About

About Deutsch für Euch

then and now

Deutsch für Euch is a YouTube-based teaching project for German. The channel was founded in late 2012, with its first video going live on January 6th, 2013.
Since then, DFE’s 300+ episodes have gathered a total of over 10 million views on YouTube and inspired more than 200 000 people to subscribe to the channel – and thousands more across social media. That’s way more than I could have ever imagined when I started my “little” project!

grammar is sexy

With 7 years under its belt, DFE has grown into a colorful collection of free video lessons all about German and Germany – but its main focus has always been thorough, yet palatable explanations of grammar. I am an analytical learner myself (translation: I really like systems. And lists. And things that make sense. And lists of things that make– you get the point.)
Most language courses treat grammar as something to be done with as quickly as possible… or feed to learners like medicine to a dog. DFE was created with the firm belief that grammar gets a bad rap with learners and teachers alike. While grammar alone won’t get you talking, truly understanding it instead of “feeling it out” has immense benefits, especially for adult (!) learners. You have a logical brain – don’t be afraid to use it! Grammar is like language math!*

*I realize that does not necessarily make it sound more appealing – let me put it this way: You would be amazed how satisfying it is to look at a long, complex sentence and be able to exactly identify what each word “does” – instead of throwing your arms up in desperation or playing an anxious round of “how do I sentence”.

DFE's Style

I blame the bigger part of my personal grasp on the English language on growing up on the internet. This experience is what DFE owes its vlog-like appeal and style to. Throaway jokes and jumpcuts are what my generation grew up on – and you will find a lot of both in DFE’s videos. Though this is true for all episodes, the vlogger style especially lends itself to the occasional all-German content made for listening comprehension – because as much as I love grammar, exposure remains the number 1 ingredient in becoming (and staying) fluent. And if you find the right immersive content for you, it will even help with the actual number 1 of language learning, no matter your stage: motivation!
That’s why, along with the occasional video about the culture, people or history of Germany, Storytime videos keep learning fun even when you no longer have enough “Saft” (juice) left for the day to focus on another lesson about prefixes.

DFE's Core Ideas

From the very beginning, I built DFE around a few ideas and personal beliefs. Not everyone will agree – and that’s okay! School taught a lot of us that “one size fits all”, when really, learning methods can be as individual as taste. Find the method that works for you and don’t let anyone tell you they know better (unless they actually do, which is a thing that happens sometimes).

Family, Travel, Work, Langophilia - find your motivation, you won't learn without it!
Your brain loves analyzing & structure - that's grammar! Let's use that!
Immersion remains the most important part - combination is key.
Language is fun - and so are puns and dad-jokes (at least for me, so you'll have to deal with that now).

About Katja

Hallo, Leute!
I’m Katja, host and creator of Deutsch für Euch. I was born and raised in Germany, but spent a decent amount of my youth in an entirely different place: the internet. I – as many other teenage nerds – picked up a lot of English almost without noticing while playing video games and watching Anime, YouTube videos and StandUp-Comedy. Beyond that, I have my innate love for languages to thank for a lot of my progress – as well as for playing a big role in conceptualizing DFE.

Since those days of discovering the internet, I have learned another 3 languages – Russian, French and Japanese – and continue to pick up bits and pieces of more along the way (I even know a few words & phrases in Wolof!) …Honestly, I wish I could just learn them all, but – alles zu seiner Zeit!*

Apart from creating content for DFE, for these past years I have been studying to be a teacher with a triple major – linguistics being one of them. Juggling these two big responsibilities can get pretty intense, even overwhelming at times – but I enjoy both too much to give up on either one. I’m a big believer in finding what motivates you and seeing things through to the end!

*everything in good time