Learn German

Start at the alphabet

The German on-ramp is written by hand, not generated, and it is 482 cards long. Every card is spoken in a recorded German voice, and what you get right is scheduled for review rather than shown again at random.

• 30letters
• 10digits
• 22pronunciation rules
• 300core words
• 60everyday phrases
• 60sentences

Three of the pronunciation cards, exactly as the course teaches them:

• Hund — a b, d or g at the END of a word hardens to p, t, k — Hund is said “hunt”, not “hund”gelb — yellow
• ch (a, o, u) — after a, o or u the ch is a hard rasp from the back of the throat, as in Scottish “loch”Nacht — night
• ch (e, i, ä, ö, ü) — after e, i or an umlaut it is a completely different sound — a soft hiss at the front, like the h in “huge”rechts — right (the side)

Then material that does not run out

Once you are reading, the level is the point. The Text Generator writes German at the CEFR level, length, topic and format you ask for, so the step up is a setting rather than a new book. Speaking scores you word by word as you read aloud. The Conversation Partner talks back. The Translator explains a sentence instead of replacing it, and the Corrector marks what you wrote and says why.

Above the on-ramp sits the Path — a station map from A1 to C2 with grammar, vocabulary and checkpoint stations — and Words & Notes, where everything you save comes back on a spaced-repetition schedule in seven quiz styles.

What German actually costs a beginner

The early costs are three, and all three are sounds. A b, d or g at the end of a word hardens — Hund is said "hunt" — which is invisible in the spelling. The letter pair ch is two completely different sounds depending on the vowel in front of it. And ei and ie are the pair that everybody reverses, until somebody tells you to say the name of the second letter. After that come the cases, which no course can make quick, and which the Path meets a station at a time rather than all at once.