20 Best Apps to Learn German in 2026 (Free, Tested)

The best app to learn German depends on what you need: Babbel if you want the cases explained like a teacher would, Praktika if you want a patient AI tutor to talk to, DW Learn German or Duolingo if you want to start for nothing, Pimsleur for the car, and Slova if you want German built around your own goals and interests.

German is friendlier than its reputation for the first weeks. Many words look like English and Ich heiße comes quickly. Then the articles arrive, der, die and das, followed by four cases and verbs that jump to the end of the sentence. This is where the app matters: some teach the system, and others let you guess until you give up. Our plan for learning German by yourself shows where an app fits.

We compared 20 apps, free and paid, and checked every price and free plan in October 2026. This is not a ranking. Every app has a "best for" label, so find the line that sounds like you. The first twelve get a full review, and eight more are under "More apps worth knowing". One name you may expect is missing from the list: Speak does not teach German to English speakers.

Comparison table

✓Yes◐Partly✕No

How we tested

Between September and October 2026 we put every app through the same checks, starting on the free plan or trial and moving to a paid plan only where a feature needs one. Prices, free limits and language lists come from each app's own pages or its US App Store listing, checked in October 2026. Store ratings are US App Store ratings from 8 October 2026.

We judged every app on the same five things:

• Speaking and correction. How much of a session you spend talking, whether mistakes are caught, and whether you are told why.
• Course and grammar. Whether there is a path from beginner level, and whether genders, cases and word order are explained or only drilled.
• Listening. Whether you hear German at real speed, in real accents, or only slow and clear voices.
• Word review. Whether the words you meet are saved, with their articles, and come back on a schedule.
• Free plan and price. What you get without paying, and what a month and a year cost.

For the twelve full reviews we then ran the same three tasks, so the notes are comparable:

1. The correction task. A ten-minute spoken roleplay booking a doctor's appointment, with three planned slips: a wrong case (ein Termin for einen Termin), a wrong word order (weil ich möchte in Berlin arbeiten) and a flattened vowel (für said like fur). We noted which slips were caught, whether the app interrupted or waited, and whether it gave a reason.
2. The memory task. We met ten new nouns, with their articles, then came back 24 hours later without searching for them. Did der Termin and die Erfahrung return in a review, or were they gone?
3. The goal task. We started as a beginner with a real reason, a job interview in Munich or a favourite football club, and looked at what week one offered, what the free version allowed and what the first bill would be.

The eight apps under "More apps worth knowing" got a lighter check: we read their pricing and help pages, opened the free version where there is one, and ran the first and third tasks if the app allowed it.

Every app gets 0, 1 or 2 points on each of the five criteria. This is the rubric:

In the comparison table a tick is 2 points, a half mark is 1 and a cross is 0.

The 12 detailed reviews

The numbers on the cards are only the order on the page. Read the label after each name and the "watch out" line. Prices in the facts lines are US App Store prices checked in October 2026, unless the line names another source.

3

Slova

Best for learning German through your own life and interests

Slova starts with one sentence about why you want German, and the reason can be a goal, an interest or both. A goal is a job in Munich, a nursing place in Hamburg, a move to Vienna or a Goethe certificate. An interest is the thing you already love: the Bundesliga, techno, hiking in the Alps, baking, German film. Most people have both, and Slova uses both. It asks a few questions written for your topic, then builds a path of units and lessons around you, with the vocabulary, grammar and conversation all living inside it.

The path keeps evolving with you. When you finish the last unit it extends itself, and it changes as your goals, interests and level change, so the content never stops being about you. Behind it sits a real A0 to C2 curriculum, built by language learners and computer scientists, with visual lessons. Every lesson can be done two ways: as interactive slides with pictures, audio and quick checks at your own pace, or out loud with our AI tutors, who listen to your answers and correct you with the reason. You learn German by speaking it.

Everything you meet lands in one place. Every word, verb and phrase from lessons, tutor talks, pictures, podcasts and texts goes into the Lexicon, with where you met it and how well you know it, and it comes back for review. You can import words you already know. You can also make your own practice: describe an office or a stadium and Slova draws the scene and labels each object in German, ask for a podcast, audio lesson or story at your level with a transcript that follows the audio, or rehearse a role-play where an AI tutor plays the other person and corrects as you speak.

Here is why that matters for German. The word you learn today is one you use tomorrow, because it comes from your own life: der Elfmeter and das Abseits if you follow football, der Teig and die Hefe if you bake, das Vorstellungsgespräch and die Probezeit if you are starting a job in Munich. That is what makes results feel fast and practical, and why people keep opening it in week six, when a course written for everyone starts to feel like homework. A correction sounds like this: you say ich habe ein Termin, and the tutor says einen Termin, because Termin is masculine and the object takes the accusative.

GoodBuilt around your own goals and interests, so the words you learn today are the ones you use tomorrow, with every lesson available out loud and one Lexicon for everything you meet.

Watch outNewer than Duolingo or Babbel, with 12 languages today rather than 40. If you only want a quick drill with no goal behind it, a lighter app is simpler.

• English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, German, Italian, Russian and Turkish, and growing
• A0 to C2 curriculum
• Every lesson can be done out loud with our AI tutors
• One Lexicon for every word you meet

More apps worth knowing

These eight got the lighter check, and each is live in October 2026 and best at one thing.

• Memrise (best for hearing real Germans on video). Short clips of native speakers saying everyday phrases, with spaced review. Its Pronunciation Buddy lets English speakers record a phrase and hear whether to try again, for German and nine other languages, and Memrise's blog calls it free. The App Store lists $24.99 a month and $61.99 a year (about $5.17 a month). Little grammar. See Memrise vs Duolingo.
• Mondly (best for short lessons in many languages). Short lessons with picture matching and scripted conversations, and a chatbot with voice recognition in Premium. The App Store lists $15.90 a month or $74.90 a year, both with a one-week trial. A cheap, broad starter, not a place to reach fluency.
• Clozemaster (best for filling vocabulary gaps in real sentences). Fill-in-the-blank sentences ordered by how common the missing word is, with a free version and a Pro plan that the App Store lists from $8.99 to $12.99 a month and $69.99 to $79.99 a year. It suits B1 and above.
• Anki (best free flashcards that you build yourself). Spaced-repetition flashcards, free on desktop and Android, and $24.99 once on iPhone. Put the article on every noun card, die Erfahrung, never just Erfahrung. It teaches nothing by itself.
• HelloTalk (best for chatting with native German speakers). A language-exchange app: you text and talk with native speakers who want your English. Free members get 10 translations a day and VIP removes the limit. It is practice, not a course.
• italki (best for a human tutor by the lesson). Tutors set their own prices, there is no subscription, and both community tutors and professional teachers offer trial lessons. It is the best way to rehearse the speaking part of a Goethe exam with a real person.
• Language Transfer (best free audio course that explains the logic). A free course funded by donations, built on a method it calls the Thinking Method. Its German course is listed as unfinished, so use it as a clear start, not the whole road.
• Lingvist (best for vocabulary through sentences). Every card is a sentence, and German has its own course page. The free trial comes with the 12-month plan and needs payment details. No tutor or conversation, so use it next to a speaking app.

Best free apps to learn German

For most people the best free app to learn German is DW Learn German for the course and Duolingo for the habit, both free from the first lesson. Here is where each free plan stops, checked on each app's own pages in October 2026.

Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone, Lingopie and Lingoda have trials, not free plans. A free start that works: DW Learn German for the course, Duolingo for the daily habit, Language Transfer for the logic, then a real conversation on HelloTalk.

The fastest way to learn German

No app makes German fast on its own. What changes the speed is the number of hours you spend saying German and hearing it at real speed, and the apps below just make those hours easier to find.

A routine that works for most adults, in this order:

1. Talk every day, 20 minutes. Praktika or a Slova tutor lesson out loud. Speaking is the skill that apps replace worst with tapping, and verb-last sentences only become natural when you say them.
2. Learn nouns with their articles. Use the Lexicon in Slova, Review in Babbel, or Anki, so der Tisch returns on Wednesday and not never.
3. Listen for 30 minutes. Pimsleur on the commute, a DW video at lunch, a show on Lingopie in the evening.
4. See a human once a week. A 30-minute lesson on italki, or a Lingoda class, finds the mistakes an AI is too polite to correct.

Speed also comes from choosing words you will use: your job, your flat, your hobby first. That is why a path built around your own life feels faster than a generic one. Our guide to the best apps to learn a language fast covers the method.

For beginners and adults

If you are starting from zero, DW Learn German, Duolingo and Babbel are the gentlest first weeks. DW costs nothing and ties the grammar to scenes, Duolingo builds the habit, and Babbel explains why things work. Our list of the best language apps for beginners covers that first month.

Adults learn differently from children, and the apps that suit them know it:

• You have 15 minutes, not an hour. Duolingo, Babbel and Busuu lessons fit a coffee break.
• You want the reason, not the rule list. Babbel and DW Learn German explain why a sentence works.
• You want to use it on Friday. Adults stay with German when it connects to a job (see German for work and German for nurses), a move or a person. Slova builds the whole path from that reason, and Praktika lets you rehearse a real situation.
• You are nervous about speaking. Start with an AI tutor that never loses patience, then move to a person.

Start with polite German: Sie with people you do not know, du with friends, children and anyone who offers it.

Der, die, das and the four cases

Every German noun has a gender, and it often has nothing to do with the thing itself: das Mädchen, the girl, is neuter. The gender then changes the article in each case, so der Tisch becomes den Tisch and dem Tisch. German has four cases, nominative, accusative, dative and genitive, and guessing the gender only works for some nouns, which is why learners who guess stay stuck.

The fix is plain and a little boring: never learn a noun without its article. Anki lets you keep the article on the card, Babbel and Busuu explain the patterns, and any word list lets you review die Erfahrung, not just Erfahrung. Most nouns ending in -ung, -heit and -keit are feminine, which gives you a head start.

Cases come next. Learn them through phrases you actually say, like mit dem Zug, für meinen Chef or bei der Arbeit. That is where speaking apps earn their price: saying einen Termin twenty times does more than reading the table once. Word order is the other trap. The verb stays second in a main clause, Am Samstag bin ich ins Kino gegangen, and jumps to the end after weil, weil ich in Berlin arbeiten möchte.

Learning German in the car

Audio is the best use of dead time, and German rewards it. These need no screen once you press play:

• Pimsleur. Thirty-minute lessons where you answer out loud. A full audio course, with five levels in German.
• Language Transfer. Free audio that teaches German by explaining how it fits together, though its German course is listed as unfinished.
• A Slova podcast or audio lesson. You can ask for a podcast, audio lesson or story on your topic at your level, with a transcript that follows the audio, and listen on the road.
• A DW lesson as audio. Play the sound of a DW lesson you have already watched, so the words are familiar.

Set the lesson up before you drive. Voice-first apps like Praktika want your phone in your hand, so save them for the evenings. Try one audio course for two weeks, and see our Pimsleur review for how it works.

German conversation apps

For German speaking practice, the real question is what kind of correction you can stand. A tutor that interrupts feels harsh, and one that never corrects teaches you nothing. Speak, a popular speaking app, does not teach German to English speakers [20], so the options are different here.

• Praktika gives you a visible tutor and a dial for how strict the feedback is.
• Langua gives the most detailed report on what you got wrong, after the call.
• Slova lets you do every lesson out loud with our AI tutors and rehearse role-plays where a tutor plays the other person and corrects as you speak, on a path built around your goals and interests.
• Busuu, Duolingo and Babbel each have an AI conversation feature, on the top plan, on Video Call and in a beta.
• Lingoda is the live-teacher option, in groups of up to five.
• HelloTalk and italki are the human options, free to chat on HelloTalk and paid by the lesson on italki.

AI is patient and available at midnight. It is also polite, so it can let a wrong case through: add one real conversation a week. Our guide to the best apps for speaking practice compares the voice apps.

Goethe exams and German certificates

The German exams most people meet are the Goethe-Institut certificates, with an exam at each CEFR level from A1 to C2, the top one being the Großes Deutsches Sprachdiplom. Each tests listening, reading, writing and speaking, and the Goethe-Institut says its certificates are accepted for visa procedures, the recognition of professional qualifications and university admission [18]. Your office or university will name the level and the provider it accepts, so ask before you book.

What can an app do for an exam? No app on this list claims Goethe exam preparation that we could confirm, and Lingoda's pages do not mention it. The official route is free: the Goethe-Institut publishes practice material, and for B1 that means a model set and a practice set for adults, with a listening sample and a speaking video [19]. Use an app for the German itself, then work through those sets under time pressure, and book a few mock speaking sessions with a tutor on italki or a Lingoda teacher.

Other than Duolingo

Most people leave Duolingo for one of five reasons. Our page of Duolingo alternatives goes deeper.

• You want to speak. Praktika, and Slova if you want the lessons themselves out loud.
• You want grammar explained. Babbel, or DW Learn German for free. Babbel vs Duolingo compares the first.
• You want German that fits your life. Slova builds the path around your goals and interests together.
• You want less game and more audio. Pimsleur or Rosetta Stone.
• You want to stay free. DW Learn German, Busuu's free plan and Language Transfer cost nothing.

Best app by goal

Which one should you pick

If your budget is zero, combine DW Learn German for the course with Duolingo for the daily habit. Once the basics feel easy, add a speaking app, because German grammar only becomes automatic when you say it. Praktika is a low-priced patient partner, and Langua suits longer talks later.

If you want to understand how German works, Babbel is the clearest teacher and Busuu adds native speakers. If you drive every day, Pimsleur fits the commute. If genders keep beating you, put every noun on an Anki card with its article.

If you are learning German for something specific, a job offer in Munich, a partner's family in Hamburg, a university place in Vienna or a love of football, Slova is the one we would start with: it builds the lessons, the speaking practice and the word review around that one reason, and it keeps changing as your reason does. Whichever you pick, spend one real week on the free plan or trial first.

Conclusion

German takes structure and speaking, and few apps do both. Babbel teaches the system best, DW Learn German gives you a real course for free, and Praktika gets you talking for little money. Duolingo keeps the habit alive, Busuu adds human eyes and Pimsleur makes a commute count. If you want one course built around your goals and interests, with every lesson available out loud, give Slova a try.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Written by Yiğit Karasu, founder of Slova