A1 — Survival German
What you can do
Introduce yourself; give personal information; order food; ask prices, times and directions; understand very slow, simple speech.
Typical German
Present tense; sein and haben; basic modal verbs; nominative and accusative; articles and gender; plural forms; separable verbs; nicht/kein; questions; basic verb-second word order.
What it feels like
You construct almost every sentence consciously. Native speech sounds extremely fast.
Ready to move on when…
You can handle a two-minute predictable conversation without translating every individual word.
A2 — Everyday routine German
What you can do
Talk about family, work, shopping, housing, health and daily life; make appointments; describe past events simply; understand short messages and announcements.
Typical German
Perfekt past tense; dative case; common prepositions; two-way prepositions; reflexive verbs; comparatives; adjective endings at a basic level; subordinate clauses with weil, dass, wenn; common Präteritum forms such as war, hatte, konnte.
What it feels like
You can communicate, but mostly about familiar subjects. Longer replies often break down.
Ready to move on when…
You can describe your day, past experiences and basic plans in connected sentences.
B1 — Functional independence
What you can do
Manage most travel and daily-life situations; explain opinions and experiences; deal with landlords, doctors and authorities; understand the main point of clear standard German.
Typical German
All four cases with reasonable control; relative clauses; adjective declension; Konjunktiv II for wishes and hypotheticals; passive basics; um…zu / ohne…zu; more past-tense forms; connectors such as obwohl, deshalb, trotzdem, während.
What it feels like
You can live through German, but not yet effortlessly. You often talk around missing words.
Ready to move on when…
You can maintain an unprepared 10–15-minute conversation and write a clear connected text.
B2 — Professional independence
What you can do
Participate actively in meetings; discuss abstract subjects; explain advantages and disadvantages; understand standard podcasts, news and workplace conversations; communicate spontaneously with native speakers.
Typical German
Complex subordinate clauses; passive and passive alternatives; advanced connectors; verb–preposition combinations; indirect speech basics; nominalisation; more precise adjective endings, prepositions and sentence structure; broader collocations.
What it feels like
German becomes a tool rather than merely a subject. You still make mistakes, but they rarely prevent understanding.
Ready to move on when…
You can defend an opinion, follow normal-speed standard speech and work in German without constant assistance.
C1 — Advanced professional/academic German
What you can do
Follow lengthy, complex speech; read demanding articles and literature; write structured reports and arguments; adapt your language to social, professional and academic contexts.
Typical German
Fine control of register; advanced indirect speech; complex relative and participial structures; nominal style; idiomatic expressions; subtle connectors; precise word choice; stylistic variation and advanced punctuation.
What it feels like
You usually think directly in German. The main challenge is precision, tone and naturalness — not basic communication.
Ready to move on when…
You can express complex ideas fluently without visibly searching for language most of the time.
C2 — Highly proficient mastery
What you can do
Understand virtually everything heard or read; synthesise multiple sources; follow implied meaning, humour and rhetorical nuance; express yourself with exceptional precision.
Typical German
No major new “grammar syllabus.” The focus is stylistic mastery, ambiguity, connotation, cultural references, specialised terminology, humour, irony and extremely fine distinctions.
What it feels like
German is highly flexible and automatic. Occasional gaps remain, just as they do for educated native speakers.
Ready to move on when…
You can reformulate difficult ideas naturally, preserve subtle meaning and shift register almost effortlessly.