Home / Best apps to learn a language / German
Prices and language coverage checked in September 2026.
German has 133 million speakers, 76 million of them native, by Ethnologue’s 2026 count, and it is official in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Belgium. Every big course teaches the standard German of Germany; Austria and Switzerland write the same language with their own words, and Switzerland without ß. What German asks of an app is grammar: three genders, four cases, adjective endings that change with both, and a verb that waits at the end of a subordinate clause.
The free part is unusually strong. Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster, and the German adult education association give complete courses to B1 at no cost, and Busuu and Duolingo can be followed to the end without paying. So the apps below are compared on what the free material lacks: grammar explained in order, native voices at speed, a person who corrects you, and a way past B2, where the big app courses stop.
The US Foreign Service Institute puts German in category II (of I to IV), about 900 class hours for an English speaker to reach professional working proficiency.
Every big course teaches the standard German of Germany, and none has an Austrian track. Austria writes the same standard with its own words (Jänner for January, Erdäpfel for potatoes); Switzerland writes ss for ß and speaks dialect, which about 65% of the Swiss use, per Pimsleur. Pimsleur’s Swiss German (10 lessons, US$49.95) is the one packaged course we found, Preply lists 155 Austrian and 107 Swiss German tutors, and the Austrian Integration Fund runs Mein Sprachportal. Learn standard German, and add Austrian or Swiss listening once you know where you are going.
German nouns have three genders and four cases, adjective endings change with the article, the gender and the case, and the verb goes second in a main clause and last in a subordinate one. Babbel and DW’s Nicos Weg explain this in writing, Language Transfer by reasoning; Duolingo, Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone leave it to patterns. For drills, DW’s Artikeltrainer covers der, die and das, Seedlang has gender and plural trainers and Clozemaster has adjective declension sets. Kwiziq, which French and Spanish learners use for grammar, has no German. Learn every noun with its article from the first day.
A 2011 study in the journal Language timed German read aloud at 5.97 syllables a second against 6.19 for English, a difference the authors found not significant; French (7.18) and Spanish (7.82) were faster. German syllables were the heaviest of the European languages in the study, 2.68 sounds a syllable on average against 2.48 for English. The shared vocabulary helps, but check the false friends: aktuell means current, eventuell maybe, Chef boss and bekommen to get. Pick apps with native audio beside the text, and train your ear on graded speech first.
Duolingo labels its German course B2, and we found no independent test of the label. Busuu’s course page says A1 to B2, Seedlang stops at B2 by Easy German’s label, and Babbel runs to B2 with extra content into the foundations of C1, although an August 2026 review counts about 15 lessons at B1 and calls B2 thin. DW’s Nicos Weg ends at B1, and so do vhs-Lernportal’s general courses, with job German at B2 and C1. Pimsleur names no level. Lingoda’s live classes run to C1; past B2, plan on books, news, podcasts and a tutor.
The Goethe-Zertifikat is one exam per level from A1 to C2; at the German Institute for the Southwest, a US licensed centre, it costs US$275 (A1) to US$465 (C2) in 2025 and 2026. The TestDaF scores TDN 3 to 5, roughly B2 to C1, and most German universities want TDN 4 in all parts. Germany asks for B1 for permanent residence and for citizenship, now after 5 years for everyone: the 3 year route ended on 30 October 2025. Austria asks for B1 for citizenship and Switzerland for B1 spoken and A2 written: book the exam your office names.
Best free daily course
The German course runs to B2 by Duolingo’s own label; an unofficial tracker counts 1,030 units, 1,147 short Stories and 1,267 DuoRadio episodes. It teaches the cases and word order by pattern, with little explanation on the free plan, and has no Austrian or Swiss content. It builds a daily habit better than it teaches German grammar.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A free daily German habit from zero; on a laptop, without the Energy cap.
Best free course with corrections
Busuu’s German page says a free account can work through the whole Complete German course in order, with ads: 420+ lessons, A1 to B2 on the course page. Fluent speakers in the community correct your written and spoken answers. Next to Duolingo, it is the free course to choose if you want a syllabus rather than a game.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A1 to B2 learners who want a syllabus they can use free and a fluent speaker checking their answers.
Best structured course
German is Babbel’s home market, and its course runs from A1 “up through B2”, with extra content into “the foundations of C1”. An August 2026 review found that it “runs out of course at precisely the point German gets hard”. It is the paid syllabus we would pick from A1 to B1, with a tutor added at B1.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A1 to B1 learners who want the cases and word order explained in order, no games and no ads, and will pay for it.
Best free video course
Nicos Weg is Deutsche Welle’s free video course, a story in episodes with exercises and “detailed grammar pages”, at A1, A2 and B1. Around it DW publishes graded news from B1 to C1, with new items every few days in September 2026. It is the free course we would pair with Duolingo for the grammar.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A1 to B1 learners who want a free course with the grammar explained, and anyone who wants graded news every week.
Best for native voices from A1
A German-only app built with the Easy German YouTube team: native speakers say each sentence on video, you answer, and interactive video stories run from A1 to B2, per Easy German. Pro adds gender and plural trainers. Use it beside a course, not instead of one: it stops at B2 and explains little grammar.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A1 to B2 learners who want real German voices and a drill for der, die and das beside a course.
Best for speaking from lesson one
Pimsleur’s German is 150 audio lessons of 30 minutes in 5 levels of about 16 hours each: you answer out loud, and words come back at spaced intervals; Level 5 adds a short story to read. Pimsleur publishes no CEFR level and calls Level 5 intermediate. It is the only major app we found with a Swiss German course.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A trip in two months, a long commute, or anyone who wants to speak German before they read it.
Best live tutors
Preply lists 3,028 German tutors and has separate pages for Austrian German (155 tutors) and Swiss German (107), so you can book the variety you will hear. Below B1, pick a trained teacher who can explain the cases in your language; from B1 on, a weekly lesson gives you a person who hears your German and corrects it.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Anyone from A1 who needs a person to talk to, with the German of the country they are heading to.
Best for reading real books
Lingo7 puts a translation in your own language under every sentence of a German book (49 languages), reads it aloud and drills saved words in 12 kinds of exercise. Of its 100 German books, 2 are B1, 18 B2 and 80 C1 by our estimate; below B2, start with the Stories. It is our app, and it has no course.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: B2 and C1 readers who want the German classics with their own language under the text, A2 and B1 learners starting with the Stories, and anyone with their own EPUBs.
Best free course for life in Germany
The free portal of the German adult education association has a course each for A1, A2 and B1, 12 lessons and about 900 exercises apiece, with instructions in 20 languages, then job German at B2 and C1. It is built for people settling in Germany, and you can study alone or with a teacher who follows your work.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Anyone living in Germany or moving there, from A1 to B1, and job German after that.
Best for video input
German subtitles and a translation into your language side by side on YouTube, with a dictionary on click, free for subtitles and lookups. German YouTube has Easy German’s street interviews (3.3 million subscribers) and DW’s learner channel (1.65 million). The Netflix side broke in June 2026 and in September works with known bugs.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: B1 and up with a laptop, turning German YouTube into listening practice.
Best podcast course
A teacher takes a learner through German on the recording, with a native speaker, over 3 seasons of 40 lessons of about 15 to 20 minutes, from absolute beginners in Season 1 to advanced learners in Season 3, and the audio is free. The main feed is still publishing: a bonus episode came out on 8 September 2026.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Commuters who want a structured audio course from zero at no cost.
Best live classes to C1
Small live classes on a CEFR syllabus from A1 to C1 for German (French stops at B2), with 2 to 4 fellow students and native-level teachers, per Lingoda. It is the one course here that carries you past B2 with a teacher in the room.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: B1 learners heading for B2 or C1 who want scheduled classes with a teacher.
Busuu + Duolingo + DW Learn German
Pick one free course and do it every day: Busuu if you want a syllabus and a fluent speaker correcting you, Duolingo if the game keeps you going. Work through DW’s Nicos Weg beside it for the grammar pages Duolingo does not give you, and put Coffee Break German or Language Transfer’s free Complete German in your ears on the commute. Pimsleur is the paid choice if you want to speak before you read; living in Germany, take vhs-Lernportal’s free A1 course.
Keep your course going to B1, or move to Babbel if you want the cases explained in order and will pay. Add Seedlang for native voices and its gender and plural trainers, follow DW’s Top-Thema news at B1, and book a Preply tutor once a week in the variety you need. Start reading with Lingo7’s Stories at A2, then graded readers you import; its shelf of classics starts at B2 in practice, by our estimate.
Lingo7 + Language Reactor + Preply
Courses thin out here. Read the classics on Lingo7’s shelf or your own books, watch German YouTube with Language Reactor, move from DW’s slowly read news to the news at full speed, and talk about all of it with your tutor, or in Lingoda’s classes to C1. With a Goethe-Zertifikat, telc or TestDaF date, book a tutor who has taught that exam.
| App | Role | Levels | Coverage for German | Free | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duolingo | Best free daily course | A0 to B1 | Standard German of Germany, no Austrian or Swiss content; B2 by Duolingo’s label; 1,030 units and 1,147 Stories by an unofficial tracker | Every lesson; Energy cap on a phone | US$13 to 17 a month, US$7 to 10 a month yearly |
| Busuu | Best free course with corrections | A1 to B2 | 420+ lessons, A1 to B2 on the course page; side courses in travel, life in Germany and pronunciation; no Austrian or Swiss track | Whole course, in order, with ads | US$10 to 15 a month, US$6 to 12 a month yearly |
| Babbel | Best structured course | A1 to B2 | A1 to B2, with content into the foundations of C1, by Babbel’s labels; no Austrian or Swiss course | One lesson after sign-up | About US$9 a month yearly on the web |
| DW Learn German | Best free video course | A1 to B1 | Standard German; Nicos Weg A1 to B1 and news from B1 to C1, by DW’s labels; many interface languages | All of it | Free |
| Seedlang | Best for native voices from A1 | A1 to B2 | German only; A1 to B2 per Easy German; video sentences, stories, gender and plural trainers | Much of the stories, the dictionary | US$9 a month, US$5 a month yearly |
| Pimsleur | Best for speaking from lesson one | A0 to A2 | 150 lessons in 5 levels, about 16 hours a level; Swiss German Level 1, 10 lessons; no vendor CEFR claim | 7 day trial | About US$20 a month, or US$575 once |
| Preply | Best live tutors | A1 to C2 | 3,028 German tutors; separate pages with 155 Austrian German and 107 Swiss German tutors | None | Average US$35 an hour, subscription only |
| Lingo7 | Best for reading real books | A2 to C1 | 100 public domain books, by our estimate 2 at B1, 18 at B2 and 80 at C1; Stories in two versions, adapted for A1 to A2 and original for B1 to B2; your own books in 7 formats (EPUB, PDF, FB2, DOCX, TXT, Markdown, HTML); native audio in a Germany accent; translation into 49 languages | First page of each book | US$5 a month, US$2.50 a month yearly |
| vhs-Lernportal | Best free course for life in Germany | A1 to B1 | A1, A2 and B1 (12 lessons each), job German at B2 and C1, by the DVV’s labels; instructions in 20 languages | All of it | Free |
| Language Reactor | Best for video input | B1 to C2 | Any German YouTube video with subtitles; Netflix working with known bugs in September 2026 | Most of it | US$6 a month, US$3.33 a month yearly |
| Coffee Break German | Best podcast course | A0 to B1 | 3 seasons of 40 lessons, Season 1 for absolute beginners and Season 3 for advanced learners, by the vendor; no CEFR labels | The podcast lessons | Free podcast; US$269 a season |
| Lingoda | Best live classes to C1 | B1 to C1 | A1 to C1 by Lingoda’s syllabus; groups of 2 to 4 fellow students, 5 at most; native-level teachers | 7 day trial | From US$12.49 a group class |
Prices are US store or vendor prices as of September 2026, yearly plans shown as the monthly equivalent. The same app often costs less on its own site than in the App Store, and more in Europe than in the US.
Free on this site: public domain German books you can open in the app, and short German texts at A1, A2 and B1 with a translation.
We have no affiliate deals with any app named here, and none of the links pay us. Prices and coverage come from the vendor’s own help or pricing pages or its US store listing, checked in September 2026, and every other figure names its source in the text; the judgement calls lean on independent reviews, and on the one star reviews for the parts a landing page never shows, like what happens on renewal. Where a vendor’s pages contradict each other, the card says so.
Refund rules, the traps to avoid and the same apps compared by level for every language are on the best apps to learn a language page.
For a start, yes, and it is free: the German course runs to B2 by Duolingo’s own label, with 1,030 units and 1,147 short Stories by an unofficial count. On its own it is not enough: on a phone the free plan’s Energy runs out after about 2 to 3 lessons a day, by a third-party count (the web version runs on hearts), the cases and word order are taught by pattern with little explanation, Video Call is paid, and we found no independent test of the B2 label. Add DW’s Nicos Weg or Babbel for the grammar, Easy German for listening, and a person to talk to once you can put a few sentences together.
For most learners, standard German: every big course teaches it, and it is what Austria and Switzerland write. For Austria, learn the everyday words that differ (Jänner, Erdäpfel, Paradeiser for tomatoes in the east) and use Austria’s free Mein Sprachportal or one of Preply’s 155 Austrian German tutors. Switzerland writes standard German without ß but speaks dialect: about 65% of the Swiss speak Swiss German, per Pimsleur, whose Swiss German Level 1 (10 lessons, US$49.95) is the one packaged course we found. Preply lists 107 Swiss German tutors. Learn to read and speak the standard first, then train your ear on the dialect.
None of them is an exam course, so start with DW’s Deine Deutschprüfung pages, which cover A1 to C2, and book a tutor who has taught the exam. The Goethe-Zertifikat is one exam per level; at the German Institute for the Southwest, a US licensed centre, it costs US$275 for A1, US$345 for B1, US$405 for B2 and US$465 for C2 in 2025 and 2026. The TestDaF scores TDN 3 to 5, roughly B2 to C1, and most German universities want TDN 4 in all parts. For citizenship and permanent residence, Germany asks for B1.
Reading grows your vocabulary, and English shares its Germanic core with German, but the grammar shows up in long sentences, where the verb waits at the end of a clause, and the page does not teach you to follow speech. Lingo7, our app, puts a translation under each sentence of a German book, reads it aloud in a Germany accent and drills the words you save in 12 kinds of exercise, for US$5 a month or US$30 a year. Its German shelf starts at B2 in practice and 80 of its 100 books are C1, both by our estimate, so begin with its Stories or a graded reader, then Kafka’s Der Prozess or Rilke’s Geschichten vom lieben Gott around B2.
For a course, Duolingo (every lesson free, with Energy capping study on a phone) or Busuu, whose German page says a free account can work through the whole A1 to B2 course in order, with ads; fluent speakers correct your answers on the free plan too. For the grammar, DW’s Nicos Weg, free from A1 to B1, and vhs-Lernportal, free from A1 to B1 with job German to C1. Add Coffee Break German and Language Transfer’s unfinished Complete German for audio, and Easy German and DW’s slowly read news for listening. For a tutor you pay: Preply at an average of US$35 an hour for tutors from Germany, on a subscription, or italki with no subscription.
Babbel explains the grammar in writing inside every lesson, from A1 to B2, and DW’s Nicos Weg does it for free on its grammar pages from A1 to B1. For drills, Clozemaster has German sets for adjective declension and for articles and pronoun declension, Seedlang’s Pro plan has gender and plural trainers, and DW’s free Artikeltrainer covers der, die and das at A1. Kwiziq, which French and Spanish learners use for grammar, has no German. Duolingo and Pimsleur leave the cases to patterns, so pair either with one of the apps above.
Duolingo teaches German from 27 base languages, and 25 of them run to B2 by Duolingo’s label (from Telugu and Tamil it stops at B1), per an unofficial tracker. vhs-Lernportal gives its A1 to B1 instructions in 20 languages, and DW’s Nicos Weg runs in many interface languages, now including Kiswahili. Both are free. A Preply or italki tutor who speaks your language can explain the cases in it: Preply says its German tutors speak 4 languages on average.
Read your first page free, in German.