Best Free German Learning Apps in 2026

German has a reputation for being hard to learn, which makes the course you pick matter more than usual. Every app below has a workable German course. Not all of them let you finish it without paying.

This list is ranked on the free version alone: what's included, and what starts costing money. Wekos's German course is first because nothing in it is metered.

1. Wekos

Sixteen sequenced units take you from greetings through the subjunctive, each one drilling real sentences with native audio in a male and a female voice. Every sentence breaks down into its words, then its chunks, then five variations that change one piece at a time, which is a useful way to meet German's case system in context rather than as a table to memorize.

Grammar explanations arrive after you've already seen the pattern in a real sentence, with live tables beside them rather than a lecture up front. Speaking cards score whether you were understood, using your phone's own recognizer with nothing sent anywhere.

None of it, the units, the audio, the grammar explanations, the conversation scenarios, sits behind a cap, a trial or a card.

It also includes, at no cost:

• Three playback modes (auto, semi-manual, manual), with repetitions adjustable from 2 to 15.
• A story every unit, read aloud in character, with comprehension questions and a translation a tap away.
• A twelve-question quiz at the end of every unit, graded on the server and mixing in questions from earlier units.
• Two spaced-review modes: one on a schedule, one that ignores it and drills whatever's catching you out.
• Resume exactly where you left off, save any unit for offline use, and one account across iOS, Android and the web.
• Streak tracking and a self-issued CEFR badge at A1, A2 and B1.

2. Duolingo

Duolingo's German course is free to play indefinitely, built around short matching and translation exercises. Hearts limit how many mistakes you can make before waiting or practicing to earn more, and ads appear between lessons on the free tier.

It's a good habit-forming app, and Wekos tracks streaks too, so that part isn't unique to Duolingo. The real gap is depth: Duolingo isn't built around full sentence drilling or a conversation partner.

3. Memrise

Memrise's German course uses short clips of native speakers, which is genuinely useful for getting your ear used to real speech rather than a synthesized voice. The free tier is ad-supported and caps how many lessons you can take before a paywall appears.

4. Busuu

Busuu's German course lets you submit writing exercises for correction by native-speaker members, which is a useful check most apps don't offer. The free access is a 30-day trial rather than an ongoing tier, after which Premium runs roughly $10 a month.

5. LingoDeer

LingoDeer's free tier includes the full alphabet section and all of unit one across the languages it covers. Past that, a subscription starting around $15 a month is required.

6. HelloTalk

HelloTalk matches you with native German speakers for free, text or voice, with built-in translation. There's no structured course underneath it, and translation usage is capped on the free tier, so it works best as a supplement once a course has given you something to say.

7. Quizlet

If a teacher assigned a specific German word list, Quizlet turns it into flashcards in minutes, free. It has no native audio, no grammar teaching and no sequence of its own; it drills whatever list you give it.

Which one to actually start with

If you want to finish German rather than sample it, start with Wekos. It's the only course here with no limit on the free version, and the placement test can skip you ahead if you already know some. Add HelloTalk once you have a few units behind you and want to use it with a real person.

For the broader picture across all eight languages Wekos teaches, see our best free language learning apps roundup.