Yes. You don’t have to pay a single dime to access and work with the full course. However, in order to enable millions of German learners worldwide to access this course for free I need your help. Share this course with everyone you know so that they’ll find out about SmarterGerman. 

And yes, I still need to earn money and will continue to do so but I’ll put the weight of keeping my business and my family alive on many more shoulders by offering anyone to support this project financially. 

E.g. you can sign up for one of the community memberships ($9,90 /mo or $29,90 /mo, see here) or purchase a special course like the fabulous German Grammar Genius course or one of my A1-/B1 Exam Preparation courses (199 USD each incl. VAT). By purchasing them you not only support me, my wife and son but also my friends who created some of those courses and above all you support thousands of potential German learners world-wide who certainly will enjoy the opportunity to get started with their German in a well structured manner.

Currently I also still charge for the higher levels A2-C1. I’m working on offering A2-B2 for free during the month of April 2025. 

As there are no live classes included, it starts whenever you are ready and ends either when you have achieved your goal or when your access period ends.

This course provides you with everything you need to reach the designated level of the course. For B1 we have a special course to prepare you for the exam.

Yes, quick technical support is of course provided for free. If you need support with your studying you need an active paid membership subscription. More info inside this course and in the courses menu. This membership is not bound to the purchase of any language course of mine. You can also sign up if you are taking classes at any language school out there.

No. This is an all inclusive German language course and all necessary tools are free of charge. I will suggest additional tools that you’d have to pay for but those are not essential.

No. You need an active internet connection.

Yes, of course. The mobile version of the course is beautiful and there is even an app for Android and iOS. Some features like our vocab trainer, the community widget or the dictation tool are not available in the app though.

I’ve created smart and simple techniques that will allow you to practice and improve your speaking skills on your own. You will find them already in Lesson 01.

That depends on you. You can safely assume that it takes the same time as in any standard language school. If studying 4.5 hours per day, 5 days per week, A1, A2 and B1 each take 2 months, B2 and C1 take 3 months.

But you don’t have to stress yourself as you can take all the time you need. And you might even be a lot faster than that. How long such things take depends on many factors above all the time you put into this and your capability to learn languages which is again influenced by many many factors.

Here’s a simple technique to calculate how long this course might take you if things go smoothly: You can measure the time it takes you to finish Lesson 01 and multiply it by the total number of remaining lessons (around 49). Divide that by the number of hours you have available per week and you got a number you can work with and adjust when needed.

No. We don’t offer any officially acknowledged certificates as those are a giant bureaucratic hassle and I prefer to keep loving what I’m doing. BUT you can easily sign up for such an exam at Goethe or TELC or ÖSD certified institutes and pay a fine, I mean fee of anything between 120-200 USD and get a nice piece of paper to show to anyone who’s interested.

Not specifically, no. My courses simply teach you German the way it should be taught, highly efficient and highly enjoyable. Whether you use that to impress your Austrian mother in law or become Germany’s next Bundeskanzler, that’s totally up to you. Like you can use a knife to murder someone, you can also use it to save lives on an operating table. All I deliver is a knife for you to use. And it’s going to be sharp. If you get what I mean. ^^ 

To be safe: there’s no specific preparation for any professional use of the German language. Simply because that also not needed. I consider so called Berufsdeutschkurse rather a questionable offer as the main difference in many such courses is different vocabulary. For that I wouldn’t pay a single cent more than necessary.

Some of these courses, when lead by professionals might be helpful IF they teach you also specific ways of communication with clients like a Patienten-Doktor Gespräch. But even that might not be worth the ridiculous amount some language schools charge for it.