Learn German
“Never knew before what eternity was made for. It is to give some of us a chance to learn German.” ~ Mark Twain
Despite national and even regional differences, Standard German is used and understood across the German-speaking world.
You can use the links below to explore online resources, books, podcasts, etc. and to locate German-language classes for all levels from beginners to advanced speakers in the United States.
German has a reputation for being a difficult language, as the quick-witted and sharp-tongued Mark Twain implied, but we assure you that you won’t need an eternity to master the fundamentals. Having common roots with English, it’s easier than you might think, and practice does make perfect. German is not just spoken in Germany, but in many adjacent countries as well. Surveys have shown that German is one of the world’s top ten most commonly spoken languages, along with English, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, French, and Russian. The United States still has more than 1 million people who use German on a daily basis. Of course, that’s a far cry from the distant days of the late 19th century when New York City had the third-largest number of German speakers in the world. German is a useful language to learn, and speaking German will open the door to converse with more than 95 million people in their native tongue.