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There are many students who want to learn German but when asked tell us it is extremely complicated when they are faced with the obstacles of the German grammar and the overwhelming vocabulary. The German language might not be the easiest one to learn but it definitely is a very fascinating one. Particularly when you are a native English speaker you will recognize many similarities and find many clues that both the German and English language actually belong to the same family.

English students are usually surprised to find that actually German is the language most similar to English - more than any other language. This is due to the fact that English and German both belong to the same family of languages: The Germanic Languages. In Europe three language families dominate: Germanic, Romanic and Slavic.

It is interesting that in Northern Germany - which is close to England - the dialect versions of some words get quite similar to English.

This is probabaly why there are many web sites written in English doing a good job teaching German. They are able to use examples from English that most students can easily understand and then use them to better understand the respective German phrases.

A fact that makes it quite complicated for most people to learn German is that many text books are too complicated and boring. This is why students of the German Language prefer to turn to online tutorials to start learning the language.

There are many tutorials out there that provide illustrated examples or audio tutorials. The disadvantage of text books is always that they are exactly what their name suggests: Books with text. But to truly learn a language people need to hear and speak the language. This is why any type of multimedia tutorial is perfect for beginners.

If you want to find a free German language lesson you can easily find some examples on the Internet. However, most free lessons turn out to be just a trial version or the first part of a paid program or an expensive product.

In case you just want complete free German tutorials - check out this list of free German tutorials.

Although you may want to - do not use music and song lyrics to learn German. Many songs contain either a form of dialect, inappropriate slang or rude language. Too many songs twist the language around and are not good examples of German grammar. Some use very old-fashioned and poetry-style language. So don't use it.

Do not read German newspapers. Most of them are usually political and use a terminology which is not easy to understand. The sentences are extremely long, so usually when you get to the end you cannot remember what the beginning was. Newspapers are clearly for the advanced language learner. So please stay away from them when you start out.

To find the best online resources to learn German online check out the Learn German Links site. We constantly collect the best sites to help you master this difficult language.