German · Curriculum
The German curriculum, start to finish.
1 chapters, 24 lessons. A new band of the 100 most common words every hundred ranks, the grammar that turns those words into sentences woven in, and a graded reader closing each chapter that you can read using only what you have learned so far.
- 1
- Chapters
- 24
- Lessons
- 4
- Grammar primers
- 1
- Story milestones
A frequency-first start on German: the first 100 words, the three articles that decide every sentence, and the four cases those articles are actually marking. Short by design, and honest about where it stops.
Is German hard, and how long does it take? Read first.
Is German hard for English speakers?
German is easier than it looks and harder than it sounds. The two languages are cousins, so a great deal of the core vocabulary is recognisable once you know the sound shifts: Wasser and water, Buch and book, bringen and bring. The difficulty is concentrated in one place. Every noun carries a gender, that gender changes the article, and the article changes again depending on the noun's job in the sentence. Learners who get that early find the rest fairly gentle. Learners who defer it spend years guessing.
Der, die or das: why the article is the whole problem
English has one definite article and German has six forms of it, because the article is carrying information English puts in word order. Der, die and das mark gender in the nominative; den, dem and des appear when the noun's job changes. You cannot learn a German noun without its article any more than you can learn a phone number without its area code. Learn Tisch and you have learned nothing useful; learn der Tisch and you have learned the word.
The four cases, in the order they actually matter
Nominative is the subject, accusative the direct object, dative the recipient, genitive possession. Nominative and accusative cover most of what a beginner reads. Dative arrives early because a large group of common prepositions demand it. Genitive is retreating in spoken German and can wait. Teaching all four at equal weight on day one is the standard textbook mistake, and it is why so many people remember a table and none of the language.
What 100 words gets you, and what it does not
German frequency is steep at the top: der, die, das, und, sein, in, ein, zu, haben, ich and their neighbours make up a large share of any running text. A hundred words means most of what your eye lands on in a simple sentence is familiar, which is the point at which reading stops feeling like decoding. It does not mean you can hold a conversation, and this course does not pretend otherwise. It is a foundation and a way to find out whether German suits you.
The chapters
What you can do when you finish
- Read the rank-100 graded reader at the end with no lookups - every content word is from the chapters you just worked through.
- Hold a present-and-past tense conversation: ask questions, talk about routines, narrate what happened yesterday.
- Hedge a request politely, follow everyday speech, and recognise the core grammar that turns vocabulary into sentences.
- Cover the 100 most frequent words - roughly 80% of everyday speech by the frequency curve.
German learning: common questions
Frequently asked
How many cases does German have?
Four: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. English marks the same distinctions on pronouns only, which is why he, him and his feel natural while der, den and dem feel arbitrary. They are doing identical work. German simply applies it to every noun phrase rather than to a handful of survivors.
Do I need to learn the gender of every German noun?
Yes, and the efficient way is to never learn a noun without it. There are useful patterns: nouns ending in -ung, -heit, -keit and -schaft are feminine almost without exception, and -chen and -lein are always neuter. But the patterns cover a minority. Treat the article as part of the word's spelling and the problem mostly disappears.
Is German or French harder to learn?
For an English speaker they are hard in different places and roughly comparable overall. French front-loads pronunciation and spelling, where German is almost entirely phonetic once you know the rules. German front-loads grammar, where French cases barely exist. People who enjoy systems usually find German easier; people with a good ear usually find French easier.
What are the German modal verbs?
Six: koennen, muessen, duerfen, sollen, wollen and moegen. They are worth learning as a block early, because they conjugate irregularly in the same way as each other and because they let you say a great deal with very little else. Ich kann, ich muss and ich will carry an enormous amount of everyday speech.
Is this a complete German course?
No, and it says so. It is the first 100 words with the grammar that makes them work, which is enough to read simple sentences and decide whether to carry on. Our Spanish and French courses run to several thousand words; German starts here and grows if the demand is there.