Goethe-Zertifikat A1 Vocabulary List (Beginner German)

Goethe-Zertifikat A1 is the entry certificate of the Goethe-Institut. It covers the survival core of German: introductions, numbers, time, family, shopping, and the present tense of sein, haben, gehen and machen.

For candidates preparing Goethe-Zertifikat A1. Maps to CEFR A1.

About Goethe A1

Goethe-Zertifikat A1 is the entry certificate of the Goethe-Institut. It covers the survival core of German: introductions, numbers, time, family, shopping, and the present tense of sein, haben, gehen and machen. A1 is also where the case system starts to bite, since even a simple sentence forces a choice of article, and where separable verbs first appear.

Who this list is for

Goethe-Zertifikat A1 has a concrete administrative use: it is commonly required for spouse and family reunification visas to Germany, which makes it one of the most-sat German exams and the reason many candidates take it at all. Beyond that it suits learners a few months into German who want an external checkpoint.

How to study

Learn every noun with its article and its plural, der Tisch, die Tische, as one item rather than three, because German gender is not reliably deducible and relearning it later is far more expensive than learning it now. Spaced repetition is unusually valuable at A1 German for exactly this reason. Drill the separable verbs as whole sentences so the prefix ends up in the right place automatically.

The list (494 words)

Some example sentences come from the Tatoeba Project (tatoeba.org), CC BY 2.0 FR. The rest were written for MindDory. Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR.

Where do the words after this list come from?

A list has an end. The words you keep for good usually turn up somewhere else — in a page you read, a show you watched, or a conversation you had — one at a time, and rarely at the level you planned for.

MindDory connects to Claude, Cursor, and other assistants that speak the Model Context Protocol, so a word you meet while you are chatting is saved to your deck as a flashcard without you leaving the conversation. There is no copy and paste, no CSV export, and no browser extension.

How the assistant connection works

Choosing an app