Standard German
The full ninety days, built on the same plan as the French course. German is the hardest of the four and the most rewarding to see coded: three genders, a case system, and a habit of sending the verb to the end of the sentence. The pace here is four new items a day rather than five.
0 of 186 items in your deck.
Intervals: 1 · 3 · 7 · 14 · 30 · 60 · 90 days. Each item you get right moves one step further along.
Adding a week puts its items into the review deck, a few a day.
Greetings first, as always. But start noticing der, die and das from day one — that habit is the whole battle.
Your own life, in German. And the first proper look at what happens to an article when the noun becomes the object.
Thirty-odd everyday objects, each learned with der, die or das — because in German the article is not optional information.
You stop collecting words this week and start combining them. Almost no new vocabulary — reuse Weeks 1 to 3 inside these frames.
Milestone
Green takes over. One regular pattern, seven irregular workhorses, and the rule that governs where a German verb sits.
Magenta week. Seven question words — six of which conveniently begin with W.
The Perfekt. Two ingredients — a helper verb and a past participle — and the participle waits at the end of the sentence.
German barely needs a future tense for near plans — the present does the job. Connectors then turn a list of sentences into a story, and one of them moves the verb.
Milestone
Phase 3 stops teaching structures and starts using them. German has a neat trick for talking about what you enjoy.
Mostly technique rather than vocabulary. German makes this harder than the others, because the verb you need is often the last word.
Fluency over accuracy. The aim is to keep talking, not to be right — and in German that means not stopping to fix your word order.
No new grammar. One real thing done in German, and a look back over ninety days.
Milestone
Days 1–30
Greet, introduce yourself, name everyday things with the right article, and order politely.
Days 31–60
Hold a short two-way conversation without notes.
Days 61–90
Handle a real trip — travel, shops, small talk, the unexpected.
Masculine is bold, feminine is slanted, neuter is both at once. It looks unusual on the page precisely so it cannot be confused with either of the other two — and it still survives being printed in black and white. There is no reliable way to guess which one a noun takes, so learn every noun with der, die or das attached.
Der Mann is the subject, den Mann is the object, and ein becomes einen. The colour stays grey and the style stays bold, because the gender has not changed — only the case has. Case is effectively a third channel, and this system deliberately does not try to encode it. Learn the object forms as chunks: einen Kaffee, einen Tisch.
The conjugated verb takes second position in any statement, so starting with a time word pushes the subject behind it: Morgen gehe ich. Meanwhile a second verb, a past participle, or anything after weil or dass goes to the very end. Both rules feel alien and both become automatic — but only through saying them, not through reading about them.
Der Zahn becomes die Zähne, das Kind becomes die Kinder, die Frau becomes die Frauen. In the plural the article is die regardless of the noun's gender, so the underline does the work and the bold or slant tells you what the word is underneath.
Wollen is to want, not to be going to. Ich will nach Berlin means I want to go to Berlin. And also means so, not also — the German for also is auch. These two false friends catch every English speaker, usually more than once.
Every word on the site is clickable. It speaks through a voice installed on this computer, so it costs nothing and works with the wifi off — but it does need a German voice to be installed. Without one the audio stays silent rather than read German aloud in an English accent.
[Hallo]