Key recommendations:
It is easy to get lost in the vast array of online sources. Some are good, others less so and deciding which is which is not so easy for a language learner. I highly recommend two sources I consider excellent: DW – Deutsche Welle (various links here) and Easy German.
If you are a beginning learner of German, work through all 100 lessons of the Deutschtrainer that you find at DW. Deutsche Welle is a broadcasting organisation owned by the German Federal Republik (Bundesrepublik) and is financed by tax money. Germany as a society has a vested interest in people from foreign countries, immigrants, refugees, expatriots on a temporary work assignment etc. being able to understand and speak German so as to participate in social life. Thus DW provides an excellent and highly developed source for learning the language – for free; from complete beginners to advanced, you can systematically build up or improve your language skills – from A1 to C2* and beyond.
DW started as an international broadcasting service (Auslandsfunk) in 1953 and has developed into an extensive online source for news, political and cultural topics, and a website for learning German. It is basically for self-study, but can be used in online-classes as well. I highly recommend working with all DW offers. Explore the site and decide for yourself what to do, depending on your level. If at a loss where to start, follow my recommendation above.
DW is a great supplement to any German class where a language trainer, coach or tutor (like myself) guides you through the process and offers you to ‘test’, try out and use what you have learned through self-study. A language class should be the place where you learn through communicating with others about those things that interest you most.
Besides providing German language learning resources, DW informs about German culture, topics of concern and current discussion, local and international news
Easy German is also a great place to go and explore.You find various real life videos on all language levels dealing with a wide array of topics; pod casts and event tips like workshops and meetups.
Working with those two sites is all you need to build up a solid foundation and continue with developing not only your language knowledge.
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You find further tips, resources and recomendations below. I will add gradually.
50 German Coffee Breaks offers a selection of fun little extra activities.
The internet is a treasure trove of authentic material that you can always dabble in if you have a tolerance for not understanding everything. Think of our natural inclination to talk to babies (and to cats and dogs and cars) even though we know they understand little in the beginning of their lives. We do it anyhow and this behavior is essential for them/us to develop language.
A good source for any topic is wikipedia.
If you are already on a more advanced level – it doesn’t have to be C1 or C2 (it basically, again, depends on your tolerance for things you don’t understand completely) – go to the internet pages of German TV channels. ARD and ZDF have what they call Mediathek where you can browse any thematic category you like. Here is an interesting documentary on ZDF of which the single episodes are around 25 minutes (so not too long): Hör auf mich! Wie wir uns besser verstehen.
Deutsch Perfekt: a magazine for learners of German. It provides articles and language practice material for all levels of learning.
Enjoy the process and don’t be a perfectionist!
* The level categories of A1 to C2 are just rough orientations and need to be treated cautiously and with a grain of salt. Language skills differ from person to person and are hard to describe adequately. Passing a C1/2 test e.g. does not necessarily mean you are capable of communicating on an advanced and comprehensible level. However, material you find created for the different levels will vary in its complexity.
Two practice books I can highly recommend are Grammar aktiv A1-B1 and Grammatik Aktiv B2-C1