If you are a beginner: babbel.com

If you are a beginner (A1-A2) you should
1. Really take a course at a good language-school,
if possible at the local Goethe-Institute ( www.goethe.de ).
Language is about communication.
It is hard to communicate only with a book or a computer-program.
I do recommend here a lot of relativly cheap CD-ROMs and even more
free Internet-exercises,
and sometimes no teacher at all may be better than a very bad teacher,
but IF you can find a course then go there
and use CALL (Computer-assisted language learning) as a help!

2. Buy a good book - a good book really helps (and it helps your teacher!).

If you have no money or cannot buy a good book anywhere
-> buy a bad one
and use all free online-exercises and courses you can find!
On this page you will find many of the best!!!
Use them even if you have a good book and a good course!
You need lots of exercise(s) to master German ;-)
And using CALL is ideal for this!

A good book means: a good and modern one from Germany,
not one 50 years ago from somewhere. ...
(I have seen many from many countries).
It is not a good sign, if your course does not work with a good book ...
(teacher too lazy, director too greedy, the whole staff not very competent or active - anyone disagrees? Please comment or send me a mail!).
Check at amazon.com / .de
whether the old course book got at least positive reviews!
A good book should come with a CD-ROM - especially, if you learn on your own:
Here a list of my favourites (you can buy all books on amazon) and their online-exercises:

"Themen aktuell 1“ the book is not just a bit old by now (first edition 1993),
but it was internationally the most successful ! And it is still a good book.
Many teachers still use it, and “Hueber” (its excellent publisher) is pushing sales:
Nowadays the book costs 15€ and you get a very good free CD-ROM
and free audio-CD included! The workbook is very good too!
(And it is easy to copy the Hueber-CDs but you do not want to do that, do you!?)

There is no CD-ROM for “Themen 2“, but maybe in 2010
Themen 3 is not half as good as 1 or 2 (yes there are 3 different versions, but I like none)

Themen offers many free online-exercises for Themen 1+2
(But at least 15 times more on CD-ROM)

http://www.hueber.de/shared/uebungen/themen-aktuell/lerner/uebungen/index.php

If you or your teacher liked “Themen”, but you want something more modern, go for:
“Lagune” (same main author, same publisher Hueber).
More phonetic, more listening, more reading, more writing !!! (maybe less speaking?)
It is very easy to understand and to teach.
There is Lagune 1, 2, and 3 each with a CD-ROM that will cost 20 Euro extra.
“Lagune” offers lots of free exercises

http://www.hueber.de/shared/uebungen/lagune/index.php

If you feel too smart for Lagune, or lack the time and money, try:
"Delfin" It is a concentrated version of the 3 Lagune-books.
The 3 CD-ROMs are sold in ONE box, about 35 €, but it really would fit on one disc.
Many - but not all exercises in Delfin are the same as in Lagune (book and disc)
so buy either the one or the other, not both.

About 10% (=many) of the CD-ROMs exercises are also free at

http://www.hueber.de/shared/uebungen/delfin/lerner/uebungen/index.php


The newest and maybe best of Hueber’s books is:
“Schritte” or “Schritte international” (a few differences, but mainly the same)
There are 6 (!) books to Schritte, each including a workbook and a free CD with
audio and interactive (read: PC) exercises. Only 13 €.

But you can get all exercises also for free at

http://www.hueber.de/shared/uebungen/schritte/lerner/uebungen/

If you can wait a bit: Soon (in 2009) there will be “Schritte plus” (an even newer version)
and soon there will be a CD-ROM with a lot of exercises for Schritte 1+2 (I hope).
It could become my Number one then!

Very interesting is the free online material for “Tangram” succesfull after “Themen”,
but before “Schritte”/”Lagune”. A good book, many like it, I don’t. But at:

http://www.hueber.de/sixcms/list.php?page=lernen_tana

you can find not only the “interactive exercises” but many interesting easy reading texts, jokes, cartoons etc. Highly recommended!

At the Hueber-homepage you can also find:
esp. for German at the workplace:

http://www.hueber.de/shared/uebungen/alltag/

For young learners:

http://www.hueber.de/shared/uebungen/pingpong/lerner/uebungen/

some exercises for other books (children or teenager) can be found also here
http://www.hueber.de/seite/lehrwerkservice_daf?tab=4


The other big German publisher is Langenscheidt:
Langenscheidt sells “Berliner Platz” which is popular for courses in Germany,
but not as good when living far away. The CD-ROM is packed with
exercises, but often more difficult to work with (“usability”).
Langenscheidt offers some parts of its CD-ROM online for free:

http://www.langenscheidt-unterrichtsportal.de/berliner_platz_band_54.html

or you get additional material for “Optimal” another Langenscheidt publication:
The CD-ROM A1 for beginners was ok, but the others I bought had sometimes
problems with the audio-files (no words, just bad sound). The free online-portal is

http://www.langenscheidt-unterrichtsportal.de/online-projekte_und_uebungen_148.html

The exercises here are not like the one on CD-ROM, but more demanding! Puzzles and open questions, interesting if you feel strong enough or if you have a teacher to help!

And for teenagers:

http://www.langenscheidt-unterrichtsportal.de/online-projekte_und_uebungen_184.html

Cornelsen offers also interactive exercises with their book “Studio D”:
Their CD-ROM has a glossary in many languages (including Arabic, Chinese, greek),
but the usability is not as comfortable as with the Hueber-publication. Have a look at:

http://www.cornelsen.de/sites/assets/studioda1/index.php
or for a bit more advanced learners:
http://www.cornelsen.de/sites/assets/studioda2/index.php

that is nearly all, but check also at
http://www.cornelsen.de/sixcms/detail.php/1.c.1120656.de

Schuber is a relativly small but competent Publisher - also online!
Try the exercises at

http://www.schubert-verlag.de/aufgaben/uebungen_a1/a1_uebungen_index.htm

There is an international multi-language German tv+radio broadcast:
“Deutsche Welle”
They even offer several (!) free (!) online-courses (not all really very good,but mostly ok) and a lot of great audio-visual material for German-learners (even news read in a slow’ version) :
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,2142,2055,00.html

And if you surf the internet you will find many pages some useful, others not
A good one (not only, even a beginners course is offered) for German pronunciation is:
http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~joyce1/abinitio/pronounce/index.html

Another interesting link is www.schellingstrasse60.de about people living in a house in Munich.


And there is a project to help anyone learn German at Wikipedia too:
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Topic:Learning_German
leading to this textbook -
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/German/Introduction
available also as a PDF version (279 KB, 210 pages)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikibooks/en/2/2d/German.pdf
It is a typical American course (far too much English, untypical “conversations”, too focused on grammar, ) , I do not recommend it. Still, it is free, offers audio (mostly by native speakers) and maybe it will suit you.
Only a bit better but offering only a few “lessons” is
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/BLL_German
Some useful advise at
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_to_learn_a_language
But better are the links there, like
www.babbel.com
which is excellent!
of course it is www.babbel.com and not babble.com

Lots of people who want to learn German (and other languages), and native speakers willing to help.
In the German chat, about a dozen people are usually active, if you find a nice one, you can start a one-to one chat. People will even help you with your questions and homework. Amazing!
(Put a photo of a pretty person as your identity, to increase contacts)
They also offer free exercises, not enough for a “course”, but helpful and interesting and without too much grammar-instruction.

Teachers beware of those lists with grammar-exercises in the internet
(so easy to print out )!
The language is too often unauthentic “not real German”, the language is abused
to present grammar only, and quite often the grammar is even wrong!
Written mostly by unqualified native German teachers or more often by
“qualified” non-native speakers.

If you have too much money you can buy the expensive courses by “tell me more”
or “digital publishing”(more than a 100 €). They are not bad, much better than
“Rosetta-stone” and other rip-offs.
“Tell me more” is especially good to train “speaking”.
Still, they promise “a bit more” than they do deliver.
“Tell me more” also offers real Tutors (not just the faked electronic-ones), that
means teachers that help you online with the course and check your work.
That is really expensive. Better get a real group if you can.