Another German-learning question thread (bilingual texts)

[Mirc]

Hey,

As my previous thread about Germany was asking for a translation of certain bits of text, I don't think I'm entitled to bump that just because the question is again pertaining to the German language, without much of a connection otherwise. So here's a new one.

Basically, here's the story in a nutshell. I need to learn German fast enough to be able to pass an exam in it in 5 months from now. It sounds almost impossible (considering that I also have to prepare end-highschool exams for here, which is difficult in itself), but keep in mind I've taken 1 year of (very, very relaxed) German lessons before, I love the language and I'm good with adapting accents. So I started getting private lessons with an apparently very good teacher, signed up for some courses, and am looking to work at home as much as time allows me (even if this means staying up for nights in a row, believe me if I have a goal I will do it). Which means I'm also looking for any kind of German learning help material I can find online.

So I'm asking: does anyone know of any FREE bilingual texts (English-German) online? It's by far the easiest way for me to learn a language, when not with an instructor. And since I believe my reading is okay and I can pull a more decent accent than many foreigners actually fluent in it, for me written text is just as good as spoken for now (before I pass on to the next level and try to listen to German radio, conversations, recordings, etc).

So does anyone know any such texts?

Googling this got me only to expensive books on Amazon or the like.

 

[Grisu]

I don't know if that's what you're looking for, but several german newssites are bi-lingual or at least offer several articles in multiple languages.

The problem is, that the articles often don't link to each other which leads to some searching....

as an example I have an article from Heise, a german IT newsportal (sorry, the article is a bit IT-leaning :

Storm Worm botnet cracked wide open
Sturmwurm-Botnetz sperrangelweit offen

 

[kalif]

maybe try gutenberg.org? it's a collection of different digitalized books and texts. just look for matching entries in ger and en.

 

[eastsidebagel]

Fischer Fritze fischt frische Fische. Try saying this aloud 5 times in a row and you'll know if you really are able to read German.
P.S.: I can't.

 

[Mirc]

Fischer Fritze fischt frische Fische. Try saying this aloud 5 times in a row and you'll know if you really are able to read German.
P.S.: I can't.

I did it on my first try. We have some harder ones around here.

@Kaeptn: Thanks a lot, that's the kind of thing that I need. While I agree that's exceedingly specific and I probably won't need most of that, newspaper articles in German and English would work perfectly for me.

@kalif: thanks, I'm gonna try and see now.

 

[eastsidebagel]

I did it on my first try. We have some harder ones around here.

Ahh dangit! Hope you'll have sucess!

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Wikisource seems good.

 

[Till]

Europa.eu has lots of bilingual stuff. Sometimes the links appear to be mixed up though, and you have to manually change the language in the url:

http://europa.eu/press_room/index_en.htm
http://europa.eu/press_room/index_de.htm