What if language learning was based on a compelling, continuing story, where students were eager to find out what happens next, while learning grammar and vocabulary along the way?
And what if a German polyglot living in China used his unique multicultural background to create a course that did just that?
This is the intriguing method Christian Leuschner presents at German Stories, a German language study online course built with Paid Memberships Pro. Using a story-telling method, Christian’s course offers realistic dialogues, drama, and humor to keep learners invested in wanting to know more.
Even better, they can start learning German for free.
A Self-Described “Non-Tech” Guy Takes a Leap into WordPress and PMPro
Christian has an inspiring story of his own. The idea for a web-based German language study course was originally hatched together with a friend—a partnership that unfortunately fell apart.
Christian had been the creative part of the business. Left with very little technical knowhow, he set about learning what he needed to move forward on his own to bring his German language online course idea to fruition. A forward-thinking entrepreneur with no technical background, Christian soon taught himself how to use WordPress and Paid Memberships Pro to recreate his dream e-learning website, under his umbrella company Language Stories OÜ.
I needed the website to generate income from the people who really loved the podcast and wanted some additional material to learn German even faster.
—Christian Leuschner, Owner of German Stories
How the German Stories Membership Course Engages Students
The German Stories website course builds speaking, reading, listening, and writing skills. While it currently offers two levels, all six levels of the German language curriculum (A1-C2) are in the planning stages.
Prospective students may take the first six lessons as a free trial incentive.
An impressive variety of media make up the lessons, from video and podcasts, to digital flashcards, dynamic transcripts that instantly provide translations, exercises, and comprehension quizzes. Story-telling takes central stage, with grammar and vocabulary presented in ways that are easily absorbed by the learner along the way.
Christian’s approach is not only fun to learn, but also easily accessible—he has even created a mobile German Stories app to make it easy for subscribers to learn from anywhere. And students who may want a bit more hand-holding or extra learning can book a one-on-one video call lesson with him.
From Zero to Flourishing With PMPro
Although German Stories was originally a podcast-based course, Christian realized he needed to build on the podcast and offer more learning material on a website. Starting on a shoestring budget, he took advantage of PMPro’s fully implementable free version that allowed him to get started with all the tools he initially needed to get his course off the ground.
It was in December 2021 when he first launched his site on his own with no members. Now, based on current growth trends, he anticipates that the German Stories website will be able to completely support his family by the end of 2025, and credits PMPro for this growth in only three years.
I will have created my own job, and a passive income to support my now two kids, with the help of Paid Memberships Pro.
—Christian Leuschner, Owner of German Stories
The German Stories Tech Stack
Christian is currently using many of PMPro’s upgraded premium features, and lists some he finds especially helpful:
- Being able to create different membership tiers
- MailPoet integration to send email according to each tier
- Discount codes
- Exporting of order reports
- Editable member profiles
- Stripe and PayPal integration
- Detailed statistics on critical information like orders, income, and new members
- Email automation
Equally helpful, however, are PMPro’s tutorials and support that assisted this “non-tech guy” in building an attractive and well-converting course website. He finds it easy to customize the frontend of the website and to manage administrative issues in the backend. When stuck, PMPro’s support staff have solved every problem he has run into.
There were many helpful articles with step-by-step explanations and screenshots. If I can do it then everybody can.
—Christian Leuschner, Owner of German Stories
Among the tech stack that Christian uses to make German Stories so successful are:
- WordPress
- Elementor – site builder
- Hello Elementor – theme
- ChatGPT for CSS styling
- WatuPro – for quizzes and exams
- Sonaar Music Audio Player – for audio lessons
German Stories also integrates with podcast websites so that students can follow lessons on the podcast hosts of their choice. Lessons are available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, Stitcher, Overcast, CastBox, and Radio Public, as well as an RSS feed.
A full YouTube channel offers a generous amount of video learning as well.
However, it is not only the technical bells and whistles that have built German Stories. To create the site’s many other features, Christian works with a cadre of talented freelancers, including voice actors, graphic designers, web developers, and video and audio editors.
Looking to the Future
When asked about the most challenging part of running his business, Christian says it is regularly generating good content. Enjoying what he does allows his creativity to come up not only with new content but new ideas for a thriving future.
Among his upcoming ideas is expanding the Germans Stories concept and offering it as a franchise to partners in other countries, for versions such as “Italian Stories” and “French Stories.”
In the meantime, his goals closer to home are to ensure that all the German language levels are completed on the site. He also aims for 1,000+ paying members, 10,000,000 podcast downloads, and 1,000,000 YouTube subscribers.
I don’t know where I would be without PMPro.
—Christian Leuschner, Owner of German Stories
Anyone curious about learning German on their own can check out the German Stories website, as well as its social media channels:
- Podcast: https://german-stories.com/learn-german-podcast
- Insta: https://www.instagram.com/german.stories.official
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@German.Stories
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LearnGermanWithStories
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LearnGermanWithStories
