Day 7: Week 1 Review

everything from Days 1–6, tested · 40 min

No new material today. Today you find out what actually stuck.

Do the tests before you look at anything. A review you read is worth almost nothing; a review that catches you being wrong is worth the whole week. Section 6 tells you what to do about whatever you get wrong.

1. Week 1 on one page

The decoder (Day 1)

Greetings and register (Day 2)

Guten Morgen / Tag / Abend · Gute Nacht (leaving only) · Hallo = always safe du = friends, children, animals · Sie = every adult stranger, always capitalised Answers: Sehr gut · Gut, danke · Es geht · Nicht so gut bitte = please / here you go / you're welcome / pardon?

Verbs (Days 3 & 5)

Word order (Days 3 & 4)

V2 — the conjugated verb is the second element. One chunk before it, never two.

Statement: Ich lerne Deutsch. / Heute lerne ich Deutsch. W-question: Wo wohnst du? (no "do") · Yes-no question: Wohnst du hier? (verb first) wo = where · woher = from where · wohin = to where ja / nein / doch — doch contradicts a negative

Articles (Day 6)

die: -ung -heit -keit -schaft -ion -tät -ie -ei · der: -er -ling, days/months/weather · das: -chen -lein -ment -um, verbs-as-nouns

The four things English speakers get wrong

1. No article with a job — Ich bin Lehrer. (not ein Lehrer)
2. Age uses sein — Ich bin 25. — but hunger uses haben — Ich habe Hunger.
3. Two chunks before the verb — Heute ich lerne → Heute lerne ich
4. nicht ein → kein

2. ✍️ Dictation — 15 sentences

Have these read to you — or upload them to LangNote and use the Dictation mission — and write them down without looking. Then check.

1. Guten Morgen! Wie geht's?
2. Es geht, danke. Und dir?
3. Ich heiße Anna und ich komme aus Österreich.
4. Wo wohnst du?
5. Ich wohne in Berlin, aber ich arbeite in Potsdam.
6. Was machst du? — Ich bin Lehrerin.
7. Wie alt bist du? — Ich bin dreißig Jahre alt.
8. Ihr seid sehr nett.
9. Hast du Hunger? — Nein, aber ich habe Durst.
10. Gibt es hier ein Café?
11. Der Tisch ist neu, aber die Lampe ist alt.
12. Ich habe kein Auto und keine Zeit.
13. Warum lernst du Deutsch?
14. Heute lerne ich Deutsch, morgen fahre ich nach Wien.
15. Sprichst du kein Englisch? — Doch, natürlich!

Scoring

⚠️ Check what kind of error you made. Missing seid vs sind is an ear problem. Missing der/die/das is a memory problem. Writing Wein as Ween is a decoder problem. They need three different fixes.

3. 🗣 Speaking test — one minute about yourself

Record yourself. One take, no notes, no stopping. If you stall, keep going in silence and pick up again — do not restart.

The eight things you must include

• ☐a greeting appropriate to the time of day
• ☐your name
• ☐where you are from (kommen aus)
• ☐where you live (wohnen in)
• ☐your job (no article)
• ☐your age (sein)
• ☐that you are learning German, and why (warum / weil)
• ☐a closing

Model answer (~45 seconds)

Guten Tag! Ich heiße Alex. Ich komme aus Kanada, aber ich wohne jetzt in Berlin.Ich bin Student und ich bin fünfundzwanzig Jahre alt. Ich lerne Deutsch, weil meine Großmutter aus Österreich kommt. Ich habe eine Schwester. Sie ist Lehrerin und sie wohnt in Toronto. Berlin ist sehr schön, aber ich habe nicht viel Zeit — ich arbeite und studiere. Im Sommer fahre ich nach Wien. Und Sie? Woher kommen Sie?

Self-scoring (out of 8)

★ Keep this recording. You re-record the exact same minute on Day 30, and the two files side by side are the point of the whole challenge.

4. 🎭 Role-play test — survive five turns

Open the Role-play mission and set the scene: meeting someone at a party in Berlin. Use du. Survive five exchanges without English.

Your five turns, roughly:

1. Greet them and give your name
2. Ask where they are from — and answer when asked back
3. Ask what they do — and answer when asked back
4. Say you are learning German and why
5. Say you are hungry or thirsty, and ask if there is a café nearby

If you get stuck, these are legal and native:

★ Using these is passing, not failing. A learner who can say Wie bitte? keeps the conversation alive; one who falls silent ends it. Memorise all five.

5. Thirty review questions

Sounds (1–6) — read aloud, then give the meaning.

1. Wein 2. Wien 3. sechs 4. richtig 5. Bier 6. Deutsch

Cognates (7–10) — decode, no dictionary.

1. Wasser 8. Woche 9. Bruder 10. Apfel

Falsche Freunde (11–13) — what do they actually mean?

1. Gift 12. bekommen 13. also

du/Sie (14–15)

1. A doctor you have never met. 15. Your friend's six-year-old.

Verbs (16–21) — fill in the form.

1. du (wohnen) 17. er (arbeiten) 18. ihr (sein) 19. wir (haben) 20. du (heißen) 21. sie (they) (kommen)

sein or haben (22–24)

1. Ich ___ Durst. 23. Ich ___ 40 Jahre alt. 24. Du ___ Recht.

Word order (25–27) — fix each.

1. Heute ich lerne Deutsch. 26. Wo du wohnst? 27. Warum du bist hier?

Articles (28–30)

1. ___ Wohnung 29. ___ Mädchen 30. ___ Montag

Scoring: 26–30 excellent · 20–25 on track · 15–19 reread the two days you missed most · under 15 repeat week 1 — it costs one day now and saves five later.

6. Week 1 final check

What week 1 actually gave you

You can read any German word aloud, greet anyone at any hour without offending them, introduce yourself completely, ask and answer the six main questions, and use the two verbs that everything else is built on.

What you cannot do yet: say who you gave the book to, or what you want. That is what cases and modal verbs are for — and that is week 2 and 3.

★ The honest week-1 warning. German front-loads nothing and back-loads the grammar.Week 2 introduces the accusative (Day 11), week 3 the dative (Day 15). If your nouns do not have articles attached to them by then, those days will hurt.Fix your flashcards today, not on Day 11.

7. 📲 Upload to LangNote

Upload section 1 (the one-page summary) and section 2 (the 15 dictation sentences) → study language German.

★ Two numbers to write down today: your dictation score and your pronunciation score.You will compare both on Day 14, Day 21 and Day 30. Without today's numbers there is nothing to compare against — this is the only day you cannot recover later.

langNote is a paid subscription and this course recommends it. The 30 lessons are free and complete either way.