8 YouTube Channels to Help You Learn German Faster
YouTube is a place where a lot of people turn when they are bored or want to see what's trending. While it can be a great way to distract yourself, you can put any free time you have to good use with YouTube as well.
There are a number of fantastic channels you can use to help you get more of an immersive experience. No matter what your language level, there are a number of channels that can boost your comprehension and give you a few tips and tricks. What is really great about using YouTube is that you can get a chance to hear how words are pronounced.
After going through apps, courses, and mountains of grammatical practice, YouTube can be a fantastic break. Not only can you hear a more natural flow to the language, you can find sites that interest you.
The following are some great sites to help you get a better handle of more fluid, conversational German. Remember, these are just to start. If there is a topic that you find particularly interesting, you can find a channel to keep you engaged. The more interested you are in the subject, the more likely you are to keep coming back to get more exposure to the language.
What channels make the most sense for you will depend on your current level. If you want help with the many ways to say yes or starting a conversation, you want to start with sites that tailor toward the basics. When you feel more confident, you can start listening to channels made for German speakers.
We’ve broken down based on those that provide lessons and those for native speakers. As you get more comfortable with the language, take the time to find channels that peak your interest and push you out of your comfort zone.
Learning German – Lessons with English and German
If you are still in the early days of learning, these channels can help you get a better ear for the basics. It should be easy to stay in your comfort zone, with a bit of pushing beyond that.
1. Learn German with Herr Antrim
This is an ideal channel for someone just getting started. Herr Antrim is a teacher by profession, and he originally started the channel to help his own students. While it focuses on the stuff he covered in class, it is available for anyone wanting to learn German.
This does provide a more classic classroom experience. He has a whiteboard where he demonstrates what he is teaching. He also includes some other classroom tools, such as memorable graphics and puppets to make the conversations and lessons more memorable.
This is really a channel for true beginners who like the classroom learning style.
2. GermanPod101
This is a channel that changes things up and works with some of their other tools fairly well. Like their other tools, the lessons are more varied, and the format does change.
The channel should be familiar if you use their other tools because it provides information in a way that is similar to those other tools. It does give you a chance to work with dialogue and answer questions as a way of reviewing what you’ve watched.
3. Learn German with Anja
This is a particularly popular channel with more of a YouTube feel to it, instead of a classroom or additional tool to learning. She is a native German speaker, so she is able to provide an authentic accent while you learn.
She provides numbered lessons so you can follow along with what most people learn in the beginning. However, you don’t have to follow them exactly if you want to focus on something in particular. For example, German Lesson 1 for Beginners covers greetings. If you already know the greetings, you can skip this lesson – or you can listen to it while doing chores so that you can refresh what you’ve learned.
What makes this a great place to start is that you can start with a placement test. If you aren’t sure that you are a novice, beginner, intermediate, or proficient, you can take the placement test. She even provides a quick explanation at the beginning so that you can figure out where to begin.
4. Get Germanized
This is a channel with a decade of content, giving you a way of learning quickly and growing. The early content is more basic, giving you more of the classic classroom type of learning.
Over time, the content gets much more detailed in areas like culture, hobbies, music, and other things that you may not learn. All of this is from the perspective of a native German speaker. For example, he has an episode dedicated to comparing Germans and Austrians.
There is a lot to learn with this channel, and you can grow your own understanding. Since he has been around for a long time, it is very likely he is going to have answers to questions that other channels won’t cover.
Advanced German Channels
If you are looking for something that is more immersive and less instructional, you can start listening to actual German channels. I recommend that you go with something that is in an area of interest to you. However, there are a lot of channels, and you may not know where to begin.
Here are a few ideas to help you get started listening to Germans on channels that are made for native speakers.
1. Hellsythe German Creepypasta
You don’t need to know German to already have an idea of what you’ll get when you listen to this channel. For horror fans or people who love creepy stories, this is a great channel.
The narrator has an amazing voice that is expressive without being jarring. You aren’t going to get any explanation of what is being said, so it is up to you to use what you know to put together the story being told.
This is kind of like listening to German fairytales, but in the modern day. You don’t have to understand everything that is being said, but if you have been learning the language for a while, this is a great channel for getting a more immersive experience.
2. Paluten
For gamers out there, this is a channel that is going to make a lot of sense because the format is going to be familiar, even if some of the vocabulary isn’t quite what you are used to hearing. From reactions to games to Paluten playing games, you can get a different take on gaming.
The only real difference between the familiar American video game channels and Paluten is that it is entirely in German. Since you already have an idea what kind of review or reaction you will get, it will be much easier to get the context clues for this channel.
3. Thanks4Giving
If you are interested in learning, but want to do it in German, you definitely want to subscribe to this channel. It is all in German and it covers a host of science topics that will keep you learning. You will not know a lot of the jargon, but if you are knowledgeable about the language, you can probably use context clues. If nothing else, this channel is great for getting a whole new set of vocabulary under your belt.
This is a more specialized field, so go in knowing that there will be a lot of gaps in what you understand. This is more like a very advanced German class (and a great science class) that will give you something to really push your understanding a lot further.
4. Sallys Welt
For anyone who enjoys cooking and baking, this is a fabulous channel to return to. Not only will you get a chance to relearn a lot of the early lessons about food, you’ll have practical application. From learning to bake rainbow cakes to more traditional German dishes, you are going to have a wide range of food to prepare and try.
Keep in mind that they do use the metric system, so the measurements aren’t going to be familiar if you are used to standard. Fortunately, most measuring tools come with both the standard and metric measurements marked.
Get Listening and Learning
There is so much content on YouTube that there is bound to be a channel for you, regardless of your current German language skills. It is a great way to immerse your brain while doing chores, exercising, or just relaxing.