German Vocabulary A1 For Beginners
Now, you may assume that you will be fluent in German if you learn all of this list. Well, if this is your question then the 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 a 650 words list 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.
I want to give you a tip on how to start your German A1 Level vocabulary most effective and 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. You can look for ‘The 500 Most Frequently Used German Words’ for example and do some each day or each week.
How To Learn Vocabulary Most Effectively:
- You won’t be able to memorize a word if you look up the translation right away. The chances of memorization are much higher if you try to remember what the word means before testing the translation.
Choose a term you don’t understand and look up other meanings, usage information, and sample sentences to help you build a bridge to that word. - Pick a word you have a hard time memorizing and then put this word in every learning session that you do. Flashcards are a really great tool for that purpose. By repetition, we learn to store these words in our long-term memory.
- Sometimes it can really help to see a word in context, for example in sentences. If a word is new to you, type it into a search machine on the internet and see example sentences. An amazing website to help you with finding sentences is http://tatoeba.org/ – it’s really helpful if you don’t use a good language learning app yet that helps you to learn German in a fun and easy way.
The Top 10 Most Frequently Used Words In German:
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
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 my personal
Words Of The Day For You:
- Hallo = Hello. Every conversation starts with a “Hallo”!, which means “Hello” in German.
- Liebe = Love. It’s all about Love. Love is a universal feeling and we should all talk about it, feel it and give it each day. Am I right?
- Blume = Flower. Flowers are beautiful. I love all kinds of flowers. Which one is your favorite?
- Katze = Cat. They can be cute and they can be evil. Are you a cat or a dog person?
- Hund = Dog. A human’s best friend is what they say about dogs. I have two. Do you have dogs?
- Lächeln = Smile. The world is more friendly if you put a smile on your face.
- Ja = Yes. We say ‘no’ so often, let’s cultivate saying Yes more. Yes to learning German.
Fun Facts!
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. This is particularly true 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, with 79 letters. Lucky enough this is not one of the most common German words. In any other language, the word refers to the Association for officials subordinated to the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services, which consists of over ten terms. Are we Germans crazy? Don’t ask me. I 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, though, there is one pretty long word, which is unfortunately actually 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.
Soul Food For Your Brain
Mastering a language surely requires more than just basic vocabulary. It is the acquisition of several skills that draw on one another to speak German fluently. Learning by yourself can be challenging and boring, but have you tried the Readle App yet? Not only can you find interesting stories at levels A1 to C1; you can also find the translation of each and every word by clicking on it, even with the corresponding audio. It’s fun and it’s already effective if do only do a couple of minutes each day. It’s all about practice and persistence. Üben, üben, üben – practice, practice, practice, and you will get there.
