#647 overall
Nicos Weg
Deutsche Welle (DW)
1 recommender · 1 thread · recommended in 1 year, 2025 · score 0.7
Nicos Weg is a free German-language course from Deutsche Welle (DW) for beginners, running up to about B1. It teaches through a video drama with a recurring cast and a continuing storyline.
A commenter heartily recommends it for beginners, noting it is free and that its likeable characters and consistent storyline set it apart from typical language classes.
Recommendations by year
20062026
I used Duolingo maybe ten years ago to get myself up to approx A1, mid-A2 level German. Back then every new piece of grammar actually had an explanatory page that you could study before jumping in to the quiz games. As the enshittification began, they made these harder to find so that instead encountering a new linguistic concept in the quiz felt like a cruel guessing game.
For beginners to German these days, I heartily recommend the free “Nicos Weg” course from DW that goes up to B1 at least. Also has, unusually for language classes, a cast of likeable characters played by reasonably good actors carrying a consistent, building storyline throughout the lessons.