German fairy tales are not the best solution for totally beginners, however, it’s worth trying reading or listening to their easier versions (see below). They are ideal for learners who would like to improve their vocabulary and have great imagination and love to read, listen or watch fantasy genre at the same time. We are talking here about stories and films which were written or made by Germans. The plot is always great, the films are of highly quality and you will enjoy watching them.
READING
If you would like to READ fairy tales, then feel free to take advantage of the following possibilities:
Reading – EASY language:
Literatur in einfacher Sprache – when you are there just click on the Märchen box on the left hand side menu. These texts have been adjusted for kids with hearing impairment.
Goethe Institute has adjusted 12 most popular Grimm fairy tales for learners: Grimms Märchen zum Lesen
Grimms Märchen zum Hören: Goethe Institute has also provided a possibility for learners to listen to fairy tales. They are between 3 and 16 minutes long.
Listening – “NORMAL” language:
You can listen toGrimms Märchenas radio dramas too. When you are on that web page, just click on the links in the right hand side menu.
FILMS
If you would rather WATCH films, there are two possibilities for you:
Another valuable source of fairy tale films can be found here: Märchen TV(this is actually a real fairy tale TV!)
FOR TEACHERS
Materials provided by Goethe Institute that you can use for your classes can be found here: Märchen im Unterricht. You can find many other interesting stuff there. Just look at the tabs at the top of the page!
Good way to improve your German is to read stories, books and newspapers in German, online or in print.
If you’re looking for free resources with easy texts in German, you’re on the right place! Just scroll through the list below and find what suits you most.
This is an app that you can install and play on your phone. You choose a book that you wish to read and then the game starts. You’ll read sentences and watch different scenes; there are also some cute games for kids, but you can skip them and continue reading.
Texts at different levels, written especially for learners
Deutsch Perfekt is a magazine for German language learners. However, their web site is full of valuable resources. After you navigate to the above site you will be able to see that the texts are sorted by topics and if you look closer at each and every text you will see the mark “leicht” (easy) “mittel” (medium) “schwer” (difficult). Chose the text that you like and enjoy the reading!
Every single week you can find a new story on this site. You can read or print them out and enjoy them later and you could even install ‘einfach vorlesen’ as an app on your phone! We are talking here about short and simple stories for children who are 3 / 5 / 7 years old. This is definitely a great opportunity for German language learners! Enjoy!
The “Augsburger Allgemeine” journal was so kind to provide us with online news in easy language which is at the A2 and above level. Every Friday new texts are being published – for people with difficulties in learning and those who do not speak German well. The letters are large, every difficult word is explained, sentences are short and mages can help you understand the text better.
Easy stories in German, at different levels, with sound
This is a web page with stories in 3 different levels (easy, medium, hard) and in 8 different languages. It was created for kids who are starting to read. Also, it aims at kids who learn German as a foreign language (second language). All texts have been edited so that beginners do not have any comprehension problems.
If you prefer the “text + sound + video” combination – then this is the right thing for you. These videos with subtitles are showing easy stories and are interesting for children. Just pick up any language that you like, in this case, of course, German. 🙂
This story was writen by David Fermer – and it is not an ordinary story. It has multiple endings. It contains several short episodes (about 10 sentences long) and a question at the end of them – making you the one who will decide how the story goes on. And another advantage: you can read it online.
Interesting topics in German at A2 level and above
You should learn and practice a foreign language with topics that interest you the most. Quora in German is a perfect place for that. Language is not that difficult and you can read through other people’s answers to questions that could be interesting for you.
You will find here articles that were written by young journalists (kids). They write for their peers so you can expect vivid topics and interesting texts! They are grouped by categories: how we live, how we feel, what we like etc.
These stories have been translated into German, you can however read their English translation too and hear a slow audio from a native German speaker. They are great for kids but also for the adults!
There are two extra stories for you from this edition:
Do you struggle with noun gender in German? You don’t have to!
My friend Thomas Gerstmann has written easy stories consisting only (!) of basic masculine / feminine / neuter nouns! One book for each gender! Isn’t it ingenious?
And it’s also great that when you buy any of Thomas’ books, you get an access to the recordings of the books so that you can train your listening skills even before you read the books.
There are also 2 other books from Thomas: one of them is a story about a boy called Tim that at the same time deals with Konjunktiv 2 (subjunctive / conditional) and the verbs with prepositions and the last one in this edition is a story about a boy called Finn and deals with the present / perfect tense.
These books in easy German have been published by Langenscheidt. I recommend them very much. The stories are not too long, they contain many every day words, which is very important, and plenty of exercises at the end of each book.
Among books for children, my favourite isDie kleine Hexe. You definitely need to be at the A2 level in order to be able to read this book because it is full of Imperfekt. This is an “old-timer” among books for children and the best-seller of all times. It follows adventures of a little witch and it teaches kids what are the good values in life.
This is a publishing house specialized for “easy” books. Those books are good for native speakers who have some reading problems or for foreign learners. They offer best-seller novels, short stories, detective stories, classics etc. that have been adjusted to different language levels (A2 – B1). Order your book and enjoy!
