Language through Literature

The German Room


Eight tales in the German they were printed in — the Brothers Grimm and Johann Peter Hebel — with every word glossed where it stands and the English out of your eyeline until you ask for it. 8790 words across 368 sentences. «Der süße Brei» is free, entire, and no account for it; the other seven are part of the library — €5 a month or €39 a year, and the one subscription opens the German shelf and the Russian one alike.

Open the German room → Tap any word for its dictionary form and meaning; tap a sentence for the translation.

The eight, shortest first

TaleIn EnglishWordsSentences
Der süße Brei free The Sweet Porridge 222 6
Die Sterntaler library The Star Money 298 11
Kannitverstan library Kannitverstan 847 32
Rumpelstilzchen library Rumpelstiltskin 1003 38
Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten library The Bremen Town Musicians 1189 45
Rothkäppchen library Little Red Cap 1264 59
Der Froschkönig library The Frog King 1291 54
Hänsel und Gretel library Hansel and Gretel 2676 123

Shortest first, because that is the order a learner should meet them in. Der süße Brei is a few hundred words and can be read in a sitting; Hänsel und Gretel is ten times that. What each tale asks of a reader — lemmas, hapax share, words per sentence — is counted at Grimm, counted.

The same room, in Russian

This is one of two rooms in the same house, built on the same reader. The other holds fifteen Russian classics — Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky — with seven of them free. Auf Deutsch über den russischen Raum lesen →