This is a bookshelf I keep for places I like to visit on the web that are in German. The target audience here is people who are looking for a way to feel connected to Germany, either because they're in the diaspora, or recently moved there, or just want to practice their language skills. The priority here is for blogs to have a nice vibe.
The collection here is rather small – if you know of some good blogs and would like to share, feel free to send me an email!
english-language blogs based in germany
This section is for blogs that, although in english, are by a blogger who lives in germany and who sometimes writes about their surroundings.
german-language blogs
- balkonhörnchen – following the adventures of the squirrels that live on one german's balcony
- suggested reading level: can be enjoyed by anyone, although an intermediate level heightens the experience
- irgendwie jüdisch – a blog about photography and being Jewish in Germany
- suggested reading level: intermediate to advanced. many words have hovertext containing a dictionary entry for them!
- christowski – a blog which, in the words of its author, "sammelt seit 2006 Texte, Gedankensprünge, Zeichnungen und Beobachtungen aus dem Alltag. Ich interessiere mich für die Ränder der Dinge; die sind manchmal glatt, hin und wieder scharf, durchaus oft welk. Wenn ich kann, halte ich mich an ihnen fest."
- suggested reading level: advanced (although some posts are in english)
- txet – textual art by Sonja Knecht, whose primary language is German despite it not being her native language. Many of her projects involve translations.
- suggested reading level: most art can be enjoyed without knowledge of german!
- caasn – miscellaneous topics by a man who's been blogging since the early days of the internet
- suggested reading level: intermediate (although many casual turns of phrase are used)
- tati.at – a blog about everyday life, by a parent
- suggested reading level: intermediate
news
- deutsche welle – world news (available in a host of languages.) A reputable, non-partisan news publication. Similar vibes to Reuters.
- tagesschau – world news in a televised format
some language-learning resources
- hurraki – similar to Simple English Wikipedia, but in German! A great resource for those who aren't native speakers. The definitions are almost like stanzas, and read like poetry. I appreciate that they have a whole section on law (Recht und Gesetz).
- deepl – machine translation software, based in Germany. DeepL was once state-of-the-art, although its advantage over OpenAI's products now is that your data is protected under GDPR.