I'm learning some German, but don't know much about dialects.

I've grown up in a diverse Spanish speaking community, but don't really speak Spanish. But I DO know a bit about Spanish dialects.

Spanish dialects CAN be pretty mutually unintelligible.

For instance, my hometown area in the US speaks a virtually unchanged middle age kind of Spanish. Though they can largely understand Mexican Spanish, there's a lot of common words they don't know, such as "Mariposa". I don't remember what the word they use around my hometown is, but my coworker told me her encounter with Spanish speakers outside the area and I was shocked she didn't know what "mariposa" was.

My grandmother is from Chile. She speaks Castellano with some Chilean specific (read: Native South American) words thrown in. LARGELY her friends in this area don't understand her, because Castellano Spanish (or Spain Spanish if you will) has a lot of differences from Mexican Spanish.

And the Chile specific words, such as "guagua" (pronounced: wawa) <baby> or "guaton" (pronounced: waton) <belly/fat> just make it all the worse.

From talking to other Mexican/South American friends... there is a distinct difference between Latino Spanish (Mexico and most of South America) and Spain Spanish. (and Duolingo teaches a strange mashup of the two, so I'm told).

Within parts of South America, there are also different dialects between Caste systems... In Chile, for instance, there is "High Chilean" and "Low Chilean", but I'm sure you can understand that concept since I know there's High German and Low German.

That being said, like with a lot of languages that are in a similar family... there's generally enough that one can piece together most of what someone else is saying. I mean I've even seen a Spanish and Portuguese speaker have a full conversation without speaking the others' language because it's close enough for them to get the gist.

Finally though... as for the logistics of LEARNING any separate dialects... that's going to be quite a bit harder. The main two resources you're going to find for Spanish are going to be Mexican, and Spain Spanish.

And I'm willing to bet, especially being in Germany, that you're really going to only find resources for Spain Spanish.

Even from the US I see a LOT of Spain Spanish as the only option. I'm more interested in learning Chilean Spanish but there are virtually NO resources out there to learn that specific dialect.

So unless you're going to move to a specific country or area, you're probably stuck with whatever you can get your hands on.