The learning path
All 131 grammar topics in the order in which they support one another — numbered from 1 to 131.
Your progress at a glance
Your progress at a glanceEach petal is a category: easy topics on the inside, hard ones on the outside. Tap a petal to see only its topics.
Where are you right now?
- A1Introducing yourself, asking questions, saying everyday things.
- The alphabet and spelling aloudTwenty-six letters plus four, and names that differ from the English ones.
- Vowels, umlauts and ei/ieEvery vowel comes long or short, and the spelling usually says which.
- Consonants: w, v, z, s and jFamiliar letters that stand for unfamiliar sounds.
- ch, sch, sp, st and hard endingsTwo sounds for ch, an sh inside sp and st, and endings that turn hard.
- Stress, capitals and ßStress on the first syllable, no accent marks, and a capital for every noun.
- Cases: an overviewFour jobs a noun can do, four sets of endings — and one table that is worth learning before any of them.
- The definite articleSix distinct words doing sixteen jobs — fewer forms than the table suggests.
- The present tenseFour endings on a stem — and one tense doing the work of two English ones.
- Verb in second positionOne element in front of the verb — any one you like, but only one.
- The six modal verbsOne irregular pattern, six verbs, and the main verb waiting at the end of the sentence.
- The three gendersNot a property of the thing — a property of the word.
- Prepositions with the accusativeFive words, one case, no exceptions — worth memorising as a line.
- Numbers, dates and timesThree systems that are regular, and each of which runs in the opposite direction from English.
- The nominativeThe one doing it — and the one the verb agrees with.
- ein, kein and the possessivesOne pattern shared by nine words — and three cells where it says nothing at all.
- Perfect tense (Perfekt)haben or sein plus a participle at the end — and it is how Germans talk about yesterday.
- sein and haben: to be, to haveIrregular, unavoidable, and needed twice over — as verbs and as the machinery of the past tense.
- Personal pronounsThree cases each, and the dative forms used far more often than English suggests.
- Adjectives after seinAfter sein, werden and bleiben an adjective never changes — so learn this position first.
- QuestionsNo do, no does, no did — the verb simply moves.
- Negation: kein or nichtA noun takes kein. Everything else takes nicht. That is the whole decision.
- The accusativeOne article changes, and that one change is most of what the accusative is.
- Contractions: im, zum, amTen fused forms that are not shortcuts but the normal way to say it.
- mögen and möchtenOne verb for liking something, another form of it for wanting something — and they are not interchangeable.
- The pluralThere is no default. The plural is learned with the noun, like the gender.
- Prepositions with the dativeThe seven that carry most of everyday German — and the contractions that come with them.
- Spelling and pronunciationGerman spelling is nearly regular, so a written word says how it is pronounced — once eight rules are known.
- Separable verbsThe verb starts the sentence and finishes it, and the meaning is not complete until the last word.
- Giving instructionsThree imperative forms, one of which keeps its pronoun and two of which drop it.
- The dativeTo whom, for whom — and after a fixed list of prepositions and a fixed list of verbs.
- Possessives: mein, dein, sein, ihrSeven possessives that all decline like ein — and one word that means her, their and the polite your.
- A2Talking about what happened and saying what comes next.
- The futureGerman usually says the future in the present tense, and keeps werden for prediction and emphasis.
- Two-way prepositions: in, aufDative for a position, accusative for a movement — one question that settles all nine.
- Strong verbsAbout two hundred verbs change their stem vowel — and they change it in patterns English speakers already own.
- Compound nounsRead the last part to know what it is, the parts before it to know which one.
- Reflexive pronounsA large group of German verbs carries a pronoun that translates into nothing at all.
- Comparative and superlativeGerman has no "more interesting" — every adjective takes the ending, however long it is.
- dass, weil, wenn: verb at the endThe three commonest conjunctions, and the one position they all produce.
- Where nicht standsLate for the whole sentence, directly in front of one word to deny only that.
- nicht müssen vs. nicht dürfenThe one place where a negation flips the meaning — and German and English flip it differently.
- Leaving out the articleJobs, nationalities, materials and abstract nouns often stand bare where English needs a or the.
- Middle field: known before newNot free, but ordered by a principle rather than by a slot: known things early, new things late.
- What the present tense coversNow, always, tomorrow and since when — all of it in one form.
- Going somewhere: nach, zu, in, aufFour prepositions for a destination, chosen by what kind of place it is.
- haben or sein in the perfectMost verbs take haben; motion and change of state take sein, and a direct object always means haben.
- Polite requests: könnten, hättenA handful of subjunctive forms carry almost all German politeness, and they are met long before the grammar is.
- The imperativeThree forms for three ways of saying you — and a particle that turns an order into an offer.
- Verbs that take the dativeA short list of verbs whose only object is dative, where English would use a plain object.
- Diminutives: -chen and -leinTwo endings that shrink a noun, turn it neuter and sometimes change its meaning entirely.
- Indefinite pronouns: jemandA small set of pronouns for unspecified people and things, and the endings some of them still carry.
- Comparing things: so wie, alsEquality takes wie, difference takes als, and mixing them is the commonest mistake German speakers make too.
- When: als, wenn, wannThree words English writes as "when", separated by one question: once in the past, or repeatedly?
- Answering with dochGerman has a third answer word that English lacks entirely, and leaving it out is genuinely ambiguous.
- Formal and informal: du, SieGerman makes you choose a level of formality in every single sentence you address to somebody.
- Being somewhere: in, an, auf, beiFour prepositions for a location, and the one German uses where English says "at somebody’s".
- Saying when: seit, vor, in, fürFour prepositions of time whose English equivalents cross over, plus the tense German uses with each.
- sollen: orders and hearsayAn obligation that comes from another person, and a second use that reports what people say.
- Demonstratives: dieser, derGerman points with dieser — and mostly with a stressed der, which is what speakers actually say.
- The first position (Vorfeld)Exactly one element goes in front of the verb — and which one you choose is a decision, not a formality.
- Inseparable verbs: be-, ver-Eight unstressed prefixes that stay attached and take no ge- in the participle.
- Guessing the gender from the endingAbout a dozen endings decide the gender outright, which covers a large share of the vocabulary.
- Question words: wer, wen, wemwer changes for case exactly like der, and two different words ask which.
- Adjectives as adverbsThe same word describes a thing and an action, with no -ly and no ending at all.
- Giving a reason: weil, da, dennThree words for because, and each one puts the verb somewhere different.
- Not yet, no longer: noch nichtFour small words that place a negation in time — and each has an exact opposite.
- Coming from: aus and vonaus if you were inside it, von if you were merely at it — the mirror image of in and zu.
- Building the past participleThree patterns, two cases without ge-, and one where it moves inside.
- B1Explaining how things connect, giving reasons, reporting.
- Verbs with a fixed prepositionThe preposition is part of the verb, and so is the case it takes — neither can be worked out.
- Relative clausesThe relative pronoun looks like the article, takes its gender from one clause and its case from the other, and can never be left out.
- Weak masculine nounsA small group of masculines that takes -n in every case except one — and they are words you use daily.
- Impersonal pronouns: man, esOne stands for anybody at all; the other stands for nothing and holds a position open.
- Linking words: deshalb, trotzdemAdverbs that connect sentences and take the first position, so the verb moves in front of the subject.
- The genitiveWritten German uses it; spoken German mostly says von plus dative instead.
- Adjective endingsOne principle instead of three tables: the ending appears where the article did not.
- Simple past (Präteritum)The past tense of books and reports — plus a handful of verbs that use it in speech.
- Subjunctive II: hätte, würdeThe form for what is not the case — and the reason German politeness sounds the way it does.
- Prepositions with the genitiveThe register of written German — and a clear case where speech has already moved on.
- The sentence bracketThe verb opens the clause and something closes it — and everything else lives in between.
- Negative words: nie, nichtsOne negative per clause — German does not stack them, and each positive word has a negative twin.
- Verbs that are always reflexiveA group of verbs whose reflexive pronoun is not an object at all — it is part of the verb.
- Indirect questions and zu-clausesA question inside a sentence stops being a question — and a clause with no subject of its own takes zu.
- Nominalisation: das EssenAny infinitive can become a neuter noun, and any adjective can become one that still takes endings.
- Relative and demonstrative pronounsThe same six words work as article, as relative pronoun and as a demonstrative that replaces a noun entirely.
- Capital lettersGerman capitalises every noun — and the hard part is deciding what counts as one.
- Infinitives with zu, and withoutMost verbs need zu before a second infinitive; the modals and a short list of others do not.
- Modals with no second verbGerman lets a modal stand on its own when the missing verb is obvious.
- Passive with werdenThe process, not the result — and the agent usually left out on purpose.
- Two objects in one sentenceThe person is dative and the thing is accusative — and which comes first depends on whether they are nouns or pronouns.
- Articles where English has noneAbstract nouns, seasons, meals and parts of the body take an article — and professions lose one.
- Adjectives used as nounsGerman turns an adjective into a noun by capitalising it — and it keeps its adjective endings for ever.
- Conjunctions and word orderFive conjunctions change nothing at all; every other one sends the verb to the end.
- Linking -s- and -n- in compoundsThe -s and -n that appear between the two halves of a compound, and what they are not.
- The pronoun es and its usesA subject that stands for nothing, a placeholder that disappears, and the one construction every learner needs: es gibt.
- Where the comma goesGerman commas are grammatical, not rhythmic: a clause boundary takes one whether or not anybody pauses.
- Mixed verbs: bringen, brachteA small group that takes the weak -t ending and changes its vowel anyway.
- Purpose: um … zu, damitTwo ways to give a purpose, and one rule decides which: whether both halves have the same subject.
- Past perfect (Plusquamperfekt)hatte or war plus a participle — for what had already happened when something else did.
- würde + infinitiveA ready-made subjunctive for every verb — used where the proper form would be unrecognisable, and not where it would not.
- Prepositions that belong to a verbThe preposition is part of the verb, it fixes the case, and it almost never matches the English one.
- Order of adverbs: TeKaMoLoWhen several adverbials meet, German has a default order: when, why, how, where.
- Negative prefixes: un-, -losFour ways to build the opposite of a word, and the difference between -los and -frei.
- von instead of the genitiveSpoken German replaces the genitive with von plus dative, and writing does not.
- Adjective endings with no articleWith no article in front, the adjective takes over the article’s own endings.
- Borrowed words and their pluralsThe -s plural belongs to borrowed words, and Greek and Latin words keep their own endings.
- Possessive pronouns: meinsWhen the noun is left out, the possessive takes the der-endings instead.
- Two-part connectors: entweder … oder, weder … nochFive pairs that frame two alternatives or two additions — and the first half decides the word order when it opens a sentence.
- Impersonal verbs: es regnetWeather, states and feelings that happen to somebody rather than being done by them.
- If-clauses: wenn and fallsTwo words for if, one of them also meaning when — and a third form that drops the word entirely.
- B2Getting exact: stance, degree, subordinate clause.
- Avoiding the passiveThree constructions German reaches for instead — and one of them is what a spoken sentence usually uses.
- Subjunctive I: reported speechA form that says "somebody else said this" and takes no position on whether it is true.
- Modal verbs for guessesThe same six verbs used a second time — not about what is possible, but about how likely the speaker thinks it is.
- Participles used as adjectivesBoth participles can stand in front of a noun — one means it is doing something, the other that it has been done to.
- Concession: obwohl, trotzdemFour ways to concede a point, and each one places the verb somewhere different.
- Modal particlesWords with no dictionary meaning that change what a sentence is doing.
- Passive with seinsein plus a participle describes how things are — and English writes it the same way as the other one.
- Future perfect (Futur II)Rarely a future tense; almost always a guess about something already over.
- Unreal past: hätte gemachtThe past unreal conditional: one form for both halves, and a modal verb pushes hätte to the front.
- The passive in every tensewerden carries the tense, the participle never changes, and the perfect uses worden rather than geworden.
- Apposition and its caseAn added description takes the case of the noun it describes, which is easy to say and easy to forget.
- Relative clauses with wasWhen there is no noun to attach to, the relative pronoun is was — and after a preposition it is a wo-form.
- Naming who did it: von and durchA passive usually names nobody; when it does, a person takes von and a cause takes durch.
- Modals in the pastTwo infinitives at the end of the clause — correct, awkward, and usually replaced by the simple past.
- Adjectives with a case or a prepositionSome adjectives take a dative, some a genitive, and many a fixed preposition — none of it derivable.
- Result and means: sodass, indem, ohne dassClauses that say what followed, how something was done and what did not happen — all with the verb at the end.
- Word formationA stem, a prefix and a suffix — and a word nobody taught you becomes readable.
- Wishes and regretsA wenn-clause with no main clause, plus nur or doch — a complete sentence expressing a wish.
- Impersonal passive: es wirdGerman can build a passive out of a verb with no object at all — and English cannot.
- C1The fine grain: tone, register, rare forms.
- Nominal and verbal styleWritten German packs whole clauses into nouns; reading it and unpacking it are the same skill.
- Words after the final verbThe bracket normally closes the sentence — and four things are allowed to come after it.
- Noun–verb phrases: zur Verfügung stellenA noun carries the meaning, a pale verb carries the grammar — and the pair is fixed.
- C2The rest — the part native speakers look up too.
- Extended participle phrases in depthA whole relative clause packed between article and noun — with its own word order and no commas.
The finish: the whole grammar
131 topics, from the first sentences to the finishing touches.
How to read the path. Every dot is a grammar topic; a click opens it. The colour of a dot is its category, the colour of the path is the difficulty — green and easy at the top, berry red and hard at the bottom. Within a level the categories follow one another, but you need not take them in order: you can work on a tense and on a topic from another category side by side.
On every topic page you can note how well it has sunk in — understood or not sure yet. The path shows it here and highlights the next open topic.
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