Read German news — sentence by sentence
A German newspaper feels hard because of a few special words and three grammar tricks. Learn those, and news gets much easier. Tap any sentence below to see what it means.
How to read one article (15–20 minutes)
1. Read the headline and first sentence only. What is it about?
2. Go sentence by sentence. Tap it, read the meaning, hear it, say it once out loud.
3. Always ask: who says this? Words like laut, soll and sei mean: someone else says it, it is not proven.
4. Answer the questions. Tomorrow, read the same article again without help.
Hinglish: ek article, ek-ek sentence. Har sentence par tap karo, matlab padho, bolo. Kal wahi article bina madad ke dobara padho.
1. Practice article
This is a made-up practice text (not real news) in newspaper style, level B1. Tap a sentence.
Step 1 — small pieces. Read one piece at a time:
Step 2 — easier German, same meaning:
Still hard? No problem. Go to the next sentence and come back tomorrow.
2. Did you understand?
3. Three grammar tricks in every newspaper
laut / zufolge = "according to". The paper tells you who said it. Laut Polizei … = police ke hisaab se.
soll / sollen in news often means "is said to". Er soll das Geld genommen haben = kaha ja raha hai ki usne paisa liya — saabit nahi.
sei / habe (Konjunktiv I) = reported speech. Er sagte, er sei krank = usne kaha ki wo beemar hai. The newspaper only reports it.
4. 20 words you will see in every newspaper
5. Your own article
Copy German text from a news website and paste it here. It is split into sentences. News words from the list above get yellow — tap them for the meaning.
Your text stays on your phone. We do not see it. Only when you tap Translate, that one sentence opens in Google Translate (a Google service). Machine translation can be wrong — check names, numbers and soll/sei yourself.
6. Easy German news — free, every day
- nachrichtenleicht.de — news in easy German from Deutschlandfunk, with short sentences and a word list.
- tagesschau in Einfacher Sprache — short TV news in easy German, Monday to Friday at 7 pm on tagesschau24, also online and in the ARD Mediathek.
- DW Learn German — news and lessons for learners, including slowly spoken news.
Start with easy news. Read a normal newspaper when easy news feels too simple.
What this page can and cannot do
It can: explain one practice article fully, teach the 20 most common news words and the three news grammar tricks, and help you go through your own text sentence by sentence.
It cannot: translate your own text by itself (that opens Google Translate), explain every word of a real article, or read photos of printed newspapers. The voice 🔊 comes from your phone — some phones have no German voice.
More words: German words B1 · Your 6-month plan · Letter from an office explained