Free C1 German course: advanced

C1 is advanced German for work and study. It covers the Konjunktiv I in writing, participial constructions, academic connectors, register and style, word order for emphasis, and the regional variety of German in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

12 grammar lessons, 3 graded stories, 6 classic books, flashcards and an AI conversation partner, all free. Plan on roughly 300 hours of study for this level (900 in total from zero, by an approximate CEFR estimate that isn't specific to German).

What you'll be able to do

• Listening: I can understand extended speech even when it isn't clearly structured.
• Listening: I can follow films and series full of colloquial German (krass, Bock haben, na ja, ne?).
• Reading: I can understand long, complex factual and literary texts and appreciate their style.
• Reading: I can read specialised articles, official letters and technical instructions outside my field.
• Speaking: I can express myself fluently without much obvious searching for words.
• Speaking: I can move between registers, from colloquial to formal, and choose du or Sie appropriately.
• Writing: I can write clear, well-structured texts on complex subjects, choosing a suitable style.
• Writing: I can write formal letters and emails that sound natural to a German reader.

What you'll learn

Learning C1 German with AI

At C1 the AI partner discusses complex topics with you, explains fine distinctions of meaning, and points out where your German sounds translated. The AI also explains any wrong answer in a lesson, in plain English. It's included free, with a daily allowance; like any AI it can make mistakes, so the lessons remain the reference. More about learning German with AI.

All 12 C1 grammar lessons

Free to read here. In the app, each one is taught in short steps with audio, practised, and brought back for review.

1. Konjunktiv I in news and academic writing
2. Participle clauses: In Berlin angekommen, …
3. Nominal and verbal style: turning one into the other
4. Particle combinations: doch mal, ja wohl, schon, denn, bloß
5. Fronting and the end field: word order for emphasis
6. The impersonal passive and passive with dative verbs
7. Academic connectors: insofern als, demnach, folglich, hingegen, sowie
8. Correlates: es, darauf, damit before a clause
9. Proverbs and fixed expressions
10. Austrian and Swiss Standard German
11. Choosing a register: Amtsdeutsch, journalistic, academic, colloquial
12. Negation in nuance: keineswegs, nicht einmal, kaum, weder … noch

Reading at C1

• Im Kaffeehaus: Wry portrait of a Viennese coffee house, its waiter, a regular and a doomed attempt at modernisation. Austrian words: Ober, Melange.
• Herbst 89: A student asks her mother, once a nurse in Leipzig, about 1989 for a seminar paper, and hears more than the history-book version.
• Befristet: Feature on a historian in Göttingen on her latest fixed-term contract, writing yet another grant proposal. Includes the language of grant applications.
• Der Schimmelreiter by Theodor Storm (1888): On the North Sea coast, the stubborn dike-reeve Hauke Haien builds a new dike against the storms, and the villagers whisper about his white horse. Storm's last novella, told within a ghost story; some Low German words.
• Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane (1895): Seventeen-year-old Effi marries a much older baron and moves to a gloomy town on the Baltic, where a brief affair will catch up with her years later. Fontane's great novel of Prussian society, in witty conversations; old spelling.
• Die Judenbuche by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (1842): In a remote Westphalian village, young Friedrich Mergel grows up among poachers and violence; a Jewish trader is murdered under a beech tree. A dark crime story based on a true case; old spelling (daß).
• Der Sandmann by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1816): Nathanael believes the barometer seller Coppola is the Sandman who haunted his childhood, and falls in love with Olimpia, a strangely perfect young woman. The classic German tale of horror, in letters and narration; old spelling.
• Der Prozess by Franz Kafka (1925): Josef K. is arrested one morning without having done anything wrong, and spends a year trying to find out what he is accused of. Kafka's novel, in its first edition (1925); old spelling (daß).
• Casanovas Heimfahrt by Arthur Schnitzler (1918): The ageing Casanova, longing to return to Venice, stops at a friend's country house and becomes obsessed with the young Marcolina. A psychological novella in elegant, ironic prose; old spelling (daß).

Questions