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This guide points you to some of the Library's main resources that will support the German language classes on campus and so focuses on resources to help learn German, as well as resources that are IN German.
For a list of German Language classes at Carleton see the undergraduate calendar.
For students residing in Ottawa, the Ottawa Public Library has a number of resources that can help with learning German.
Language Dictionaries
- DWDS : Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (for more advanced learners, not a bilingual dictionary)
- Langenscheidt English-German/ German-English Dictionary
- Oxford Reference Online - bilingual dictionaries
- Pocket Oxford German dictionary: German-English; English-German
- Usage Dictionary English-German/German English
- WordReference.com: has German-English/English-German dictionary as well as a language forum so you can ask questions and get answers
Grammars & Workbooks
- German grammar: A quick study reference guide - a handy, 6 page pdf that summarizes main points for language learners
- A student grammar of German
- Basic German: A grammar and workbook
- Intermediate German: a grammar and workbook
- German: an essential grammar (Routledge essential grammars)
- Modern German grammar: a practical guide
- Modern German grammar workbook
Linguistics, language
- Contrasting English and German grammar: An introduction to syntax and semantics
- Developing writing skills in German
- The German language: A linguistic introduction
- The Germanic languages
- German linguistics : an introduction
- Mastering German vocabulary : a practical guide to troublesome words
- The structure of German, 2nd ed.
Reading Books in German:
- Books/Bücher: A Directory of Online and Other Sources of Books in German (not all link to free sites)
- Free German e-books This free page of a German e-book store offers a few titles, mostly as PDF files.
- New ngiyaw eBooks. Hard to find German works and authors are featured here, especially by and/or about women. Available in various formats.
- Internet Archive: many out of copyright works available for free. Search for a specific work, or in the advanced search you can add a custom field: language and specify German
- OpenLibrary- German Books
- Amazon.de Kindle : Top 100 free bestsellers Bit of a trick here: you can't download the free books from the German Amazon site if you have an Amazon.ca or .com account. However, many of these titles will be available for free there as well. So, you can use this link to discover titles, then go back to your home Amazon site and search for the title. Reminder: you don't have to have a Kindle device to read these books, just install the Kindle app.
- Our own collection of literature is mostly in print, and is mostly from literary authors
- You can look up a specific title of a book, or you can see all the works we have by a given author by going to the Advanced Search screen, changing the "any field" to "author/creator" and looking up the author by last name, first name:
- When you are looking at the full record for a particular book, you will see a virtual browse function at the bottom of the screen: this is quite useful for literature since all of the books BY a certain author, and ABOUT an author are found in the same area and you can use the arrows on screen to browse through titles. You will notice that English translations of German texts will usually be found beside the original German.
- You can look up a specific title of a book, or you can see all the works we have by a given author by going to the Advanced Search screen, changing the "any field" to "author/creator" and looking up the author by last name, first name:
Scholarly journal articles
- Omni: our easy-to-use search tool, right on the Library home page. You can limit results by language OR
- You can search some of our other recommended databases:
- Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) : for more linguistics related articles (e.g. grammar, syntax, morphology etc) as well as other language related aspects
- ERIC: for articles related to teaching and learning of German
- Scholars Portal Journals: a full-text collection of thousands of scholarly journals, covers all subject areas
- Web of Science Core Collection : Don't let the name fool you: covers social sciences topics too. You'll be able to see if other articles have cited the ones you find in your search
News & Magazine Sources
We subscribe to a number of databases that have the full text of magazines, newspapers, and and other news sources from around the world
- Factiva full text news from around the world. Some important notes for finding material in German
- Note that the default date limit is "in the last 3 months", so change as needed
- You can choose one or more specific sources to search, example: Die Zeit
- You can choose to search news sources from one or more cities, countries, or regions. Example: sources just from Berlin or Vienna
- Very important: Remove the default language= English and add language = German
- Nexis Uni - you can do a keyword search in German and then filter results to specific regions or specific sources. All dates are included by default
- Press Reader - access over 5000 newspapers and magazines from over 100 countries. 90 day backfile only. Language or country can be selected from menu on the left, and then subcategories by topic. For example, there are over 300 titles from Germany
- Deutsche Welle
- Euronews - video and text of current news from a consortium of European national broadcasters
- Tagesschau - TV news produced by the NDR (North German Broadcasting channel)
- Logo - the news in German aimed at children, so best for beginner learners
- Nachtrichtenleicht - aimed at language learners, articles include audio of someone reading each article in slower, clearly enunciated German
Our Collection:
- Do a Keyword search in Omni for a specific title or by topic.
- Once you get your results, limit the "Resource Type" to "videos" . (NOTE: you will probably have to click on the "Show More" to see the video options)
- Limit the language to German
- If you only want to see videos available via online streaming, limit the "Availability" to "Available online"
- You can request physical DVDs through our Curbside Pick-up service.
- We also have 2 streaming video database you can search
- Films on Demand
- Kanopy - films not already part of our collection can be requested
Other Video Sources
- YouTube: you can find a huge amount of free German language videos
- Internet Archive: search by topic and then limit results using filters: media type = movies & language=german
- Your favourite video streaming service, for example:
- Netflix: just search "German" and you'll get a large selection of TV shows and movies. Many of these default to an English dubbed version, so just change the audio to German and then choose your preferred subtitles: English or German. Great shows such as Dark, Babylon Berlin,
- Prime Video: many movies and TV shows have dubbed versions, just check the audio options once you start watching. Now's your chance to watch Downton Abbey in German.
- BBC Languages - German: now an archived site, but has videos plus a lot of other material for learning Spanish
- Deutsche-Welle: Learning German a number of online resources for helping learn German including audio courses, courses for different levels....
- Ultimate Guide to Watching German TV Online - very detailed blog post on how to and where to access German tv online
Listening to German music and following along with lyrics, can be a great way to improve your language skills, especially with pronunciation. Listening to audio podcasts is another way to get your ear familiar with rhythm, tone, flow of a language
General sources:
- Deutsche-Welle: Learning German a number of online resources for helping learn German including audio courses, courses for different levels, for example:
- BBC Languages: German resources for learning German including audio, video....
- Ottawa Public Library: Mango Audio and text, each language course consists of 100 lessons. You must use your Ottawa Public library username and password to access Mango (anyone who lives in the city of Ottawa can get a free username and password, contact your local branch )
- The OPL has many other language learning resources: browse by going to their advanced search screen, limit Language to German and Collections to "adult language learning"
Music & Lyrics:
- Lyrics Translate:German-English - you can see the original lyrics, plus translations
- AZ Lyrics - search by artist or song
- Lyrics.com - search by artist, song, or album
- Lyrics gaps: German - choose a song, then a level and listen along to a song and choose the correct missing word in the lyrics
- Sing Deutsch - listen/watch along with lyrics, translations, and grammar analysis
- Youtube: keyword search a song or artist with the word "lyric" to find lyric videos, e.g. Kontra K
Curate your own playlist, or discover German language music using your preferred way of listening to music, here are some examples:
- Spotify : Best of German Music
- Tune in: German Music - lists a number of German radio stations you can stream live
Free Podcasts:
This list is for free podcasts: there are many other great podcasts for learning German that you must pay for so I am leaving those off of this list.
- From Deutsche-Welle:
- Radio D podcast: A1, A2 levels (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages)
- Warum Nicht? : Look for it via your favourite podcast hosting site. A1, A2, B1 levels. There are a number of series to this one.
- MarketPlatz: B2 level . Business German just go to The Episodes pull down menu and choose one, that way you can get pdf transcript
- Slow German: follow along with transcript, speed is a bit slower than natural speech making it better for lower level learners
