Tools
Reviews of individual language-learning tools: what each one does well, and where it falls short.
- DW Nicos Weg review
Free, well built, and the usual answer to reaching B1 without paying. The gaps are speaking, writing, and anything past B1.
- Pimsleur German review
Unusually good pronunciation training, wrapped around thin and oddly chosen vocabulary, no writing at all, and a ceiling around A2.
- Goethe-Institut German courses review
Strong teaching, a teacher you cannot choose, and the same online course priced very differently depending on which country's institute you book from.
- Duolingo German review
Strong on daily habit and passive vocabulary, weak on grammar, and it teaches German nouns without their gender. Productive ceiling around A2.
- Babbel German review
Genuinely good grammar teaching at A1 and A2, then a B1 level roughly a sixth the size of A1, and nothing at all past B2.