SchmetterDeutsch’s Vision

The vision of SchmetterDeutsch is to foster the love of the German language through rigorous but purposeful instruction, targeting all the areas of proficiency, while using gamified instruction to engage the learner beyond the traditional read, watch, quiz pattern of many online platforms.

Through interaction with each other, with a live instructor as needed, and with authentic German resources, students will achieve mastery in culture, geography, vocabulary, reading, grammar, writing, listening, viewing, speaking, and pronunciation.

Goals for the sight

This website is a new (and massive) project and a work in progress staff by a single, full-time educator in the United States. Here are my current goals:

By December 2025, stories 2-4 (levels A1.2 to A2.2) and all their resources will be „complete.“

By May 2026, stories 1 and 5 (levels A1.1 and B1.1) and all their resources will be „complete.“

By December 2026, stories 6 and 7 (levels B1.2-A and B1.2-B) and all their resources will be „complete.“

I love learning, and I would be earning new degrees in all sorts of different fields every couple of years if it was affordable. It’s not, but my dream if I ever get to that point financially is to pursue a M.Ed. in German and then a D.Ed. in Educational Psychology or Curriculum Design. I also dream of one day being AP certified. That is to say that a pipe dream of mine would be to extend this course into offered AP and Dual Enrollment one day in the future.

While you wait for your course to be added

For those who do not have the time to wait for that, here are some highly recommended resources to use (from which many of my resources will be pulled):

For vocabulary: Duolingo, BUT I do know there are some strong feelings there. With Duolingo, it’s not enough to just do the lesson and be done for the day. Streaks don’t matter. Try to keep a streak going, but don’t make keeping a streak as your motivation to learn. It’s not healthy, and it can impede your language learning journey as you may rush through a lesson just to keep the streak. Every single lesson, pause and repeat the sentences back to yourself. Even if it doesn’t ask, translate in your head what it means. If it does ask you to translate something, translate it without looking at the word bank. Quiz yourself after the lesson. Write sentences in English and then go back and translate to German. Then, do the same but in reverse. Now, try to create your own sentences. Switch out a word. If you learned over and over how to say „I drink a lot of milk,“ assign yourself to write „I drink a lot of tea.“ Lots of people say that Duolingo does not work, but I have learned Portuguese strictly through Duolingo and can understand and communicate both in Portuguese and English to a reasonable extent. It’s about using the app beyond just the minimum.

For vocabulary: Go to a website that allows you to make notecards. I recommend Quizlet or Blooket. Create the vocabulary you need to learn. Go back and study them. Learn them first where you see the German and then you provide the English. Once you got that down, reverse it. Once you have that, now add that you need to provide not only the English but also its noun gender. Perfect that and then add the final level of difficulty, the plural. It’s a long process, but it will make later topics much easier for you. You could do the same with verbs. Learn and provide the infinitive, then the third person conjugation, then the preterite, then then past participle, and then even the helping verb. I would advise at a minimum to learn the English to German and German to English.

For grammar worksheets: (https://nthuleen.com/teach/grammar.html
Nancy Thuleen has grammar worksheets, often with keys to check your answers on any grammar topic I can think of. If you feel that you need even more practice, go to ChatGPT and answer it to make you some questions and provide a key on that topic as well, providing limitless practice. HOWEVER, be mindful that AI sometimes gets things wrong. Most of the time, it does a pretty good job.

For grammar instruction: https://learngerman.dw.com/en/grammar
Has a sorted listed of various grammar topics with accompanying notes.

For grammar instruction: https://www.youtube.com/@yourgermanteacher
These guys make videos on many topics, and they delve extremely deep into all of them. Highly recommend. They also have a Patreon that I will not link here.

For viewing, listening, reading, grammar, and vocabulary: https://learngerman.dw.com/en/learn-german/s-9528 (and then navigate to Nicos Weg after choosing your level)
It’s a full curriculum that covers lots of material and comes with grammar, vocabulary, and culture notes that should be read BEFORE doing a lesson (in my opinion). It goes all the way from A1 to B1.

For listening, vocabulary, and writing: Find German music and highlight the words from the chorus you do not understand. Learn those. Then, try to see how much of it you can understand. Then, to practice listening, slow down the song to 0.7 (0.5 is too distorted, 1 is too fast). Try to dictate as much of it as you can. There is a website called Roxxem (https://www.roxxem.com/) that also has plenty of music possibilities. Roxxem can introduce you to many artists you may not have known prior. After, write a short paragraph on what was the name of the song, who sang it, what was the basic theme, what emotion you had, and if you like it (A1). For A2, you can do some of the same stuff, but start explaining why with basic reasoning (A2). For B1 and further, you can write a critique of the song or do a deeper analysis into the cultural relevance, context, and so forth of the song.

For pronunciation: https://learngerman.dw.com/en/abc/c-39621991
Pretty straight forward. They have a video for each letter of the alphabet as well as some of the common German diphthongs and consonant clusters.

For culture: https://www.youtube.com/@EasyGerman

For speaking and writing: I unfortunately do not know of any specific resources I have found that I believe are of the proper quality. With writing, you can type a daily journal, a story, a persuasive piece, et cetera into ChatGPT and ask it for feedback. This isn’t the best method, but a live tutor is the only other option I am aware of, which costs a lot of money. I will be willing to accept writing submissions for feedback, but