About This Book
This is a course for adults who are starting German from zero and want to use it: at work, in shops and cafés, on the phone, with neighbours and colleagues. It covers CEFR level A1, which means the ground floor: everyday exchanges about yourself, your surroundings and your routines, in short, predictable situations.
The book has 26 units, four milestone reviews and a final review. Each unit builds toward a handful of things you will be able to do in German (introduce yourself, order a coffee, ask for directions) and teaches the grammar you need for those tasks, no more. Grammar that is better left for the next level is left for the next level. A page on what we deliberately leave out is in the reference section, so you can see that it was a decision, not an oversight.
The explanations are in English and are written for people who have never studied German. The examples are written to be something a German speaker might actually say. Where everyday speech differs from the textbook form, we tell you.
What is not included. There is no audio with this edition. The dialogues are printed as scripts marked with a Script icon so you can read them aloud, record yourself, or use them with a teacher or language partner. Nothing in this book depends on audio.
How to Use This Book
Work in order. Units build on each other, and later units reuse earlier words and structures on purpose. If a unit feels easy, do the speaking and writing tasks anyway; those are where the learning is hardest to fake.
A unit at a glance. Every unit opens with what you will be able to do and a real-life situation. Then come the language and a short explanation of how it works, then practice that moves from controlled to free: exercises with one right answer, exercises where you build your own sentences, speaking tasks and a short writing task. Each unit closes with a one-page review and a self-check list of "I can…" statements. If you cannot tick a statement honestly, go back to the page the statement points to.
Boxes you will meet.
| Box | What it is for |
| Script | A dialogue or text to read aloud, record or listen to with a partner. |
| Real-Life German | Phrases people actually use, and how they differ from the textbook version. |
| Common Mistakes | Errors that many learners make, with the correction. |
| German vs English | Comparison, only when it makes something easier to understand. |
| Sound Check | A short pronunciation point. Sound descriptions are approximations. |
Answers. The answer key is at the back. Exercises with one correct answer have it listed. Speaking and writing tasks have a model answer and a short checklist so you can judge your own work. Check after you have finished the whole exercise, not after each line.
Time. As a planning estimate, expect three to five hours per unit if you do everything, spread over several days. Short, frequent sessions work better than one long one.
How to Study German Effectively
Study a little, often. Thirty minutes a day is better than three hours on Sunday. A workable pattern: ten minutes reviewing older words and sentences aloud, fifteen on the new page, five writing two or three sentences of your own.
Say it out loud. Reading silently teaches your eyes. You need your mouth too. Read every dialogue aloud at least twice; speak to yourself in the shower if you must.
Learn nouns with their article and plural. Not "Tisch" but der Tisch, die Tische. The article is part of the word. It is much harder to add later.
Learn in chunks. "Ich heiße …", "Wie geht's?", "Ich möchte …" are units, not puzzles. Chunks give you correct word order for free.
Do not translate word by word. German and English often say the same thing with different building blocks. If you translate each word, you will produce sentences that are grammatical in English only.
Expect mistakes and use them. Wrong endings and wrong articles are normal at this level. What matters is that people understand you and that you notice patterns over time.
Review on purpose. Come back to a unit two days later, then a week later. The review pages do some of this for you; you do the rest.
Your Level: What A1 Means
The CEFR describes six levels, from A1 to C2. A1 is the first. In broad terms, an A1 learner can understand and use very familiar everyday expressions and simple phrases; introduce themselves and others; give and ask for basic personal information; and interact simply when the other person speaks slowly and clearly and is willing to help.
| Skill | What this book aims at by the end |
| Speaking | Predictable everyday situations: introductions, ordering, shopping, directions, appointments |
| Listening | Short, clear, slow speech on familiar topics (this edition trains this through scripts, not audio) |
| Reading | Short simple texts: signs, menus, ads, timetables, brief messages |
| Writing | Short personal texts: a profile, a note, a form, a short email or postcard |
A1 is a beginning. When you finish this book you will not be fluent. You will have a solid base and be ready for A2.
Pronunciation Quick Start
German spelling is far more regular than English spelling. Learn the sounds once and you can read almost any word aloud correctly. The guide below is a summary; Units 1–6 teach each point with practice. Descriptions using English words are approximations only.
1. Vowels are pure. In English "go" glides toward "oo". German o does not glide.
2. Length matters. Vowels are long or short. Two consonants after a vowel usually mean a short vowel (Bett, kommen); a single consonant after a vowel is often long (Tag, Name).
3. ä, ö, ü are separate sounds (Unit 1).
4. ß sounds like ss.
5. ch has two sounds, one after i/e/ä/ö/ü (ich) and one after a/o/u (ach) (Unit 2).
6. sch is like English sh. sp and st at the start of a word begin with sh: Sport, Stadt (Unit 2).
7. z = ts. w = v. v is usually f. j = y (Unit 3).
8. ei ≈ English eye; ie = long ee; eu/äu ≈ oy (Units 3–4).
9. r is made in the back of the mouth, or, at the end of a syllable, sounds like a soft uh (Unit 4).
10. Final b, d, g are pronounced p, t, k: Tag sounds like tahk (Unit 5).
11. Stress is usually on the first syllable of German words (ARbeiten), but not always.
The German Alphabet
German uses the 26 letters of the English alphabet plus ä, ö, ü and ß. Letter names are practised in Unit 1.
Special Characters and How to Type Them
| Character | Windows (Alt code) | Mac | Phone | If you cannot type it |
| ä ö ü | Alt+0228 / 0246 / 0252 | Option+u, then a / o / u | Hold the vowel key | ae, oe, ue |
| Ä Ö Ü | Alt+0196 / 0214 / 0220 | Option+u, then Shift+A / O / U | Hold the vowel key | Ae, Oe, Ue |
| ß | Alt+0223 | Option+s | Hold the s key | ss |
Set your keyboard to a German layout or add German as a second keyboard language. The replacement spellings (ae, oe, ue, ss) are widely understood and are common in email addresses and on forms.
Basic Spelling Conventions
• All nouns are capitalised: der Tisch, die Stadt, das Wasser. Also names, and the formal Sie, Ihr, Ihnen.
• ich is not capitalised unless it starts a sentence.
• Words for languages are capitalised as nouns (Deutsch, Englisch); the matching adjective is not.
• ß follows a long vowel or a diphthong (Straße, heißen); ss follows a short vowel (Kuss).
• German writes decimals with a comma (3,50 €) and thousands with a dot (1.200).
• German quotation marks look like this: „…“.
Meet the People
You will meet the same small group throughout the course. Their details stay the same from unit to unit.
Maya Krishnan is 34, a software tester from Bengaluru in India, newly settled in Köln. Jonas Weber, 29, is her colleague, originally from Leipzig. Lena Schmidt teaches the German course at the local adult-education centre (the Volkshochschule, VHS). Sofia Rossi, 27, a physiotherapist from Bologna, and Daniel O'Connor, 45, an engineer from Cork, are in the same class. Ali Yılmaz runs the bakery around the corner, and Frau Becker is the neighbour who knows everything about the street. Others appear as the units require.
The setting is mainly Köln and other places in Germany. Germany is a large country; German is spoken differently in different regions, and we will point that out only when it helps you.
UNIT 1 · Hallo!
What You'll Learn
• greet people and say goodbye at different times of day
• say your name and ask for someone else's
• ask how someone is, and answer
• say the German alphabet and spell your name aloud
• read and pronounce ä, ö, ü and ß
Real-Life Situation
Tuesday evening, ten minutes before the first class of a German course in Köln. Maya has found Room 3 and is the first to arrive. The teacher, Lena, is setting out chairs.
Dialogue 1 · Der erste Abend (Script)
Lena: Guten Abend! Ich bin Lena. Wie heißt du?
Maya: Guten Abend. Ich heiße Maya.
Lena: Hallo, Maya. Willkommen im Kurs!
(Jonas comes in.)
Jonas: Hallo! Ich bin Jonas. Und du?
Maya: Ich heiße Maya. Wie geht's?
Jonas: Gut, danke. Und du?
Maya: Auch gut, danke.
English meaning: Lena: Good evening! I'm Lena. What's your name? — Maya: Good evening. My name is Maya. — Lena: Hello, Maya. Welcome to the course! — Jonas: Hello! I'm Jonas. And you? — Maya: My name is Maya. How are you? — Jonas: Good, thanks. And you? — Maya: Good too, thanks.
Dialogue 2 · Tschüss! (Script)
Lena: Tschüss! Bis bald!
Maya: Tschüss, Lena. Gute Nacht!
Jonas: Tschüss, Maya. Bis bald!
English meaning: Lena: Bye! See you soon! — Maya: Bye, Lena. Good night! — Jonas: Bye, Maya. See you soon!
Core Vocabulary
| German | English |
| Hallo | hello (informal) |
| Guten Morgen | good morning |
| Guten Tag | good day; hello |
| Guten Abend | good evening |
| Gute Nacht | good night |
| Tschüss | bye |
| Auf Wiedersehen | goodbye (more formal) |
| Bis bald | see you soon |
| Willkommen | welcome |
| Danke | thank you |
| Bitte | please; you're welcome |
| Entschuldigung | excuse me; sorry |
| ja / nein | yes / no |
| Wie geht's? | How are you? |
| gut / sehr gut | good / very good |
| Es geht. | So-so. |
| Nicht so gut. | Not so good. |
| Und du? | And you? |
| Ich heiße … | My name is … |
| Ich bin … | I am … |
| Wie heißt du? | What's your name? |
| Frau / Herr | Ms. / Mr. (before a surname) |
| der Name, -n | name |
| der Vorname, -n | first name |
| der Nachname, -n | surname |
| der Kurs, -e | course |
| der Buchstabe, -n | letter (of the alphabet) |
How to read the noun entries: der is the article (masculine); -e or -n is the ending that makes the plural. So der Kurs, -e means the plural is die Kurse. You will learn what der/die/das mean in Unit 6; for now, learn each article together with its noun.
Language Focus
Look at two sentences from the dialogue:
Ich heiße Maya. → I am called Maya.
Wie heißt du? → What are you called?
The verb changes its ending depending on who is speaking or being spoken about: ich heiße, du heißt. That is all you need for now; Unit 4 shows how this works for many verbs.
Two more things to notice.
Capital letters. In German, every noun and every name starts with a capital letter: der Kurs, der Name, Maya. Ich is capitalised only at the beginning of a sentence.
Greetings by time of day. They are used roughly like this:
| Roughly | Greeting |
| Morning until about 10 or 11 | Guten Morgen |
| Daytime | Guten Tag |
| From about 6 p.m. | Guten Abend |
| Only when going to bed or leaving late | Gute Nacht |
Guten Tag is the safe, all-purpose greeting. Gute Nacht is a goodbye, not a greeting. Learn these four as fixed phrases; the reason for Guten versus Gute comes later.
du or Sie?
Lena and Maya say du to each other. This is normal among learners, and in many adult-education classes. German also has a polite form, Sie ("you", formal): Wie heißen Sie? You will meet it in shops and offices, and Unit 5 explains when to use which. For now, use du with the people in your course.
Sound Check · The Alphabet
Letter names are approximate. Vowel names (A, E, I, O, U) are pure vowels with no glide.
| Letter | Name (approx.) | Letter | Name (approx.) |
| A | ah | O | oh |
| B | bay | P | pay |
| C | tsay | Q | koo |
| D | day | R | err |
| E | ay (no glide) | S | ess |
| F | eff | T | tay |
| G | gay | U | oo |
| H | hah | V | fow (as in "how") |
| I | ee | W | vay |
| J | yot | X | iks |
| K | kah | Y | ÜP-si-lon |
| L | ell | Z | tset |
| M | emm | ä ö ü | ah-Umlaut, oh-Umlaut, oo-Umlaut |
| N | enn | ß | ess-tset ("Eszett") |