In this German 1 Level 2 Podcast, Michael, our young traveler, arrives at the home of his aunt and uncle in Frankfurt.

Michael is tired from the (overnight) flight. After drinking an orange juice, he goes up to the guest bedroom and takes a nap.

His cousin Julia wakes him for lunch. Over lunch Michael asks his uncle about old family pictures.

The next day, Julia shows Michael around Frankfurt.

They go to the Römerberg Market Place and to the Zeil (a popular shopping street).

Finally, they go to a café for an espresso and a Früchte-Eisbecher (a delicious German- style fruit sundae).

Michael's aunt and uncle live on the Leipziger Straße, located in the district of Bockenheim. This is a lively part of the city with residential neighborhoods, busy cafés, bistros, and shops.

Click on our blogpost Travel Memories1 - Michael in Frankfurt am Main to find out more about the districts of Frankfurt and see some pictures:

- The Bockenheim district

- The Historic Quarter (Altstadt) with its famous Römerberg market place

- The City Center (Innenstadt) with its stunning glass shopping arcade on the Zeil.

Don't forget, you can learn German online for FREE. Our 36-Scene Travel Story "Michael in Deutschland," lets you learn and practice 750 basic words and phrases in various types of listening and speaking games. Click to register HERE.

In this German 1 Level 3 podcast, Michael, our young traveler, does some more sightseeing in Frankfurt am Main, and then takes a train to Heidelberg.

In the Frankfurt Inner City, he visits the Goethe-Haus, which documents the formative years of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany's most famous writer.

He then buys a ticket and boards the train to Heidelberg. It takes only about an hour.

At the Heidelberg train station, he calls the number of a friend he had met in Boston a couple of years earlier. The woman who answers, tells him that Karl's not there. 

If you want to learn and practice the words and sentences you just heard, and much more, you can go to our German online course "Michael in Deutschland." It's FREE, all you need is to register HERE. 

Our story courses seem to be most effective for learners who have had some contact with the language before (in school, on travels, or through self study).

We provide basic language in context, spoken at natural speed. By listening and repeating words, phrases and sentences as often as you can, the music of the language will go into your ear and into your brain. It's a good start for learning to sound like a native speaker.

In this podcast, Michael, our young traveler, arrives in Heidelberg and with the help of a passerby finds his way to his friend Karl's house.

There he meets two other students, Renate and Claudia, who join him to explore the old town of Heidelberg the next day.

Michael also learns that Mark Twain - who had a love-hate relationship with the German language nevertheless stayed in Heidelberg for 3 months.

In Why did Mark Twain like Heidelberg? we speculate about the answer to that question. 

And if you'd like to continue practicing your German with "Michael in Deutschland," you can do so online and for FREE with our 36-Scene story (followed by 72 Scenes for German 2) by registering HERE.

(And please know: we are only asking you to register, so you can continue to pick up your course where you left off!)

You'll learn and practice words and phrases individually and in the context of short conversations. Your listening and pronunciation skills will improve a lot!

And is listening to a story more fun than just drilling vocabulary and grammar rules? Some of our users commented:"Playing your courses didn't feel like learning. I only realized later how much I actually remembered!"

And if you'd like to learn more about Heidelberg, click on German Travel Memories 2 - Michael in Heidelberg