The official German A1 vocabulary includes, according to the German Goethe Institut, 650 words – that’s the bad news. Wow, that’s a lot, you may think. The good news is: You’re already on the way, and we’re am here to help you.
Now, you may assume that you will be fluent in German if you learn all the words on this list. But if this is your question, then our answer to this would be:
“Hold the horses, my friend, slow down. One step after the other, we’ll get there.”
To begin with, memorizing 650 words by heart would be extremely repetitive, boring, and ineffective. To put it another way, you’ll forget them more quickly than you’ll learn them. Your brain needs to create connections (bridges) to those words first, and simply repeating the word-translation pair will not assist you in retrieving these words when you need them.
Learning in-depth and building upon know-how is much more enjoyable and efficient. Here’s what we’re here for.
We want to give you a few tips on how to deal with your A1 vocabulary list in the most effective way that would be beneficial for the actual use. One way to approach this is to go online and look for the most commonly used words. There are lists for all different levels, so you can always find something that suits you. For example, feel free to look for “The 500 Most Frequently Used German Words” and learn a few of those each day or each week.
1. ich
• I
• me
2. sie
• they
• she
• them
• her
3. das
• the
• that
• this
• it
4. ist
• be
5. du
• you
6. nicht
• not
• no
7. die
• the
• which
• that
• who
8. und
• and
9. es
• it
10. der
• the
• which
Of course, these are just a few common German words. If you want to become fluent, visit Germany, or make friends among native speakers, you need to learn other words as well and constantly try to improve your vocabulary.
You can create your own list of words that interest you, or you can choose those that you feel you might need the most. A fun way to learn vocabulary is to choose 5 to 10 words each day in your own language you think you will need that day, look up the German word for it, write them both down, and learn them throughout the day. Here are our top-7 words:
Did you know that the German language is well known for having some of the world’s longest words? This is due to the fact that Germans use compound terms to express whole sentences – especially when it comes to commercial and government terms. As a result, the typical German word has more than ten letters.
“Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft” is the longest German word in history, and it has letters. Lucky enough, this is not one of the most common German words. In any other language, the word would refer to the Association for officials subordinated to the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services, which consists of over ten terms.
Are Germans crazy? Don’t ask us. We didn’t come up with this idea.
However, this is one of the most uncommon German words. So breathe easy, you can already forget this one again. On the other hand, there is one pretty long word, which is unfortunately used quite a lot, and it is the word “Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften.” It refers to the legal security provided by insurance companies. The word has, believe it or not, 40 letters – and it is the longest German word in daily usage, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
With terms like these, it’s no surprise that Mark Twain made a joke once, saying that “some German words are so long that they even have a perspective.” Well, touché. Can’t argue this one.
Mastering a language surely requires more than just basic vocabulary. If you want to learn German and become fluent in it, you need to acquire several skills that draw on one another. In that situation, learning by yourself can be challenging, unstructured, and simply boring, but have you tried the Readle App yet?
There, you can not only find interesting stories for every level, from beginner to advanced, but you can also find the translation of each and every word just by clicking on it. Moreover, you get audio recorded by native speakers, so you can practice your listening and pronunciation skills. Readle is fun and effective, even if you learn only for a couple of minutes each day. Just remember – it’s all about regularity and persistence. Üben, üben, üben – practice, practice, practice, and you will get there.