Memorize 358 High-Frequency German Words from the B1 Expanding Deck

Textbook German and spoken German are not the same language. The German Vocabulary B1 — Expanding deck (code MM0094, 358 cards) on Flip It is built from high-frequency everyday speech: the adverbs, connectors and blunt everyday nouns that fill real conversations and German TV dialogue. It is the layer between "I passed A2" and "I can follow a whole episode without subtitles".

What the 358 cards actually cover

Every card runs English → German, single word or short phrase, no sentences.

• Connectors and discourse glue — sogar, ziemlich, eben, zwar, kaum, trotzdem, deswegen, danach, damals, außerdem, wenigstens, sobald, solange, genauso, besonders, irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwas.
• Question and direction words — woher, wohin, wen, wovon, welche, drüben, überall.
• Everyday nouns — schlüssel, wohnung, handy, nachricht, kaffee, laden, büro, krankenhaus, gefängnis, zimmer, fenster, tisch, straße, hund, schiff.
• People and relationships — kerl, kumpel, freundin, eltern, onkel, schatz, mensch, anwalt, mörder, opfer, boss, herren.
• Verbs of daily life — schaffen, kümmern, verschwinden, retten, erklären, vertrauen, ändern, schicken, behalten, heiraten, vorstellen, erinnern, passieren.
• Feelings and judgements — froh, stolz, ehrlich, böse, lustig, komisch, unglaublich, gefährlich, dumm, schlimmer, möglich, unmöglich, nötig.
• Participles and inflected forms as you hear them — getötet, verloren, gegangen, geschafft, gesprochen, gebracht, geschickt, gefragt, verdient, versprochen, gestorben.

A sample of the cards:

Work it in three passes

Pass one: the ~60 connectors and adverbs only. They are short, they repeat constantly, and they are what makes your German sound German rather than translated. Pass two: nouns and verbs, 40 new cards a day — the deck is done in about nine days at that rate. Pass three: the participles, reviewed as a block, because they teach you the Perfekt patterns by example.

Two things this deck demands

1. Add the capital letter and the article yourself. The cards store German in lowercase (schlüssel, wohnung, gefängnis), but in writing every German noun is capitalized and needs its gender: der Schlüssel, die Wohnung, das Gefängnis, die Nachricht, das Büro, der Laden. Say the full form aloud when you flip — otherwise you learn a word you still cannot write correctly.

2. Mine the participles instead of memorizing them one by one. Thirty-odd cards are past participles: gefragt, verdient, geschickt, versprochen follow the ge- … -t pattern, while gegangen, gesprochen, verloren, gestorben take -en with a vowel change. Sort them into those two piles once and the rest of the deck stops being a list.

One warning: because the word list is frequency-derived, a handful of cards are interjections and first names (äh, ähm, hm, wow, super, john, sam). Mark them known on sight and spend the time on the real vocabulary.

Sign in to Flip It and look up German Vocabulary B1 — Expanding (MM0094) in the library. Already comfortable with everyday speech? The next step is domain vocabulary: German business, technology and automotive words.