Dread hopelessly following German when ranked (6)
I believe the answer is:
graded
'ranked' is the definition.
('grade' can be a synonym of 'rank')
'dread hopelessly following german' is the wordplay.
'hopelessly' indicates an anagram.
'following' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'german' becomes 'g' (abbreviation).
'dread' is an anagram of 'raded'.
'raded' put after 'g' is 'GRADED'.
'when' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for graded that I've seen before include "Gave mark to (student's work)" , "Classified" , "Sorted by quality or rank" .)