I’ve been learning German for the past year. Here’s my advice based on what worked for me (having filtered out what didn’t). Like a training routine, try to keep a log of what you do to avoid kidding yourself about how much effort you’re making. Your first aim should simply be to set up good/realistic habits and get motivated. Learning the grammar is only one part of it, and can be done easily enough by working consistently through a decent course book and completing set exercises on each topic (I recommend Hammer's Grammar Grammar and Usage for a no-stone-unturned course).
1. Reading (passive)
This is a daily habit you need to get into, even just for 15 minutes before you go to sleep. The internet has everything you need. Comic books are excellent as the language is often more straightforward and you’re reading dialogues. The illustrations provide clues to context and vocabulary meaning. You can easily get the entire Asterix and Tintin back catalogues as PDFs.
Try to vary your reading habits though - sometimes practise reading for speed and gist, at other times try to mouth the words for pronunciation practice, and (most usefully in my opinion) read actively by slowly highlighting new vocabulary and noting the context in which it was used. You could add new words to your Anki or Genius decks if you’re that way inclined. Read actively: keep asking yourself why certain language structures were used. Why this tense? Why this case? Annotate the hell out of it in the margins, and then read through it again with more momentum. Reading doesn’t necessarily have to be traditional texts. Mix things up e.g. install old Lucasarts adventure games in German on your iphone for long journeys (Monkey Island, Grim Fandango or anything off Scummvm). Online content can help, even those godawful listicle websites have their uses. A lot of online time is spent dumb-browsing trash, so you might as well turn this habit into something useful by reading German language trash instead. Use the Lingro website to help you with unknown vocabulary (although the aforementioned Leo app is hard to beat).
Here are some texts to get you started. Be warned, some of the original Grimm tales hit home some hard truths!
http://germanstories.vcu.edu/
http://www.grimmstories.com/de/grimm_maerchen/index
http://learnoutlive.com/learn-german-on-...ree-books/
2. Writing (active)
I find it hard to motivate myself on this one. Jumping straight into writing free-writing in German is tough. Translation of texts is slightly easier (just use any duel-reader and cover one side up). Since you’ll find yourself repeatedly expressing the same ideas and details over and over again (such as who you are and what you do) you might want to get these down into writing and refine them over time. This will make it much easier to introduce yourself and talk about it. Use Lang-8 to find someone to proofread and give feedback on what you write. The idea above of summarising articles is a very worthwhile one too. There are various "Wir Sprechen Deutsch" Whatsapp groups now exclusively for people practising their German but I’ve no idea if these are useful. Some form of correspondence will help motivate you to keep in contact and write.
3. Listening/watching (passive)
Podcasts are by far the easiest and most effective habit to get into, especially if you work them into your morning routine (making/eating breakfast or going to work). That’s another easy 10-15 minutes of German practice a day. If you’re a beginner, start with Langsam Gesprochene Nachrichten, using the transcript to help you (but move on as soon as you can, it can be torture at times).
http://www.dw.com/de/deutsch-lernen/nachrichten/s-8030
The Podclub app has an easy series called Andrea Erzählt, also with transcripts.
http://www.podclub.ch/sendungen/andrea-erzaehlt-d
You should notice rapid progress with these, and after a few months of daily podcasts you’ll be ready to try something harder (always push yourself and avoid lingering at a comfortable plateau). I recommend the ARD.de Tagesschau podcast (or even better, its online video with subtitles).
http://www.tagesschau.de/
The SRF Heute Morgen podcasts are surprisingly easy to follow but the content is more specific to Switzerland.
Being able to watch and follow TV shows in German should be a medium to long-term goal, and is noticeably harder than listening to podcasts. A lot of people start off with the ridiculous but easy Deutsch Lernen Extra Auf (the whole series is on YouTube).
https://youtu.be/Kd_Nxmm4cYQ?list=PLMf--...5ZcCaWTlWP
I also recommend Türkisch fur Anfänger, with transcripts
http://www.diemitdemforum.de/viewforum.php?f=48,
A lot of German speakers drop everything every Sunday evening to watch the detective series Tatort and it’s spin off Der Tatortreiniger.
http://www.daserste.de/unterhaltung/krim...index.html
My favourite is Deutschland von Oben
http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/v...20--in-HD!
Then you have Winnetou, Weissensee, Stromberg, Doctor’s Diary, Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter, and Im Angesicht des Verbrechens...
I would make a checklist of the following movies and tick them off as you go:
Das Leben Der Anderen
Das Experiment
Die Fetten Jahren Sind Vorbei (The Educators)
Goodbye Lenin
Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run)
Knocking on Heaven’s Door
The Baader Meinhof Complex
Der Himmel Über Berlin (Wings of Desire)
Auf der Anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven)
Hitlerjungen Salomon (Europa Europa)
The Wave
Downfall
Das Boot
Wetlands (Feuchtgebiete)
Esler. Die Mörder Sind Unter Uns
Free Rainer - dein Fernseher Lügt
Asterix im Land der Götter
4. Speaking (active)
As mentioned above, sort out your pronunciation from the start. I made the mistake of not doing this when I Iearned French, which meant several years into the process I had to go back and correct the bad habits I’d picked up and reinforced. Read up on the rules first, practise them for an hour or two by yourself, then book a couple of sessions with a native speaker tutor to go over them with you. Insist that they be very strict with you about getting the sounds right. After you master the individual sounds right, move on to which syllables to stress. Again there are clear rules on this (e.g. probIEren). Finally, work on the broader “sentence music” i.e. the rhythm of longer phrases and how to time rising/falling intonation. This process won’t take long, but will pay dividends. A bonus of perfecting your pronunciation early is that people will compliment you on it and this will help to motivate you (it’s the main thing people notice when you talk to them in their language and almost the only thing they can comment on. I never hear people tell learners “Gee your conjugation of irregular verbs is really impressive!”). After that it’s a matter of talking as much as possible and paying attention to recurring phrases that native speakers use (note these down and build up a bank of them if possible). The battle is won by speaking as much as possible and from as early on as possible, don’t shy away from it or make excuses. The only way to get better at speaking a language is to SPEAK it! Even talking to yourself is better than nothing… In the very early stages it’s fine to talk to other learners (less intimidating and they’ll be making mistakes too) but try to set up a tandem asap.
There’s a great wealth of stuff here:
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/ger...source.pdf
Frohes neues Jahr!