CEFR A2 in German: what you can do

A2 is where German starts to feel like a real language. You move from memorised phrases to building your own sentences about daily life, the past and your plans. It is also the level where the cases and verbs at the end of a clause first appear, and many learners feel the grammar getting heavier.

What you can do

Talk about your day, your hobbies and your family in several connected sentences.
Handle shopping, the doctor, public transport and simple phone calls: Ich möchte einen Termin vereinbaren.
Describe what you did yesterday or last weekend: Am Samstag habe ich Freunde besucht.
Say what you can, must or want to do: Ich muss heute arbeiten, aber ich will ins Kino gehen.
Give a simple reason: Ich bleibe zu Hause, weil ich krank bin.

A quick self-check

You are probably at A2 if you can do most of these:

Ask for and give directions: see asking for directions.
Write a short email to a landlord, a teacher or a friend.
Understand the main point of a short announcement at a station.
Explain what you did on holiday in a few sentences.

Typical grammar at A2

Accusative and dative

The accusative marks the direct object, and only the masculine article changes: der Hund becomes den Hund (Ich sehe den Hund). The dative marks the indirect object and follows certain prepositions: dem, der, dem, den (plus -n on most plural nouns). Ich gebe dem Mann das Buch. Ich wohne mit meiner Schwester. Prepositions such as in, auf, an take the accusative for movement and the dative for position: Ich gehe in die Stadt. Ich bin in der Stadt. See the four cases.

The Perfekt

Spoken German talks about the past with haben or sein plus a past participle at the end: Ich habe Pizza gegessen. Er ist nach Köln gefahren. Regular participles are ge- + stem + -t (gemacht); strong ones usually end in -en (gegangen). Verbs of movement or change of state take sein. See Perfekt vs Präteritum.

Modal verbs

können, müssen, wollen, dürfen, sollen, mögen push the main verb to the end in the infinitive: Ich kann heute nicht kommen. In the singular they have a changed stem and no ending for ich and er: ich muss, du musst, er muss. Ich möchte ("I would like") is the polite way to ask for things.

Separable verbs

Many verbs have a prefix that splits off in main clauses: aufstehen gives Ich stehe um sieben auf. In the Perfekt the -ge- goes in the middle: Ich bin um sieben aufgestanden.

weil and word order

Weil sends the conjugated verb to the end: Ich lerne Deutsch, weil ich in Wien arbeite. Compare denn, which does not change the order: Ich lerne Deutsch, denn ich arbeite in Wien. See verb position.

Vocabulary themes

Work, school and appointments
Health and the body
Travel, hotels and timetables
Shopping, clothes and food: see everyday idioms
Hobbies, weather and the seasons

What you may find hard

Dative vs accusative. Mixing up dem and den is the classic error at this level. Practise with short chunks.
Participles. Strong verbs must be learned individually: trinken, getrunken; sehen, gesehen.
Verb at the end. Sentences with a modal verb or a weil clause need you to keep the verb in mind until the end.
Listening. Native speakers speak quickly, and regional accents vary a lot.

Exams and courses

The Goethe-Zertifikat A2 and the telc Deutsch A2 test this level. Both cover listening, reading, writing and speaking at a basic level. Many integration courses in Germany also aim at A2 on the way to B1.

How to practise at this level

Keep a short daily diary in the Perfekt. Practise real situations with ordering at a restaurant and Kaffee und Kuchen. Review A1 if the basics wobble, and look ahead to B1.

Practice

Remember that only the masculine changes in the accusative, that separable prefixes move to the end, and that weil sends the verb to the end.