Free German Learning Resources

A starter vocabulary list, a German articles & cases cheat sheet, and links to our free practice tools — useful whether or not you ever take a class with us.

Essential A1 Vocabulary

40 of the most useful words to start with, grouped by topic. Bookmark this page — it's a handy quick reference while you're still building your vocabulary.

Greetings & Basics

Hallo	Hello
Guten Morgen	Good morning
Guten Tag	Good day
Guten Abend	Good evening
Auf Wiedersehen	Goodbye
Bitte	Please / You're welcome
Danke	Thank you
Entschuldigung	Excuse me / Sorry
Ja	Yes
Nein	No

Numbers 1-10

eins	one
zwei	two
drei	three
vier	four
fünf	five
sechs	six
sieben	seven
acht	eight
neun	nine
zehn	ten

Common Verbs

sein	to be
haben	to have
gehen	to go
kommen	to come
sprechen	to speak
verstehen	to understand
lernen	to learn
arbeiten	to work
wohnen	to live (reside)
brauchen	to need

Family

die Familie	family
die Mutter	mother
der Vater	father
die Schwester	sister
der Bruder	brother
die Kinder	children
der Sohn	son
die Tochter	daughter

German Articles & Cases Cheat Sheet

One of the hardest parts of German for new learners: der, die, das change depending on the grammatical case. Here's the full picture in one table.

Case	Used for	der (m.)	die (f.)	das (n.)	plural
Nominative	The subject of the sentence	der	die	das	die
Accusative	The direct object	den	die	das	die
Dative	The indirect object	dem	der	dem	den
Genitive	Possession ("of the...")	des	der	des	der

Rule of thumb for beginners: learn every noun together with its article from day one (say "die Tochter", not just "Tochter") — it's much harder to fix later than to learn correctly the first time.