The A1 German vocabulary starter set: the circa 650 words behind the Goethe exam, organised by official topic, with the phrases and exam words to learn first.
Every beginner course opens with a flood of new words and no signal about which ones matter. For the Goethe A1 exam, the signal exists: the test is built on a published word list, so you can learn exactly the A1 German vocabulary the exam draws from and ignore the rest. This guide organises that starter set by the official topic areas, picks the highest-value words and phrases in each, and shows you how to learn them so they stay learned.
How many words does A1 really take?
The official A1 word list for Start Deutsch 1 contains circa 650 words, and the Goethe-Institut expects you to use about half of them actively; the rest you only need to recognise. Source: the official Goethe A1 Wortliste. Last verified July 2026.
Read that number again. Roughly 300 active words is the real production target for the exam. At ten new words a day, the whole receptive list fits into about two months. What makes A1 vocabulary feel harder than it is: courses teach words in textbook order, not exam order. The Wortliste itself groups everything into ten topic areas:
- Person (name, age, address, job)
- Wohnen (housing and home)
- Umwelt (weather and surroundings)
- Essen und Trinken (food and drink)
- Einkaufen (shopping)
- Dienstleistungen (services: bank, post, phone)
- Arbeit und Beruf (work)
- Erziehung und Ausbildung (education)
- Freizeit und Unterhaltung (free time)
- Reisen und Verkehr (travel and transport)
The sections below walk through the areas that carry the most exam weight. For how those words are actually tested across Hören, Lesen, Schreiben and Sprechen, the Goethe A1 exam guide covers the format task by task.
Greetings and talking about yourself
The Person topic area is the highest-value block on the whole list, because the speaking test opens with you introducing yourself along a short keyword card: name, age, country, place of residence, languages, job, hobby. Learn these as ready-made sentences, not as single words.
- Greetings and politeness: Guten Morgen, Guten Tag, Guten Abend, Hallo, Tschüs, Auf Wiedersehen (goodbye), Entschuldigung (excuse me), danke, bitte, Wie geht es Ihnen? (How are you? formal)
- Introducing yourself: Ich heiße ... (My name is ...), Ich komme aus ... (I come from ...), Ich wohne in ... (I live in ...), Ich bin ... Jahre alt (I am ... years old), Ich spreche Englisch und ein bisschen Deutsch (I speak English and a little German)
- Personal details: der Name, -n (name), die Adresse, -n (address), die Telefonnummer, -n (phone number), das Land, Länder (country), der Beruf, -e (job), das Hobby, -s (hobby), verheiratet (married), ledig (single)
These same words return in writing: one Schreiben task asks you to complete a form (das Formular) with exactly this personal data. One set of thirty words covers two exam sections.
Numbers, time and dates
Numbers are the most reused vocabulary in the listening test. Announcements, prices, phone numbers and opening hours all hang on them, and they are worth drilling until they are automatic.
- Numbers: null, eins, zwei, drei ... zwanzig, einundzwanzig (twenty-one; German says one-and-twenty), dreißig, vierzig, hundert. The reversed order in 21 to 99 is the single biggest source of listening errors at A1.
- Time: die Uhr (o'clock), die Minute, -n, die Stunde, -n (hour), halb zehn (half past nine, literally half ten), Viertel (quarter), der Termin, -e (appointment)
- Days and months: der Montag through der Sonntag, der Januar through der Dezember, heute (today), morgen (tomorrow), gestern (yesterday), das Wochenende (weekend)
Watch halb zehn: it means 9:30, not 10:30. English speakers lose easy listening points on this one expression every exam sitting.
Family, food and everyday life
Family words appear in the speaking test (talking about yourself) and in reading texts about everyday situations. Food and shopping words dominate the short ads and notices in the reading section.
- Family: die Familie, -n, der Vater, Väter, die Mutter, Mütter, die Eltern (parents, plural only), das Kind, -er, der Bruder, Brüder, die Schwester, -n, der Mann, Männer (husband/man), die Frau, -en (wife/woman)
- Food and drink: das Brot, -e (bread), das Wasser (water), der Kaffee (coffee), die Milch (milk), der Apfel, Äpfel (apple), das Ei, -er (egg), der Käse (cheese), essen (to eat), trinken (to drink), bestellen (to order)
- Shopping: kaufen (to buy), kosten (to cost), bezahlen (to pay), der Preis, -e (price), billig (cheap), teuer (expensive), das Geld (money), der Supermarkt, -märkte (supermarket), geöffnet (open), geschlossen (closed)
Two of those words, geöffnet and geschlossen, are pure reading-test vocabulary: they appear on the signs and notices that Lesen asks you to judge as richtig or falsch.
Getting around: travel and directions
Reisen und Verkehr is the topic area behind most listening announcements. Train platforms, delays and ticket prices are standard Hören material, and directions turn up in both listening and speaking.
- Transport: der Zug, Züge (train), der Bus, -se, das Flugzeug, -e (plane), der Bahnhof, -höfe (train station), die Haltestelle, -n (stop), die Fahrkarte, -n (ticket), abfahren (to depart), ankommen (to arrive), der Flughafen, -häfen (airport)
- Directions: links (left), rechts (right), geradeaus (straight ahead), die Straße, -n (street), weit (far), in der Nähe (nearby), Wo ist ...? (Where is ...?)
- Useful phrases: Wann fährt der Zug nach Berlin ab? (When does the train to Berlin leave?), Eine Fahrkarte nach München, bitte. (One ticket to Munich, please.)
The exam words nobody teaches you
There is a small set of words that never appears in a textbook chapter but appears on every page of the exam: the task instructions. If you cannot parse the instruction, you cannot show what you know, so treat these as core vocabulary.
- ankreuzen (to tick, to mark with a cross): Kreuzen Sie an: richtig oder falsch? (Tick: true or false?)
- ergänzen (to complete, to fill in): Ergänzen Sie das Formular. (Complete the form.)
- zuordnen (to match): common in reading tasks that pair situations with ads
- richtig / falsch (true / false), das Beispiel, -e (example), die Aufgabe, -n (task), die Anzeige, -n (ad, notice), der Text, -e (text), die Lösung, -en (answer, solution), der Antwortbogen (answer sheet)
Ten minutes with this list can be worth more on exam day than a hundred extra nouns, because misreading ankreuzen or missing das Beispiel costs you answers you actually knew.
Where each topic shows up in the exam
If your exam date is close and you have to prioritise, use this table to decide which topic block to drill first:
| Topic area | Must-know examples | Where it appears in the exam |
|---|---|---|
| Person | heißen, wohnen, der Beruf, verheiratet | Sprechen introduction, Schreiben form task |
| Numbers, time, dates | einundzwanzig, halb zehn, der Termin | Hören announcements, Schreiben |
| Essen und Trinken | bestellen, das Brot, trinken | Lesen notices, Sprechen requests |
| Einkaufen | kosten, der Preis, geöffnet | Lesen ads, Hören prices |
| Reisen und Verkehr | der Zug, abfahren, die Fahrkarte | Hören announcements, Lesen signs |
| Exam instructions | ankreuzen, ergänzen, richtig/falsch | Every task in every section |
How to learn 650 words without burning out
The list is small, but words you meet once and never again evaporate. Three habits keep them.
- Use spaced repetition. Review each word just before you would forget it: after a day, then three days, then a week, then a month. Flashcard apps schedule this automatically, but a paper box with five compartments does the same job. Ten minutes daily beats a two-hour weekend session, because the exam rewards words you can retrieve fast, not words you once highlighted.
- Learn phrases, not isolated words. Ich hätte gern einen Kaffee (I would like a coffee) delivers a whole speaking-test move; the word Kaffee alone delivers nothing. Whenever a word can live inside a sentence you will actually say, store the sentence.
- Always learn noun, article and plural together. die Fahrkarte, die Fahrkarten, never just Fahrkarte. German never uses a noun without gender, and retrofitting articles at A2 is far more painful than learning them now.
Then split your effort along the exam's own line: the active half is the vocabulary of the speaking and writing tasks, so practise producing it out loud and on paper, not just recognising it on cards. And be a little careful with words that look free because they resemble English: some of them, like bekommen, mean something else entirely, and the guide to German false friends lists the ones worth flagging early.
Frequently asked questions
The official Goethe A1 Wortliste contains circa 650 words, and active command of about half is expected; the rest you only need to recognise in reading and listening. That makes roughly 300 words your real speaking and writing target. Learn them inside the ten official topic areas, with article and plural, and the list comfortably fits into two months of daily study.
Yes. The Goethe-Institut publishes the A1 Wortliste for Start Deutsch 1 as a free PDF on goethe.de, organised alphabetically and by topic area, with example sentences for most entries. It is the single most reliable source for A1 vocabulary because exam writers work from it. Official lists exist up to B1 only; from B2 upward, vocabulary is open and topic-driven.
Yes, from day one. German grammar runs on gender: articles, adjective endings and pronouns all depend on whether a noun is der, die or das. Learning die Fahrkarte as one unit costs nothing extra now; relearning genders for hundreds of nouns at A2 or B1 costs weeks. Add the plural at the same time, since plurals are irregular and tested in writing.
Spaced repetition with phrases, not cramming with single words. Review each item after one day, three days, a week and a month, and store words inside sentences you will actually say in the exam, such as Ich hätte gern einen Kaffee. Ten focused minutes a day outperforms long weekend sessions because the exam measures fast retrieval, not recognition of a highlighted page.
