Was sollte ich lesen, bitte?

March 9, 2014 2:54 PM

Please help me find some interesting german-language blogs or online magazines or articles to read on my commute.

I speak reasonable german (upper intermediate/C1 level) and am looking for things to read on my commute. I read novels already, but I am so slow it takes me months to finish a novel, and I'd like something a bit quicker that I can skim.

I already read nationalgeographic.de, and the Zeit culture/lifestyle pages, but I'm looking for some alternatives. I like cycling/outdoorsy things, openwater swimming and scuba diving, snowboarding, food, travel. I'm happy to read about exciting things I don't do! So I found reading Heinrich Harrer on mountaineering fascinating, even though I never plan to climb a moutain.

I would also happily read slightly trashy women's page type things that would probably annoy me in english, in the name of understanding german popular culture and improving my slang vocab. If you're British, I'm thinking of Grazia/Marie Claire, rather than Heat. I'm not really looking for heavy economic or political analysis or world news, this is to browse on the tube in the morning with my coffee. I'm open to blogs and podcasts too if you have recommendations.

So english-language equivalents would be Grazia, Outdoors, Runnersworld, White Lines, Diver, Metafilter, Captain Awkward, Sunday Times Style/Travel/Food supplements. Hopefully that's a pretty wide net. Looking for relatively well-written, fairly breezy style, lots of pictures.

What else might I like? Give me some inspiration.

posted by tinkletown to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

Best answer: If you're into baking, there's a shockingly large number of German-language blogs dedicated to the art of sourdough baking. I've found it much easier to find good recipes in German than in English. My German is not great, but I follow a couple of food blogs:

Plötzblog
Foodzeit
Der Brotbub
Brot & Meer
German Abendbrot

I've made delicious bread products from all of them, and, if nothing else, they'll probably up your cooking vocab.
posted by MeghanC at 5:15 PM on March 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Maybe the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine?

You can get both the ARD and ZDF news broadcasts in podcast form.
posted by hoyland at 5:44 PM on March 9, 2014

Best answer: Well, there's always the German GEO magazine (have to laugh, as the current feature story is on London :) ), the German editions of Grazia and Runner's World, there's also Outdoor Magazin and the snowboarding community site Snowboarden. One issue I have with German special-interest magazines is that they have increasingly turned into kit-porn mags -- half the fun for many Germans taking up a new hobby is going out and buying loads of expensive new gear so that they can be profi, even if they've never skiied or hiked or climbed in their lives. Also, despite the popularity of tablets, a lot of people still buy print editions, so not as many magazines have made the jump to new media as in the English-speaking world.

For podcasts, there's loads of stuff in the ARD Mediathek, much of it very good. You can search by category and just about everything is downloadable.

This might not be your cup of tea, but you said you were open to suggestions. I'm a personal fan of the philosophy-talk program "Das Philosophische Radio" on WDR 5. If you're working on improving your (already very good) German, I think you'll find the topics interesting, the vocabulary in the C1/C2 range, and the pace of conversation very manageable.

For lighter fare, try gofeminin.
posted by rhombus at 11:14 AM on March 10, 2014

Response by poster: I've marked them all as best answer, but thanks in particular to MeghanC for some delicious links I would never have thought of! Food PLUS german practice! and very handy for getting used to everyday references like food-measurement conventions.
posted by tinkletown at 6:46 AM on March 24, 2014