300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. There are endless YouTube channels for everything from cute dog and cat videos to educational channels and, of course, channels that can teach you German. Obviously, I’m not the only one making videos to help you learn German. In fact, I’m personally subscribed to about 70 channels that I use in my German classes every year. Some of them focus on culture, some on language and some on both. Today I want to show you 12 of my favorite YouTubers that can help you learn about the German language, people, and culture.
Let me preface this post by saying that this is not a “top 12” or a “countdown”. I put these channels in an order that allows me to make good transitions from one channel to the next. I’m not telling you to subscribe to one of these channels. I’m telling you to subscribe to all of these channels. Follow them on their social networks. Support them on Patreon. Buy their ebooks and merchandise. Download their apps. If you are serious about learning about the German language and culture, all of these channels are for you. Links to all of these channels plus their social networks and websites are listed after each channel description and video examples. So without further ado, let’s get started.
Let’s start things off with one of the fastest rising German teachers on YouTube and for good reason. German with Jenny is currently sitting at around 135,000 subscribers and is rising every day. She does listening comprehension videos, grammar lessons, and lessons that focus on the usage of a single phrase or verb in specific situations. The last category I mentioned is my personal favorite. She takes a simple phrase like “I used to…” and builds an entire lesson around that one phrase. It is an amazing way to make lessons more easily digestible and allows you to target a language goal with pinpoint accuracy. If you are looking for a great example of what to expect from Jenny, check out her video about the phrase “I got used to it…”.
If you want to follow German with Jenny on YouTube or any other platform, check out the links below. Subscribe on YouTube Website Patreon Facebook Twitter Instagram
A channel that makes videos that are very similar to the style of German with Jenny and are also at about the same level of popularity are those from the channel Learn German with Anja. Anja is a very high-energy and entertaining German teacher who uploads a wide variety of videos. She does some vlogs about where she is traveling, as she is currently on vacation. She gives tips on the common mistakes that German learners make, pronunciation help, and short topical vocabulary lessons. I personally love her video about 10 German Animal Names You Must Know.
If you want to follow German with Anja on YouTube or any other platform, check out the links below.
If you are looking for German grammar lessons that teach you in a way that no one else can and you want to learn German faster, more efficiently, and effectively, you need to subscribe to smarterGerman. His lessons on German grammar are fantastic. He has a method of helping you remember which gender German nouns take that I haven’t seen on any other channel on YouTube and he even has an app for that now. He also has an app for his method of learning irregular verbs in the Präteritum and Perfekt tenses in German. His tips, however, are just a sampler of the things that Michael can teach you about the German language. He has a full course available on his website that can take you from A1 to B1 in just 3 months. His partner in crime, Margareth, composes music especially for German learners to help them with one of the most difficult tasks: the German sentence structure. smarterGerman should definitely be on your subscription list, if it isn’t already.
If you want to follow smarterGerman on YouTube or any other platform, check out the links below.
You can’t have a list of German language YouTube channels without talking about Deutsch für Euch. Katja may not have a lot of time to make videos nowadays, but her channel has plenty to keep you busy for a long time. She has one of the most complete and detailed German grammar video courses and it is completely free. Start with her very first episode about German pronunciation from 2013 and watch every video from beginning to end. Every episode of Deutsch für Euch is packed full of amazing information and is definitely worth watching. Even though she doesn’t regularly upload anymore, you should still subscribe to her channel so that when she gets back to making more videos you won’t miss out on what she has planned next. If you want to make sure you don’t miss anything, you should hit the bell notification button, so you get a notification when she uploads something new.
If you want to follow Deutsch für Euch on YouTube or any other platform, check out the links below.
One of my favorite videos by Deutsch für Euch is her very first episode about pronunciation in German, but if you are looking for more help with your pronunciation, you should check out the next channel on my list, LanguageSheep. Want a video about the pronunciation of the “ch” sounds in German? This channel has 5. Do you have problems with the German “R”? There are 3 videos for that. How about umlauts? Yep, they have that covered. While I personally love their videos about pronunciation, they also offer a variety of videos that can help you prepare for that German proficiency exam you have coming up. From A1 to B1, they have you covered for exam preparation videos. This channel doesn’t upload on a regular schedule either, so make sure to click the bell notification button for this one, too.
If you want to follow LanguageSheep on YouTube or any other platform, check out the links below.
One of the channels that I have been following for a very long time is Easy Languages. They have been on YouTube since 2006! I have been following them for so long that I remember when their channel was called “Mag auch sein” and they were uploading videos under the name “Solar Net”. Way back in 2008 they uploaded a video in which Cari creepily stands in front of a local grocery store and asks people what they bought in German. It included German and English subtiles on top of each other and this was my introduction to their channel.
Since then they have opened up several other channels and the one I would suggest you follow and support, of course, is Easy German. They started out going out into the streets in Germany and asking simple questions to native German speakers. This is fantastic for learning conversational German, increasing your listening comprehension, and expanding your vocabulary. It is also great for picking up those little things in German that native speakers seemingly randomly throw into sentences like “doch”, “denn”, or “ja”. I’ll give you a hint, these things aren’t random.
Now Easy German uploads three kinds of videos. Wednesday is labeled “Super Easy German”, because these videos are for the beginners. Sundays you will still get the street interviews that they are known for. Occasionally, they also upload a video in which Cari answers questions from the viewers. Long story short, if you want a video about a particular topic in which almost nothing is scripted and you can just hear native German speakers talk about that topic, search for it on Easy German’s channel and you will most likely find it.
If you want to follow Easy German on YouTube or any other platform, check out the links below.
Sometimes the videos on Easy German can be a bit too fast paced for some learners, as the native speakers are talking at their normal rate of speech. This can be incredibly frustrating, so if you are looking for someone to slow things down for you, you need to subscribe to Authentic German Learning with Marco. His videos are always in German and most of the time they include subtitles. One of the cool things about Marco’s channel is that he uploads a lot of videos about motivation and keeping a clear mind when learning German. He talks about the struggles of learning German and how you can overcome the hurdles you may face. He also does occasional travel videos and vlogs, which are also entertaining and at a rate of speech that beginners can comprehend.
If you want to follow Authentic German Learning on YouTube or any other platform, check out the links below.
Another German guy who talks slowly enough for German learners to understand is VlogDave. He does videos about grammar topics and common mistakes by German learners, but his vlogs are where Dave really sets himself apart from the crowd. His vlogs are well planned out, carefully curated, beautifully edited works of art. They include German and English subtitles together just like on Easy German. His video about exploring Cologne a few weeks ago was awesome. At just under 8,000 subscribers at the time I wrote this video script, VlogDave is definitely one of the most underrated and under-appreciated YouTube channels on this list. Go show Dave some love by subscribing to his channel. Go watch a ton of his videos and tell him in the comments that I sent you.
If you want to follow VlogDave on YouTube or any other platform, check out the links below.
While VlogDave isn’t very well known on YouTube, yet, his friend Dominik over at Get Germanized is the biggest name on this list. In 2013 I made a video about where you can learn German on YouTube in which I listed a ton of channels that were doing great things at the time. At that time Get Germanized had 5,516 subscribers. Fast forward to now and he has over 230,000 subscribers. His more recent videos have focused on German culture, specifically when it is compared to other countries and he has done a series of reaction videos in which he shares his thoughts as a German about videos that try to break down the German culture into a short clip. While these videos are entertaining and can definitely teach you a bit about the German culture and help you get past the nasty German stereotypes, his older videos are my favorites. In April he uploaded a long cut of a lot of his older videos about German grammar and vocabulary. This video includes quite a few videos that I have used in my German classes to teach specific topics.
If you want to follow Get Germanized on YouTube or any other platform, check out the links below.
Speaking of videos about the German culture, you can’t forget Don’t Trust the Rabbit. Trixi can teach you anything from the struggles of finding a new apartment in Germany to how to flirt like a German (which by the way includes Dominik from Get Germanized and Dave from VlogDave). Personally, I enjoy her videos about false friends in German and things that even German native speakers screw up, both of which are linked below, but her cultural lessons can be very insightful. Things like “How do Germans feel about learning of their own history?” or the nuances of the Berliner Dialect. She is full of entertaining anecdotes, insightful commentary, and well-thought out mini-lessons about the German language.
If you want to follow Don't Trust the Rabbit on YouTube or any other platform, check out the links below.
I use at least two videos made by Rewboss in my German classes every chapter. This means that my German 1 students will have seen at least 20 of his videos before moving on to German 2, where they will see more. I even make them watch his 1 hour long video about Berlin on one of the rare days out of the year when I am out sick. He is a British man who has been living in Germany for the past two decades. His videos about the quirks of the German culture are hysterical. My personal favorite is about the German transportation system, which if you look at it more closely, can be very confusing and contradictory. This is a part of a very entertaining series he did called “Surviving Germany”, which shows you some of the stranger things the Germans do from an outsider’s point of view. The most insightful of his videos, in my opinion, are the destination videos. He goes to a German city and tells you about the history of that city and shows you some of the sights. As I mentioned before, I show his 1 hour long video about Berlin in class every year. He recently did videos about Erfurt and Eisenach, both of which I visited while I was a high school student on my first trip to Germany. While he isn’t a German native speaker, his insights into the German language and culture are definitely worth clicking the subscribe button.
If you want to follow Rewboss on YouTube or any other platform, check out the links below.
The other non-native German speaker on my list can also show you some entertaining quirks of the German culture. Dana on the channel Wanted Adventure is an American woman who moved to Prague and while living there she met a nice German man and fell in love. She has since been living in Germany and making videos about her experiences in Germany as compared to her life in the United States. Her videos show you a perspective on the German culture that no other channel on YouTube can. She is like a one person Germany vs USA channel, but since Germany vs USA hasn’t uploaded a video in 2 years, her channel is your best option. Now that she has introduced “Mr. German Man” to her channel, she officially has both sides of the conversation just like Germany vs USA used to. Her video about asparagus is one of my favorites, because I had no idea that asparagus was such a serious topic. My students enjoy it, because they think everything in the video is an inappropriate joke. While I’m not sure if she did that on purpose or not, it definitely makes for an entertaining video. While phallic jokes may be entertaining, it is Dana’s personality that makes her videos come to life. She brings you insight into the German culture with such joy and energy that you can’t help but watch her videos with a smile on your face. If you don’t already have a smile on your face, go subscribe to her channel and get one.
If you want to follow Wanted Adventure on YouTube or any other platform, check out the links below.
So that’s my list. I know there are other YouTubers out there who can teach you about the German language and culture. This isn’t an exhaustive list. These are just my favorites. Let me know in the comments below who your favorite German YouTubers are. Are you already a fan of someone on this list or did I leave someone out in an egregious oversight? Let me know your thoughts.
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