After reaching the 100,000 fan mark on Facebook last week, DW has added yet another goodie to its array of German-language fun. With the new “Liebling” website, users can vote for their favorite renditions of German songs, by performers who are still learning German. Who is your liebling?

For their Ticket to Berlin game show, Deutsche Welle and the Goethe-Institut are conducting a worldwide search for nine people who are ready for adventure. For 10 days, contestants will travel all over Germany, fulfill certain tasks and meet interesting people. A camera team will accompany them on their journey and the videos of this adventure will be shown on the DW and Goethe-Institut websites.

If you or someone you know has what it takes to compete, they should register on the show’s website. We need a photograph that shows you in full (not just your face), plus a short video. You can upload both here just as soon as you have registered. The closing date for applications is 28 June 2012!

Find out more about DW’s German courses here.

Deutsche Welle (DW) is using a contest to develop a new kind of user-generated content for its award-winning radio series Learning by Ear. From now until June 30, young listeners in Africa will be able to submit their story ideas for a chance at having one of them produced and broadcast, as well as being turned into a community play.

So far, Learning by Ear has told the stories of many young Africans, like Jon-athan who dreamt of becoming one of the most successful soccer players in the world. Or 16-year-old Desirée who took care of her little brother follow-ing her mother’s death.

Now, Germany’s international broadcaster wants their listeners in Africa to share the most important lessons they’ve learned in life, or respond about the topics they want to hear more about in the future. The winning story will be turned into a new Learning by Ear series and adapted for the stage in the winner’s hometown, with the winning group in the production. Other prizes include cameras, a CD player plus a Learning by Ear fan package including t-shirts, CDs and much more.

Entries will be accepted until June 30, 2012 and winners will be selected shortly thereafter. The contest is open to young people under the age of 25 and groups need to be made up of at least five people. All participants must be from an African country.

Entries should include a written story no longer than one page; a list of the group members including their names and ages; and a photo of the entire group. All entries should be sent to lbe@dw.de.

Find out more about Learning by Ear or go to the contest website.

Yes and no. With the title An invisible woman taught me German, the Slate’s Mark Garrison gives a good overview of what DW offers language learners: “One of the best language lessons of my life came from a randy invisible woman named X, a talking owl with her own creepy theme song, and young sleuths with relationship issues.”

What might sound strange at first only highlights the wide range of German language courses available online from DW. According to Garrison: “Extensive and absolutely free offerings that are quite possibly the most unusual language courses around. They’re well worth checking out if you want to learn German.”

 

 

Jean-Philippe from Cameroon, Diandra from Romania and Minjie from China all have something in common: They are learning German with Deutsche Welle. They are also all part of a new series on our language-learning portal called CommunityD – das Porträt.

Each month, we will be presenting a new pair of language learners from around the world. In total, more than 120 individuals will be highlighted and explain (in German), why they are learning German, what "typical German" means or what their favorite German word is.

DW's German learning community is growing daily. "Learn German with Deutsche Welle" already has more than 37,000 fans on Facebook.