week1
Greetings, courtesy, numbers 1–20
Greetings first, as always. But start noticing der, die and das from day one — that habit is the whole battle.
Noun · newVerb · newPronoun · newArticle · newPrepositionFixed chunk · new
Standard German
Three genders, four cases, and a verb that waits for the end.
Ninety days, fifteen minutes each. Read one week at a time, say everything out loud, and come back each day for a short review of the words you have met. German asks the most of you and shows the most for it: three genders, a case system, and a habit of holding the verb back until the end of the sentence. The pace is four new words a day rather than five, deliberately.
The weeks
Seven days each, one after another. Each day opens when the one before it is done; each week when its seventh day is. If you would rather jump, any week can be skipped to from its page.
week2
Personal information: name, age, family, where you live
Your own life, in German. And the first proper look at what happens to an article when the noun becomes the object.
NounVerbPronounArticlePreposition · newAdjective · newFixed chunk
week3
Common nouns: the home and food
Thirty-odd everyday objects, each learned with der, die or das — because in German the article is not optional information.
NounVerbPronounArticlePrepositionAdjectiveQuestion word · newFixed chunk
week4
First sentence frames: I have, I want, I would like
You stop collecting words this week and start combining them. Almost no new vocabulary — reuse Weeks 1 to 3 inside these frames.
NounVerbPronounArticlePrepositionAdjectiveAdverb · newConjunction · newQuestion wordFixed chunk
By the end of week 4 you should be able to
- —Greet, thank, apologise, and count to twenty.
- —Introduce yourself — name, origin, town, family, retirement — in four or five sentences.
- —Name thirty-plus everyday home and food objects, each with der, die or das.
- —Order a drink or a meal politely with ich hätte gern, and ask for the bill.
week5
Present tense: verb patterns and high-frequency verbs
Green takes over. One regular pattern, seven irregular workhorses, and the rule that governs where a German verb sits.
NounVerbAdjectiveAdverbArticlePronounPrepositionConjunctionQuestion wordFixed chunk
week6
Questions: directions, prices, times
Magenta week. Seven question words — six of which conveniently begin with W.
NounVerbAdjectiveAdverbArticlePronounPrepositionConjunctionQuestion wordFixed chunk
week7
The past: recounting yesterday
The Perfekt. Two ingredients — a helper verb and a past participle — and the participle waits at the end of the sentence.
NounVerbAdjectiveAdverbArticlePronounPrepositionConjunctionQuestion wordFixed chunk
week8
The near future, and joining sentences together
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.
NounVerbAdjectiveAdverbArticlePronounPrepositionConjunctionQuestion wordFixed chunk
By the end of week 8 you should be able to
- —Conjugate high-frequency verbs in the present for ich, Sie, er/sie/es and wir.
- —Keep the conjugated verb in second place, including when a sentence starts with a time word.
- —Ask for directions, prices and times using the question words.
- —Recount yesterday in the Perfekt, with both haben and sein, and put the participle at the end.
- —Talk about near-future plans using the present tense, and join clauses with und, aber, denn, weil and also.
week9
Your own life: hobbies, health and opinions
Phase 3 stops teaching structures and starts using them. German has a neat trick for talking about what you enjoy.
NounVerbAdjectiveAdverbArticlePronounPrepositionConjunctionQuestion wordFixed chunk
week10
Listening: following the gist
Mostly technique rather than vocabulary. German makes this harder than the others, because the verb you need is often the last word.
NounVerbAdjectiveAdverbArticlePronounPrepositionConjunctionQuestion wordFixed chunk
week11
Speaking: five minutes a day, out loud
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.
NounVerbAdjectiveAdverbArticlePronounPrepositionConjunctionQuestion wordFixed chunk
week12
A real task, and everything reviewed
No new grammar. One real thing done in German, and a look back over ninety days.
NounVerbAdjectiveAdverbArticlePronounPrepositionConjunctionQuestion wordFixed chunk
By the end of week 12 you should be able to
- —Talk about your hobbies, your health and your opinions using gern, mögen and the opinion frames.
- —Follow the gist of a two-minute German clip using the three-step method, including holding a sentence until its final verb.
- —Deliver a five-minute monologue on the five-part scaffold, with discourse markers, without correcting yourself mid-sentence.
- —Complete a real task in German — read a menu, write a message, or book a table.
The ninety days
Days 1–30
Foundations
Greet, introduce yourself, name everyday things with the right article, and order politely.
Days 31–60
Everyday exchanges
Hold a short two-way conversation without notes.
Days 61–90
Going it alone
Handle a real trip — travel, shops, small talk, the unexpected.
Starting later
What German will ask of you
German is the hardest of the four, and the only one where the pace is slower by design rather than by concession. It is also the one the colour system helps most, because there is simply more information per word to keep track of.
Four new items a day, not five
Three genders and a case system mean each noun carries more to remember than its French or Spanish equivalent. The daily intake is set lower deliberately. Going slower here is not falling behind; it is the only way the reviews stay inside fifteen minutes by week eight.
The verb waits until the end, and that is genuinely demanding
Ich habe gestern mit meinem Sohn im Café gegessen — the word that carries the meaning arrives last, so a whole clause has to be held in mind before it resolves. That leans on working memory, which is the capacity most affected by age. It is worth saying plainly: this is hard, it is hard for a real reason, and the listening method is built around it rather than pretending otherwise.
Three genders with no rule behind them
Der, die and das cannot be reasoned out, and das Mädchen is neuter however odd that seems. So the article is never separated from its noun here, and the third gender gets its own text style — bold and slanted together — so it can be told apart at a glance and in black and white.
The design behind this — expanding review gaps, chunking, and saying each thing more than one way — is covered on the front page, with the research it comes from. Vocabulary and knowledge hold up well with age; speed and working memory are what give way, so the course spends the first and protects the second.
Where German hides things
A third gender means a third style
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.
The article changes with the job
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 verb goes second, and sometimes last
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.
Every plural takes die
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.
Ich will means I want
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.
The voice
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]
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