Support

Goethe Flashcards

Using the app

Flipping a card

Tap anywhere on the card to flip between the word and its meaning. The meaning side also shows the part of speech.

Sorting words

Tap Known or Learning (Gelernt or Lernen when the base language is German) at the bottom to file the current word into that list. The next word appears immediately.

Switching between German and English

German is the language you learn. The base language – the definitions, buttons and titles – is German by default. Tap the flag next to the “?” on the home screen to switch it to English, and tap it again to switch back. Your choice is remembered.

Undoing a mistake

Swipe from left to right across the card. The last word you sorted goes back to the top of the list it came from, and a short “Undone” (“Rückgängig”) confirmation appears. You can swipe repeatedly to step back through several decisions.

Seeing every word

Tap the title at the top of the screen to open a scrollable list of every word in that list with its meaning, part of speech and frequency.

Questions

What do -r, -e and -s mean?

They are the grammatical gender, written the way German course books abbreviate the articles: -r for der (masculine), -e for die (feminine), -s for das (neuter). A few plural-only nouns such as Leute and Eltern have no singular gender, so they carry no marker.

Where do the words come from?

A frequency list built from the OpenSubtitles corpus, covering tens of millions of words of conversational German. Function words such as “der”, “und” and “nicht” are excluded because they are not useful as vocabulary cards, as are inflected forms, so that you learn the base word rather than one of its endings.

Where do the definitions come from?

German definitions come from the German Wiktionary, English definitions from the English Wiktionary. Reading a German definition of a German word is closer to how you will actually meet the language; switch to English with the flag whenever you need it.

Does the app need an internet connection?

No. Everything is bundled in the app and it works fully offline.

Is my progress backed up?

Your Known and Learning lists are saved on your device between sessions. They are not synced to any server and are removed if you delete the app.

Sources

Word frequencies: FrequencyWords by Hermit Dave (OpenSubtitles corpus), CC BY-SA 4.0.
German definitions: German Wiktionary, via kaikki.org, CC BY-SA 4.0.
English definitions: English Wiktionary, via kaikki.org (Wiktextract), CC BY-SA 4.0.

The word list and definitions as used in the app can be downloaded under CC BY-SA 4.0: Word list & definitions.