Practical German learning guide
How many German words do you need?
There is no magic number that makes German complete. Frequency, depth of knowledge and the situations you care about matter more than one impressive total.
A core beats a random collection
The most frequent words recur across conversations, messages and news. Learning a well-ranked core first gives more coverage than collecting rare synonyms or every word from one novel.
Recognition and production differ
You will recognise more words than you can produce. That is normal. Track words met separately from words learned, and use active recall when you want a word available in speech or writing.
Set a moving target
A useful first target is enough vocabulary for daily routines and simple descriptions. After that, add topic lists for your actual life and let reading or listening show which gaps matter next.
Count depth as well as breadth
Knowing a noun includes gender and plural; knowing a verb includes its forms and common partners. Five hundred well-connected words can do more work than two thousand translations you cannot place in a sentence.
Choose the next useful band
Use the fixed Vocab Level Check as a repeatable benchmark, then study at the highest band where recall is mostly comfortable plus a small stretch above it. The point is not to claim a certificate; it is to choose word lists that are neither automatic nor mostly guesses.