How Vokably teaches
German vocabulary
A spaced repetition system built for one language, with the genders, plurals, compounds and verb forms already on the card.
What happens to a word
Three things decide whether vocabulary sticks: how you meet it, how you are tested, and when you see it again.
- 01
Meet it
A new word arrives inside a German sentence, with its article, plural and English meaning — not as a bare pair of words.
- 02
Produce it
From box 3 you type the word into the sentence yourself. Recognising a word in a list of four is not the same as being able to write it.
- 03
Keep it
Recall it and the interval doubles. Miss it and it comes back tomorrow. You never decide when to review anything.
You can see exactly where every word sits
Five boxes on a shelf. Recall a word and it moves up and waits longer; miss it and it drops back to box 1. Nothing is hidden behind an opaque score.
Recalled it — up one box, and it waits a day
Box 1 is reviewed daily, so its size is your daily workload. New words are only added while there is room in it — study hard and intake speeds up, fall behind and it pauses on its own.
The hard parts, handled on the card
A general flashcard app hands you an empty deck. Vokably arrives knowing what German does to English speakers.
Gender on every noun
The article and plural sit on the card, so you learn der Tisch rather than Tisch and a shrug. Genders are colour-coded everywhere in the app.
False friends flagged
Gift is poison, bekommen is to receive, and a Rathaus has nothing to do with rats. Vokably warns you the first time you meet the word.
Compounds broken down
Krankenhaus is a sick-house. Long nouns stop being intimidating once you can see the seams — and one of them teaches you three words.
Separable verbs marked
ziehen is to pull; anziehen is to get dressed; ausziehen is to undress, or to move house. The prefix leaves and takes the meaning with it.
Every principal part
Präsens, Präteritum, Partizip II and the right auxiliary — haben or sein — on every verb, with the irregular ones marked.
Real example sentences
Every word arrives in a German sentence with its English translation, so you meet it in the collocations it actually appears in.
2,394 words, A1 to B1
Complete beginner. The words you need on day one.
Past the basics, into everyday conversation.
Where German starts to feel usable.
Ordered by how often each word actually appears. Definitions, example sentences and level assignments are AI-generated.
How it differs
There are good tools in this space. They are built for different jobs.
An empty deck and a lot of settings to get wrong.
2,394 words already written, with sentences, genders, plurals and verb forms. No deck building.
A fixed path, at their pace, with streak pressure.
You choose the levels and mark what you already know. Missing a day costs you nothing.
One tool stretched across every subject.
Built only for German — gender colour-coding, compound breakdowns, false-friend warnings.
High-volume exposure, heavily gamified.
Deliberate vocabulary building on a schedule you can see, with five games kept separate from it.
For the days you don't feel like studying
Frequently asked questions
- Is Vokably free?
- Yes. Vokably is free during beta — create an account and start studying without a credit card. All five games are free.
- Which German levels does it cover?
- CEFR A1, A2 and B1: 2,394 words in total. Study one level or several at once.
- How long does a session take?
- About five minutes. A session mixes words that are due with a few new ones, so its length stays roughly constant as your vocabulary grows.
- Do I need to install anything?
- No. Vokably runs in the browser on desktop and mobile.
- What happens if I miss a few days?
- Your due cards pile up in box 1 and intake of new words pauses automatically until you have cleared them. Nothing is lost and nothing is punished.
Start with your first ten words
A free account, no card, and every game unlocked from the start.
Start learning free