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learn german podcasts

Busuu Learn German

Have Fun Learning German Fast

Busuu German offers German learners a dynamic combination of online lessons, language exchange and mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android.

Busuu offers many of their features for free :) This includes picture-based vocabulary training, writing exercises, reading comprehension exercises, video chat, interactive exams and a bustling community for social exchange in German.

The Busuu system allows you to keep a track record of your German studies and mark your progress as you complete each lesson. You can work through your lessons at any time, enabling you to fit your study schedule into your daily life however you choose.

Find Friends and Practice or Exchange

Finding friends is easy in the Busuu community! Quickly search and contact other German learners to practice with as well as exchange partners to share and trade with. Plus, there's a free video chat function for easy access to language exchanges right in the same interface you're using to learn.

Busuu German Lessons

Stay Motivated in Style

In order to keep you motivated, Busuu has created a beautiful interface which allows you to grow and visualize your own language garden as you make progress learning German. If you are interested in learning more than one language, you will have a tree for each language that sprouts and shoots to the sky as you progress through the lessons and levels. It's quite a thrill to see this grow and know it's a visual representation of your language skills!

Free German Mobile App for iOS and Android

Busuu offers free mobile apps for learning German on the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android. The free app takes you through the basics for getting around, and is especially useful while traveling.

Your rating: None Average: 4 (2 votes)

GermanPod101.com Learn German Podcast

Summary

From beginner to advanced levels, GermanPod101.com is an excellent, all-around online environment for learning German. The Pod101 platform, method and technology provide the necessary tools to get you immersed in the German language and achieve the goals you desire and/or require.

Since GermanPod101.com is web-based, you can access your personal German Learning Center from anywhere, and it's really easy to download the podcasts and put them on your mp3 player (iPod, Zune, etc) or mobile phone to take them with you for practice and learning on the go.

One of the most important things when learning a language is good content - and GermanPod101.com has this, and a steady flow of it. This constant flow of fresh content regards cultural aspects of German you will want to know, interesting tidbits about navigating in German society (whether on vacation or living abroad), practical information about getting by and much more.

Your German Learning Center brings together audio podcast lessons, lesson notes and checklists, transcripts, PDFs, video lessons, vocabulary training with flashcards and quizzes plus a German dictionary, grammar bank, a verb reference and plenty more.

And if you enjoy asking questions and learning from and helping other learners, a forum is available for all users.

It's simple to try it for free and upgrade if it works for you.

From Website

At GermanPod101.com, our goal is to make learning the German language easy and fun, while also incorporating culture and current issues into our lessons. We believe that the more you speak, the quicker you learn, so we have designed our program to get you speaking right away. Situational German is heavily stressed, and our team role plays various situations to demonstrate the proper form of German to use when speaking with friends, customers, executives, and so-on. Knowing the proper form to use separates good speakers from great speakers.

GermanPod101.com was developed with the hope of showing the world how fun and easy learning German can be. Here at GermanPod101.com, we truly believe that learning can be fun, while at the same time convenient. We know how busy you are and that each day brings unexpected surprises. That is exactly why we bring the lessons to you and let you decide when they start.

Our innovative, fun, and easy to use language learning system is designed to get you speaking and interacting from the very first lesson. Learn German at your own convenience and pace with short, effective, fun daily lessons and a comprehensive, state-of-the-art Learning Center that provides you with the tools to take your German to the next level! Our interactive learning system consists of free daily audio podcast lessons, accompanying PDF materials, a Premium Learning Center, and a vibrant user community.

Our Method

GermanPod101.com offers a unique learning experience that cannot be found in conventional classrooms. In addition to offering lessons that can be completed on your own time, we approve all of the content we release through a government certified German teacher. Here are just a few of the revolutionary advantages of our method:

Exposure to native speakers and many different kinds of voices and speaking styles…

GermanPod101.com aims to have you speaking German after just one lesson! Our lessons focus on pronunciation and listening comprehension, so that you can start practicing what you learn from our professional teachers. Inside the PDF you will find the necessary tools for reading comprehension, and thorough explanations of phrases and key grammar points, in addition to segments on cultural insight. To address speaking practice, we have state-of-the-art software to allow you to record your own voice so you can compare your pronunciation to our teachers and continue to refine your speaking skills.

When all the aspects of GermanPod101.com are put together, this program provides students of German with ultimate self-study learning course. In addition, we often provide conversations between three people to more closely simulate real-life situations.

Fresh, up-to-date content...

Many German teachers who live overseas have been out of the country for a long period of time and can be “out of the loop” on current words, culture, etc. This is another major gap that we fill. Lessons are carefully crafted to include current events, words, celebrities, and so-on. This is very dynamic content.

Borderless education on-demand...

We also fill a definite demand in remote locations. Our lessons provide you with a mobile classroom, as we bring you German on Demand. German lessons wherever you may be.

GermanPod101.com offers our listeners a unique learning experience that delivers cutting-edge, dynamic content to be accessed at your convenience. With the inclusion of our lesson notes and Learning Center, we offer a full solution that provides the material, guidance, exercises, and testing to really make the knowledge your own. And it doesn’t even stop there - our vibrant and extremely helpful community provide each other not only quick answers to questions, but also give each other a sense of encouragement and motivation that is often lacking.

We focus on German, and German only...

Just German! All we do is German. GermanPod101.com is not a generic package language learning course, such as some of the other big name language learning programs out there. Many other programs “scale” their solutions across several languages, simply recycling the same material over and over - the same pictures, the same conversations, just in a different language. But each language is unique, and at GermanPod101.com we pride ourselves on developing a system that’s only about the German language and German culture!

One stop studying...

Have you ever found yourself lost on the information highway? Sometimes it’s like trying to drink from a fire hose! Hundreds of bookmarks, all with varying levels of quality and credibility. You finally find a great site, but it only updates once a year! GermanPod101.com offers users one stop studying. The learning center has been carefully designed to provide you with the resources you will need to take your German to the next level.

Visit GermanPod101.com.

iTunes U Multilingual Mobile Language Learning

Summary

Apple recently released a new section of the wildly popular iTunes Store available through their iTunes software. This new section is called iTunes U, and collects podcasts from numerous universities and colleges to make them available for free download to your iPod or other mp3 player, mobile/cell phone, etc.

One of the sub-sections of iTunes U is (note: you need iTunes for this link to work) specifically for languages and language education - yay!

Currently there are 60 podcasts (probably more by the time you read this) available regarding both learning foreign languages as well as general topics regarding language in general. Many of these podcasts are called OpenCourseWare, considered Open Learning materials released in the Public Domain. This means they can be used truly freely by teachers and educators without worries about copyright issues - a big plus! Be sure to look at the license for each podcast to make sure of the licensing.

Apple Online Store

The podcast-based current courses available through iTunes U are English (Medieval and ESL), French, German, Greek, Japanese, Hebrew (various), Italian (Language and Theater), Romanian, Spanish (various) plus Language Technology and Lectures, Interviews, Clubs, Lectionary at Lunch and Storytelling Colombian Style. There are many more, too.

This is really exciting to see at this professional education level. Of couse, add this to the 982 language podcasts in the "regular" (non-iTunes U) iTunes store and that makes over a whopping 1,000 language-related podcasts for download through iTunes - all free. :)

Watch the iTunes U intro video below to learn more about this new feature:

From iTunes U

iTunes U puts the power of the iTunes Store to work for colleges and universities, so users can easily search, download, and play course content just like they do music, movies, and TV shows.

Always in session.

iTunes U delivers easy, 24/7 access to educational content from hundreds of top colleges, universities, and educationally focused organizations across the country. And it’s accessible to anyone with a Mac or PC.

Learning to go.

Students can sync iTunes U content with any iPod or iPhone, so they can go right on learning while they grab a meal, walk to class, or work out at the gym.

iTunes U Language University

Keeps them motivated.

Engaging students on their home turf, iTunes U offers audio and video that make subjects more vivid than any printed page ever could.

Open-minded.

iTunes U lets schools open all or part of their content to the public, from parents to alumni to anyone with a love of learning.

Find out more about iTunes U.

Your rating: None Average: 3.8 (24 votes)

About Pukka German

Pukka German a free audio podcast for intermediate to advanced German learners. The Pukka German podcast focuses on real-life German, including colloquial German, slang, German idioms and funny German sayings. A few example podcast topics are Oktoberfest, Gobsmacked, Money, Party and Like Clockwork.

The lesson audio, podcast transcripts and vocabulary lists are totally free and there is an option to become a pro member to gain access to online quizzes for a reasonable price. Pukka German is vibrant and filled with useful content for people that want to learn the kind of German language that is used in everyday life. The podcast production quality is that of proper studio recordings and the website is quite colorful as well.

Overall, this is an excellent, vibrant, relatively new podcast for students of German. Bravo Lisa and Tyler!

From PukkaGerman.com

Who is Pukka German for?

Our German podcast is aimed at independent learners of German of all ages from intermediate to advanced levels. Whether you are a student, business professional or a language afficionado you will find plenty of useful material on the site to help you speak more fluent and interesting German.

We do not teach beginner German so you will need to have the German basics under your belt already to get the most from our German podcast and online quizzes.

Pukka German Inspiration

On arrival in Freiburg, I realised that in order to properly integrate and enjoy living out here, I was going to have to learn German.

Immediately I devoted considerable energy to learning the German basics as quickly as possible. I used language learning software, CDs, a multitude of books, online resources and also took German language classes. In fact Lisa was quite taken aback by my motivation and she worried that I had some kind of compulsive disorder that she'd failed to pick up on during our time in Scotland!

Pukka Learn German Language

On arrival in Freiburg, I realised that in order to properly integrate and enjoy living out here, I was going to have to learn German.

Immediately I devoted considerable energy to learning the German basics as quickly as possible. I used language learning software, CDs, a multitude of books, online resources and also took German language classes. In fact Lisa was quite taken aback by my motivation and she worried that I had some kind of compulsive disorder that she'd failed to pick up on during our time in Scotland!

Unfortunately, I soon noticed that the language I learnt from text books was very different to the colourful language that I heard being used socially. It frustrated me that despite all the time and energy I'd invested to improve my German, I battled to understand what seemed to be the most entertaining conversations. I also felt cramped in my ability to express my personality and bring humour into conversation. It didn't take much to realise that it was the idiomatic language, the colloquial expressions and equally important, the German slang that I was missing.

Fortunately for me, I had Lisa who not only did me the favour of speaking with me in German from my first week here, but she also explained many of the useful German expressions, that my private studies hadn't exposed me to.

This obvious difference between textbook German and the language used by a large percentage of the Germans I was meeting is what inspired the creation of the Pukka German podcast. My vision with Pukka German is to help learners of German to bridge this divide, which normally is only achieved with a patient native speaker at your side.

A German podcast seemed the perfect solution because it allows subscribers to hear new vocabulary in context and spoken by a native speaker. Podcasts are also great for regular delivery of content, which is super for language learning.

Visit Pukka German.