Fewer than you fear for learner stories, more than you hope for novels. Paul Nation's research on English puts 98% coverage of novels at 8,000–9,000 word families. Graded German stories need far fewer: Contos moves readers up at 500 known words (A2), 1,500 (B1) and 4,000 (B2). In German, cases and compounds make every count look bigger.
- Novels (English research)
- 8,000–9,000 word families for 98% coverage
- Speech (English research)
- 6,000–7,000 word families
- Contos level-ups
- A2 at 500, B1 at 1,500, B2 at 4,000 known words
- Free German chapters in Contos
- 96 chapters, 25,310 words, 3,620 different word forms
- Forms of "the" in A1 chapters
- der, die, das, den, dem: about 7% of every word
What counts as a word in German?
Every vocabulary number depends on the unit. Researchers usually count one of three:
- Word form: each spelling separately, so sagt, sagte and sagen are three.
- Lemma: a dictionary form with its inflections, so all forms of sagen count once.
- Word family: a lemma plus its relatives, so sagen, Sage and absagen might count once.
German stretches the gap between these units more than English does, for two reasons.
Articles and endings multiply forms
The English "the" is one form. German uses six: der, die, das, den, dem and des. In the free A1 chapters of the Contos German library the first five make up about 7% of all the words; des doesn't appear until A2. Adjectives add endings too (alt, alte, alten), so one lemma can show up as several forms in a single chapter.
Compounds make new forms from old parts
German writes compound nouns as one word, so a reader meets new forms that are built entirely from known parts. The first A1 chapter of the flatshare story has two in one scene, Badezimmertür and this one:
Herr Krause zeigt auf die Wohnzimmertür.If you know Wohnzimmer (living room) and Tür (door), Wohnzimmertür costs you nothing to understand, yet it is a new form. The free chapters of the German library contain 77 different forms of 15 letters or more, such as Donnerstagnachmittag (Thursday afternoon). Contos counts the forms you know, because that is what appears on the page, so its thresholds are stricter than counts of word families.
How many words do you need for each level?
The best-known estimates come from Paul Nation's 2006 study of English. If you need to know 98% of the running words to read without help, novels need 8,000–9,000 word families and spoken English 6,000–7,000. The vocabulary coverage page explains the 98% figure and the debate around it. These are English numbers, so read them as an order of magnitude for German.
Stories written for learners need far less. For each level, we took every word form used in the free chapters of the levels below and measured how much of that level's free chapters they already cover.
| Level | Contos moves you up at | Different word forms in the free chapters | Covered by every form from the levels below |
|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | Start here | 777 | — |
| A2 | 500 known words | 1,214 | About 76% (the 777 A1 forms) |
| B1 | 1,500 known words | 1,756 | About 78% (1,520 A1–A2 forms) |
| B2 | 4,000 known words | 2,156 | About 84% (2,529 A1–B1 forms) |
So even a reader who knew every form from the lower levels would meet roughly one unfamiliar form in four at A2, and one in six at B2. Some of those are compounds or new endings on words you know; the rest are genuinely new. That gap is where the next level's vocabulary comes from, which is why tapping words as you read matters more than finishing a list first.
Which German words should you learn first?
Learn by frequency, because a small core does most of the work. Across all 96 free chapters of the Contos German library, the 100 most common word forms make up about 50% of the running words, the top 500 about 77% and the top 1,000 about 86%. Our list of your first 100 German words is counted from the beginner chapters, with articles for every noun.
For a general reference, Erwin Tschirner and Jupp Möhring's A Frequency Dictionary of German (2nd edition, Routledge) lists the 5,000 most common words in a 20-million-word corpus of spoken and written German, an extended version of the Herder/BYU Corpus of Contemporary German.
Frequency also explains why you need volume. In the free A1 chapters, 336 of the 777 different word forms (43%) appear only once. A word you see once rarely sticks, so the less common words are learned by reading enough to meet them again, or by reviewing them on purpose with spaced repetition.
How do you get to 500, 1,500 and 4,000 German words?
- The first 500: the frame. Articles, pronouns, sein and haben, and the nouns of daily life. Save every noun with its article (die Tür, der Brief), because the article is part of the word in German.
- 500 to 1,500: verbs and their partners. One verb brings several forms (sagt, sagte, gesagt), and separable verbs such as aufmachen and anrufen split across the sentence. Save the verb with the little word that goes with it.
- 1,500 to 4,000: the long tail. At B1 and B2 the past tense and longer compounds arrive, and more of each chapter is rarer words. Reading a series through gives you repeats; flashcards catch the rest.
- Count what you recognise, not what you can define. Reading needs words you understand in a sentence, not words you could translate in isolation.
For the hours each stage usually takes, see how long it takes to learn German.
Start an A1 German story and see how many of the common words you already know.
Read free in your browserFrequently asked questions
Is 1,000 words enough to speak German?
Enough for slow, simple exchanges about familiar things, roughly A2 territory. Not enough to follow native speakers at full speed: Nation's estimate for comfortable listening in English is 6,000–7,000 word families.
How many words do I need for B1 German?
No official body sets a number. Contos moves readers to B1 at 1,500 known word forms and to B2 at 4,000. Those thresholds are Contos's own, chosen so the stories at each level stay readable with occasional taps.
Does Contos count der and den as different words?
Yes. Contos counts each word form you know, so der, den and dem are separate, as are sagt and sagte. That makes the level thresholds stricter than counts based on dictionary forms or word families.
Do German compound words count as new words?
As forms, yes: Wohnzimmertür is a different spelling from Wohnzimmer and Tür. As vocabulary, a transparent compound costs little, because you can work it out from its parts. Opaque ones, where the parts don't add up to the meaning, are worth a flashcard.
How many words to read a German novel?
For English, Nation's 2006 study puts it at 8,000–9,000 word families for 98% coverage. Expect a similar order of magnitude for German, which is why graded stories come first.