Once my students have acquired a basic knowledge of German they often ask me what other text (rather than just their textbooks) they could read.
One answer is: German newspapers or magazines!
Most newspapers nowadays have a website with lots of news and other topical information. Some have newsletters you can subscribe to and some even have apps for your smartphone.
There are so many to mention, that is is almost impossible to suggest any. One way is to type some German keywords (of topics you are interested in) into google together with the word Zeitung (newspaper) or Zeitschrift (magazine) and see what pops up. If you already read some English magazines online, try and change the “co.uk” into”de”. If there is a German equivalent to your magazine it will appear. You can also google for German online magazines/ newspapers. You’ll find lots of websites with long lists of links to work your way through.
If you don’t fancy checking those long lists, try some of the suggestions below:
The Bildzeitung is the German equivalent to The Sun, which means lots of pictures and short stories. As a lot of the articles are up-to-date news it is easier to read if you have already read or watched the news in English.
The Bunte is a magazine similar to OK! Magazine.
Das Beste , the well known Reader’s Digest magazine, doesn’t have up-to-date news but lots of topical and useful information.
Car enthusiast may wish to check out Autobild
Brigitte and Freundin are women’s magazines with fashion tips, recipes, healthy ideas, etc…
If you are interested in health magazines, have a look at Women’s Health Deutschland or Men’s Health Deutschland.
General weekly magazines which cover interesting topics, but are a little bit more difficult to read, are Stern or Focus
I hope, that at least one of these magazines has something of interest for you.
Tell me what you think of them or let me know of other interesting magazines that you can recommend.
Some great ideas there, Angelika. In fact many of those ideas – e.g. Google searches – would work whatever language you are learning, not just German. And the fact that most of these publications have online versions means that their German content is easily available in other countries … you don’t even need to buy the newspapers or magazines!
Absolutely! There is enough info online for free and if somebody was THAT dedicated, they could still buy the magazines.
And yes, the google search works for all languages – it’s fascinating what you can find!