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B1 Intermediate

Real conversations: opinions, complex sentences, the subjunctive, the passive, and telling a full story.

B1 is also the level Germany asks for when you naturalize. How much German you need for citizenship

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By the end of B1 you can

  • give and justify an opinion, and join ideas with weil, dass, and wenn
  • talk about hypothetical situations and report what someone else said
  • understand the passive and the genitive in news and formal German
  • narrate a complete story, start to finish, in natural spoken German

Unit 1: The wider world

Opinions, nature, holidays, a short history of Germany, and the German of Austria and Switzerland.

  1. 51Giving opinionsSaying what you think, agreeing, disagreeing, and backing it up.
  2. 52Nature and the environmentLandscapes, recycling, climate, and the German love of the outdoors.
  3. 53Culture and holidaysChristmas markets, Karneval, Oktoberfest, and the dates in the German year.
  4. 54A short historyFrom the Holy Roman Empire to reunification: the words for German history.
  5. 55Austria and SwitzerlandThe German of Vienna and Zurich: greetings, words, and how it differs.

Unit 2: Complex sentences

Subordinate clauses, relative clauses, da- and wo- words, zu + infinitive, and the future.

  1. 56Subordinate clausesweil, dass, wenn, ob, als — and the verb that goes to the end.
  2. 57Relative clausesThe man who..., the book that... — with der, die, das as relative pronouns.
  3. 58darauf, worüber: da- and wo- wordsHow German says 'for it', 'about it' and 'what … about?' with verbs that take a preposition.
  4. 59zu + infinitiveIch habe keine Lust zu arbeiten — and um ... zu for 'in order to'.
  5. 60The future tensewerden + infinitive for plans, predictions, and promises.

Unit 3: Advanced grammar

The past perfect, the subjunctive, the passive, the genitive, and reported speech.

  1. 61Had done: the past perfectThe Plusquamperfekt — hatte or war plus a participle — for something that happened before another past event.
  2. 62Would, could: Konjunktiv IIWishes, hypotheticals, and very polite requests.
  3. 63The passiveDas Haus wird gebaut — when what happens matters more than who does it.
  4. 64The genitivedes Mannes, der Frau — possession and the prepositions wegen and trotz.
  5. 65Reported speechEr sagt, er sei krank — reporting what others said, as in the news.

Unit 4: Practice and stories

A job interview, formal German, idioms, and telling a full story.

  1. 66A job interviewPresenting yourself, talking about experience, and asking good questions.
  2. 67Formal GermanEmails, letters, official phone calls, and the language of offices.
  3. 68Idioms and sayingsSausages, pigs, and tomatoes — the colourful expressions Germans use every day.
  4. 69Telling a storyNarrating a full story: setting the scene, building tension, and the punchline.