You have decided to learn German. You have opened an app, looked at a table of articles and closed the app again. That is where most English speakers start, and it is not a bad start. The good news first: as an English speaker you have a head start that learners from most other languages do not have. The other news: the first three months decide whether German becomes a habit or a folder of good intentions. This plan is built for the second outcome.
It assumes you can find about 20 minutes a day, six days a week, and that you would like to reach the point where a German shop, a train announcement and a short conversation stop being noise. That is roughly level A1 to A2, and 90 days is a realistic frame for it.
Why English speakers read German before they hear it
English and German are sister languages. About a third of everyday German words have an English relative you recognise on sight: Haus, Wasser, Freund, trinken, Winter, Hand, Finger, Garten. When you read German, your brain does the matching for you. When you hear it, the same words arrive in a different rhythm, with an r in the throat and a ch that English does not have, and the matching fails.
This is why learners who study only from text feel fluent on paper and lost in a bakery. The plan below puts listening in from the first week, before you have anything to say. If you know from the start that your ears are the slow part, you will not mistake that for lack of talent.
Where English speakers actually stumble
Three things cost English speakers more time than everything else together:
- Three words for „the“. Every noun is masculine, feminine or neuter, and the article changes with the case. There are ending rules that get you to about 80 per cent, and we have written them up in Der, die, das: how to guess the right article most of the time.
- The verb at the end. In a subordinate clause the verb waits until the last word. You have to hold the sentence open in your head. It is a habit, not a rule you can memorise, so it comes from listening.
- Sounds English does not have. ch, ü, ö and the German r. None is hard once someone shows you where the tongue goes, but nobody tells you in week one, so you build a wrong habit and correct it later.
Everything else, including the famous long words, is easier than it looks. Krankenhaus is just „sick house“, a hospital.
Days 1 to 14: sounds, greetings, numbers
Do not open the grammar section. Spend the first two weeks on three things.
Sounds. Learn to hear and say the seven sounds that mark an English accent, above all ich and Buch, über and schön. Ten minutes a day, listening and repeating aloud. Whispering does not count.
Greetings and survival phrases. Guten Morgen, Guten Tag, Tschüss, bitte, danke, Entschuldigung, Ich verstehe nicht, Sprechen Sie Englisch? About 30 phrases in total. Say them until they come out without thinking.
Numbers 1 to 100. German says the units before the tens: vierundzwanzig is „four-and-twenty“. Prices, times and platform numbers all depend on this, and it needs drilling, not understanding.
By day 14 you should be able to greet someone, order a coffee and understand a price. That is not much German, but it is real German, said out loud.
Days 15 to 45: the first 300 words and the present tense
Now the vocabulary starts. Aim for ten new words a day, always with their article: not Tisch but der Tisch. Learn the cognates first, because they are free: der Name, das Haus, die Mutter, der Vater, das Bier, die Milch, alt, jung, gut, warm, kalt. Then the words you will actually need: food, transport, days, time, family, the words on signs.
For grammar, learn one thing only: the present tense of regular verbs and the four irregular ones you cannot avoid, sein (to be), haben (to have), werden (to become) and können (can). With these and 300 words you can say a surprising amount, badly, which is the goal at this stage. German has no continuous form, so ich lerne is both „I learn“ and „I am learning“. One tense does the work of two.
Keep listening every day. At this stage you will start to catch single words in a stream of German. Note them. Each one you catch is a sound pattern your ear has just learned.
Days 46 to 75: cases, but only the two you need
German has four cases, and the tables in textbooks make them look like the end of the road. In daily speech you use two of them constantly: the nominative for the subject and the accusative for the object. Der Hund sieht den Mann: the dog sees the man. Only the masculine article changes (der to den); feminine and neuter stay as they are. Learn that and you have most of what you need.
Add the dative for the handful of prepositions that always take it (mit, nach, aus, zu, von, bei) and for „to someone“: Ich gebe dem Kind ein Buch, I give the child a book. Leave the genitive for later. Germans themselves are leaving it for later.
In these four weeks, add the past tense you hear most in speech, the Perfekt: Ich habe gegessen, I have eaten. It works like the English present perfect and Germans use it for almost everything in conversation.
Days 76 to 90: speaking, and the point of no return
The last two weeks are for output. Talk to yourself in German while you cook. Write three sentences a day about your day. If you can, find a human: a tandem partner, a colleague, the person at the bakery who has heard you say ein Brötchen, bitte for two months.
Expect this: your listening will now be far ahead of your speaking. You will understand a question and answer it in English, or in German with the verb in the wrong place. That is normal and it is the sign that the plan worked. From here, the daily habit carries you to A2 and beyond. How much further, and how fast, is a question of hours; we have done that arithmetic in How long does it take to learn German?
Say it like this
Ich lerne seit drei Monaten Deutsch. – I have been learning German for three months. (German uses the present tense here, not „have been“.)
Können Sie das bitte wiederholen? – Could you repeat that, please?
Langsamer, bitte. – Slower, please.
Ich verstehe ein bisschen. – I understand a little.
What to use for the daily 20 minutes
You do not need five apps. You need one thing that gives you the words in the right order, plays them in a native voice, and brings each word back at the moment you are about to forget it. The course we describe on our page Learn German with an English interface does exactly that, in 17-minute sessions, with every explanation in English. The provider states about 21 hours of learning time for the beginner’s course, which at 17 minutes a day comes to roughly 75 days: the length of this plan.
Whatever you use, the rule is the same. Twenty minutes every day beats two hours on Sunday, because the sounds and the articles are stored by repetition, not by effort.
Frequently asked questions
Can I really reach A2 in 90 days?
With 20 minutes every day, a good structure and some listening on the side, A1 is realistic and A2 is within reach, especially if you live in a German-speaking country. Without daily practice the same material takes a year.
Should I learn grammar first or words first?
Words first, with their article, and one grammar point at a time. The present tense and the nominative and accusative cases cover most of what a beginner says. The rest can wait until you have something to say.
Is German harder than French or Spanish for English speakers?
Reading is easier, because of the shared vocabulary. Grammar and pronunciation take longer, mainly because of cases and the sounds ch, ü, ö and r. Overall the US Foreign Service Institute puts German in a slightly slower category than French and Spanish.
Start the 90 days today
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