First Useful German A1 Phrases You Must Know

To learn German A1, a good starting point is by learning (memorizing) phrases that are used everyday. This will help you have a feel of how the words are spelled, how sentences are structured and how they sound. 

Here is a list of useful phrases you should start with if you want to start learning German A1. 

1. Hello! Hallo!
2. Good morning. Guten Morgen.
3. Good day. Guten Tag.
4. Good evening. Guten Abend.
5. Yes. Ja.
6. No. Nein.
7. Maybe. Vielleicht.
8. I’m sorry. Tut mir leid / Entschuldigung. 
9. Thank you. Danke.
10. You’re welcome. Gern geschehen.
11. Excuse me (to get attention) Entschuldigung.
12. I don’t understand. Ich verstehe nicht.
13. Do you speak English? Sprechen Sie Englisch?
14. What is your name? Wie heißen Sie? (formal) Wie heißt du? (informal) Wie ist Ihr Name? (formal)
15. How are you? Wie geht es Ihnen? (formal) Wie geht es dir? (informal)
16. Fine, thanks. And you? Gut, danke. Und Ihnen? (formal) Gut, danke. Und du? (informal)
17. My name is Carla. Mein Name ist Carla.
18. What is your name? Wie heißen Sie? (formal) Wie heißt du? (informal)

Play the video below to listen to these phrases. You can also click here to open the video on another tab.

Guten Tag means good day. We use it on formal occasions, or when we speak to older people, strangers and people of higher authority to show respect.

Guten Morgen means good morning. In casual German, we can shorten it and just say "Morgen" instead of the whole Guten Morgen.

In German, we can use both “Hallo” and “Guten Tag” to greet people. “Hallo" (hi/hello) is more common and can be used in any context and at any time. We usually use “Guten Tag” (good day) in more formal situations and only during the day. We say "Guten Abend" in the evening for both formal and informal situations.

Here are the different variants of saying "hello" in  German.

Moin (moin)! - Northern Germany. Saying "Moin" once is enough, saying it twice puts a happier tone to your greeting.

Servus! - Austria and Southern Germany

"Servus" is Latin and it means "at your service". People in Austria and some parts of Southern Germany say it as "hi" and "bye".

Hoi! - Switzerland 

We can show respect through formal language. We refer to others as Frau (Ms./Mrs) and Herr (Mr.) on formal occasions. 

We can write them as:

Fr. (Frau)

Hr. (Herr)

Auf Wiedersehen - goodbye 

Auf - on 

Wieder- again

Sehen- to see

"Auf Wiedersehen" literally means "on-again-to see", that means till we see each other again. 

For casual or informal situations, we can just say Tschüss!

We can use the word "Entschuldigung" to apologize ("I'm sorry") as well as to approach someone politely or get attention ("Excuse me").

The word "bitte" can have a few slightly different meanings, depending on the context and tone we use it in. Bitte could be used to say “please”, “you’re welcome” and “here you go” (for example a waitress giving you a cup of coffee would say bitte).

To ask somebody to repeat what they said, you can say "wie bitte?". This means "pardon?"

“Wie geht's" is the short form of "Wie geht es dir (informal)?"

You can answer: 

• Mir geht's (geht es) gut. (It's going well)
• Mir geht's super! (It's going great!)
• Mir geht's schlecht. (It's going badly.)

Take your time in memorizing these phrases. Write these phrases down by hand, and that will help you memorize them faster. You will also see patterns and learn new words with the translation given above. 

In the next lesson, we are going to learn how to introduce ourselves. 

To go back to the lessons list, click here.