as the English language. In everyday conversation, we use much less words: only 12.000 – 16.000 words including about 3.500 foreign words. 

German and English have more in common than you might think. Words like “Kindergarten” or “Strudel” for example, mean the same in English and German. But there are some words that are a bit tricky. High German or Standard German is a mixture of Middle German and Upper German and most of the Austrian dialects are based on it. Even if many Austrians insist on speaking their own language, the differences between the “Austrian” and the “German” German are almost nonexistent.

1. Udemy: The lessons continuously build on what you’ve been learning, enabling you to express yourself fluently in German. As you move through the course, you’ll pick up new vocabulary, useful grammar points and interesting ways to look at the structure of the German language that will give you plenty of “Aha!” moments. Short but consistent daily lessons are more effective than longer lessons once or twice a week because you’ll find you maintain enthusiasm, develop a learning habit and you’ll also memorize everything much better.
2. Deutsche Welle: Deutsche Welle is an international broadcaster funded and founded by the German government. It also has a website of its own. German learners love this site since they offer quite a few free learning resources. It is suitable for all levels of German learners from A1 to C level. They also produce all kinds of interesting videos. After watching the videos, you could try their exercises so that you could get more familiar with the topic. Transcripts are also available too. No need to worry if you missed the words the hosts are talking about.
3. Duolingo: If you have learned other languages before, Duolingo won’t be too unfamiliar to you. Yes, that’s right! You can learn German pretty well on this self-learning website. They also provide an app for you to control your German learning status much easier and more efficiently.
4. The German Project: They have 15 lessons in total for learning useful knowledge of the German language. You will learn how to greet, how to use the German numbers and some common German verbs. Common slang and expressions are also included in the lessons! That will make you sound a lot more like a real German. Each lesson comes with an adorable comic and some practice exercises.
5. GermanPod101:  This online German language course will make learning German fun and easy for you. Their library contains a huge amount of podcasts. Not surprisingly, some say this platform is made for busy people. Using GermanPod101 you’ll learn German at two most utmost edges, from the most basic expressions to the depth of grammar. All materials at the GermanPod101 have to do with German culture. So besides learning their language, using this online German language course will help you learn a lot about their culture.

If you want to speed up the process, you can consider paid online courses. Or else to start with the extreme basics, you can go for free online courses for German.