Website: German Language Articles on Wikihow.com

The site wikiHow.com has several articles on learning the German language. WikiHow is a site composed of "how-to" articles. The site works much like Wikipedia: anyone can add and edit pages on the site. In addition, the site is freely sharable for any non-commercial purpose.

The site's German page currently list 16 articles, as well as 5 articles that require further editing. The current articles cover basic German phrases and vocabulary, such as How to Talk About Yourself in German and How to Count to 10 in German. The articles usually describe how to pronounce the terms and gives learning tips.

The World Languages and Multiple Language Guides pages have articles for language learning in general. The site also has a Travel to Germany page.

The number of German language articles is currently pretty sparse and just covers basic vocabulary, but there is potential for users of the site to add more German language articles. (Writing a new article could be a great way to practice your German!) The standard setting is to have ads in the middle of the text of the article, but you can hide the ads by clicking on "Hide all ads" in the right column.

If you want practice reading German - or, for advanced learners of German, writing in German - check out the German version of wikiHow.com here.

Post your own review of the site below!

Website: Go.HRW.com - German

GO.HRW.COM: German is a website by the textbook publisher Holt, Rinehart and Winston to supplement their high school-level German textbook series called Komm mit! (Level 1 book on Amazon.com here - but you don't need the textbooks to use the site). The site offers interactive grammar, vocabulary and culture exercises.

German Language Interest Abroad

Recent stories about interest of the German language in other countries:

Ghana
According to the Goethe Institute in Accra, interest in the German language has increased in Ghana. Attendance at the Institute's annual German Cultural Festival has gone up, and schools in the area are interested in creating German language programs.

See the whole article on GhanaWeb here.

Seychelles
The Seychelles Minister for Tourism and Culture has asked the German Ambassador for assistance in creating a German language program at the Seychelles Tourism Academy.

See the whole article on eTurboNews here.

India
German is now being offered at the Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV) schools (schools for children of government employees) in Bhopal, and may be expanded to KV schools in other cities. Students who want to pursue a technical career are opting for German as a foreign language.

See the whole article in the Times of India here.

Play Games in German with Free Trial

Learn some new vocabulary while playing a game! Youda Games on MSN Games have an option to let you play the game in German.

After you've downloaded the game, go to "Options" in the game's main menu or click on the flag on the start screen, and then click on the German flag icon to set the language to German.

These games have a one-hour free trial (I didn't buy any of the games - I've just been playing the free trial).

Hidden Object

• Youda Legend: The Curse of the Amsterdam Diamond: Delve into the dark mysteries of Amsterdam on this haunting hidden object adventure!
• Youda Legend: The Golden Bird of Paradise: A tropical getaway turns into an all new mysterious adventure!

Time Management

• Youda Farmer 2: Save the Village: Stop the Big Boss' evil plans and save the village!
• Youda Safari: Give all the tourists a once in a lifetime holiday experience!
• Youda Sushi Chef: Sushi, Sashimi, Sake - build a restaurant empire and become the sushi master!
• Youda Survivor: Battle pirates, protect your tribe, and escape an isolated island!

Deutsch-Online-Lernen.com

Deutsch-Online-Lernen.com is the companion website to the Youtube German course DeutschOnlineLernen, reviewed by me in my last blog post. The site is created by Thomas P. Birkhoff.

DeutschOnlineLernen Youtube Course

DeutschOnlineLernen is a 20-part video course for beginning German on Youtube. The course covers basic German grammar concepts, such as noun gender and declension, basic verb conjugation and more.

A couple of sentences introduce each lesson; translations and vocabulary lists follow, reviewing and introducing the words used in the lesson. A basic grammar explanation is also given. A few translation exercises at the end review what you've learned in that lesson.

The videos are done in a "slideshow" format, similar to watching a PowerPoint, with audio. The voices used are clear, and the video and voices go very slow so it's easy to keep up and understand what's being said.

I feel that the videos might be good review for basic German grammar, rather than trying to learn the grammar from the video itself, since it might help to have some more explanation of the grammar when first trying to understand it. Also, in the vocabulary lists, the genitive endings are included along with the plural endings, which might be confusing, since the genitive isn't used or explained until later videos.

Overall, good videos for reviewing basic grammar concepts and picking up a few new words.

See lesson 1 of the course here. Write your own review of the course below!

(I will review the companion website, Deutsch-Online-Lernen.com, in the next blog post.)

CNN Article: Learning German through rock music

German indie rock band Madsen has been touring the US to perform concerts - and promote the German language.

See the article on CNN.com here.

How-To-Learn-Any-Language.com: German

How-To-Learn-Any-Language.com is a site "for people who love languages." The site is run by a Swiss entrepreneur named Francois Micheloud, based on his own experiences with learning languages (see the About page).

The site has a profile on the German language here, providing general information about the language and where you can use it (although I don't know if I agree that "few learn for pleasure" and that "few people speak any German" :) ). The site gives difficulty ratings for languages; German has a rating of three out of five. There is a copy of Mark Twain's "The Awful German Language." It also has an (unfinished) list of reasons to learn German.

The site hosts forums for members to discuss language learning in general (which are in English). There is also a forum in German here.(Posting to the forums requires a free account).

The site also has information about language learning in general.

Post comments below!

German Website Index

I have created an index for German learning and cultural websites. I will put the websites in an organized list, so you can find a website quickly and easily. So far there are only a few sites in the index, but I will add more regularly.

To access the index, click on the tab above named "Index" or click here: Index.

If you have a favorite website on German, let me know! Post it below in the comments section or email me (see About tab above).

Website: Vistawide.com

Vistawide is a website about "World Languages & Cultures." The website has a lot of information about language learning, both generally, like statistics over languages and language learning tips, and also for specific languages.

The German page has a list of pages on the German language. It has topics helpful for beginners, like Common German beginner mistakes and interactive German Practice Activities.

The site also has pages for links on German culture, from German Music to German Magazines & Newspapers, and even German Kinderlieder (children's songs).

Also check out out the German Links page for a list of links to other sites on German.

Basically, this site is helpful for beginners, or to find links for learning about German culture.

Post comments on the site below!