German
German Study Plan for Busy People
A day-by-day German study plan built around a commute, chores, and family time, not a spare hour that doesn't exist.
Twenty to forty minutes a day, most days, beats a single hour-long session on the weekend you’re too tired for. This plan is built around dead time you likely already have: a commute, laundry, ten minutes before the kids are up. None of it needs a cleared evening.
Daily routine (30-40 minutes)
Listening and speaking (10-15 minutes). On a commute or over coffee, listen to a beginner podcast like Coffee Break German or Slow German and shadow a phrase or two out loud. In the evening, book a short session on Tandem or iTalki; ten minutes talking to an actual person does more than an hour of solo drilling.
Vocabulary (10 minutes). Run an Anki deck during whatever dead time shows up: a line at the pharmacy, water coming to a boil. A frequency-based deck like “4000 German Words by Frequency” covers more useful ground than a themed one built around, say, animals or colours.
Grammar and writing (10-15 minutes). Work through a structured course like Nicos Weg or a textbook such as Menschen, then write two or three sentences about something that actually happened to you that day. Sentences about your own life stick better than textbook examples about a stranger named Anna.
Weekend session (1-2 hours, split up)
Watch something. German TV or YouTube with subtitles on: ARD Mediathek or Easy German. Once full episodes stop sounding like a wall of noise, turn subtitles off for five-minute stretches at a time.
Talk to someone in the house. If you have kids, teaching them a handful of German phrases doubles as your own practice and gives you a reason to use the language outside a lesson.
The grammar topic you’ve been avoiding. Everyone has one; for most learners it’s the dative case or sentence structure. Spend thirty minutes on it directly, then write a short email or journal entry that forces you to use it.
At 30-40 minutes a day, expect years rather than months before B2. See the learning roadmap for what actually changes between levels, and to calibrate how far a given stretch of daily practice is likely to take you.