Learn German

Deutsch · a free course from absolute beginner to C2 · one lesson a day

German is the most widely spoken first language in Europe and the closest of the big ones to English, which shows in the commonest words — Wasser, Haus, Buch, trinken — and in how quickly a beginner can build real sentences. Its compounds are read left to right, so a long word you have never seen is usually two or three words you already know, stacked; that makes vocabulary growth accelerate rather than slow down.

What is hard about German, and what this course does about it

German's difficulty is structural rather than phonetic, and it arrives early: four cases that change the article rather than the noun, three genders with no reliable way to guess them, and a word order that puts the verb second in a statement and last in a subordinate clause. This course is built around that instead of around it — case and word order come before the scenery, every noun is taught with der, die or das attached, and the sentence bracket gets its own lessons rather than a footnote.

What the course covers

The syllabus is 365 numbered steps, and the first 322 of them have a lesson written by hand behind them — the explanation, the examples and the questions, not a template filled in. 30 of those steps are the grammar core: everything you need before the course turns to recombining it, which is the work that carries you from intermediate to C2.

The first 14 grammar points, in order

Straight from the course's own syllabus. Each gets its own lesson, and comes back in the reading and listening of later ones.

1. Singular subject pronouns (ich, du, er/sie/es) and sein for one person
2. Plural subject pronouns (wir, ihr, sie/Sie), the plural of sein, and the sie/Sie puzzle
3. The verb haben, and simple statements (Ich habe Zeit, du hast recht)
4. Regular present tense (machen, wohnen, kommen) and the du/er endings (-st, -t)
5. Noun gender: der, die, das — and why every noun is capitalized
6. Plurals and the plural article die (der Tag → die Tage)
7. Stem-changing verbs: fahren→fährt, sprechen→spricht, sehen→sieht
8. Word order rule number one: the verb is always second — statements and W-questions
9. Yes/no questions and the imperative (Kommst du? Komm!)
10. The accusative case: den/einen/keinen, and mich/dich/ihn
11. Negation: nicht vs kein, and where nicht goes
12. Modal verbs (können, müssen, wollen, möchten) and the sentence bracket
13. Separable verbs (aufstehen, anrufen, einkaufen) and the bracket again
14. Possessives (mein, dein, sein, ihr, unser) and their endings

How one lesson works

Around 20–30 minutes at the fullest setting. Three lengths to choose from, and a shorter one spreads each grammar point over more lessons rather than taking the support away.

1. Review first. Every card that is due today comes back before anything new starts — all of them, with no cap, because a cap on reviews is a cap on what you remember.
2. New words. A handful of new words, dealt straight down the frequency list from wherever you got to, each with its recording.
3. The grammar. One point, explained in writing with worked examples and tables, before the questions that test it.
4. Reading. A passage in German in three parts, written from words you have already been taught, with comprehension questions.
5. Listening. The same again for the ear, in three parts.
6. Writing. From lesson 7, one task where you produce German of your own and get it back marked.

The words, and the order they come in

The course's vocabulary is a frequency list 5,000 words long, and the deck deals it in rank order from word one — so the words you meet first are the ones standing between you and an ordinary sentence. You can read the top of that list without signing up: the most common German words.

The course's words and phrases are recorded in a German voice — 3,576 clips, counted on the server — and the listening section plays them as connected speech rather than as a word list.

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