German Study Kit

A reproducible Anki deck pipeline for learning German from A1 to B2. Markdown source files compile into .apkg decks with TTS audio for every sentence — no manual card creation.

Built for self-study, but anyone can use it. If you just want to study, jump to Quickstart. If you want to edit content or fork the kit, see Building from source.

What's inside

Six Anki decks, ~4 700 cards total, all with neural TTS audio (de-DE-KatjaNeural via Microsoft Edge).

Deck	Topics	Cards	Description
A1.apkg	16 grammar	~960	Personalpronomen, modals, Akkusativ, trennbare Verben, Perfekt, …
A2.apkg	18 grammar	~1 080	Dativ, Wechselpräpositionen, Adjektivdeklination, Nebensätze, Konjunktiv II höflich
B1.apkg	18 grammar	~1 080	Konjunktiv II, Passiv, Genitiv, Relativsätze, Plusquamperfekt, Konnektoren
B2.apkg	18 grammar	~1 080	Konjunktiv I, Partizipien, Doppelinfinitiv, Funktionsverbgefüge, Nebensätze (vertieft)
verbs.apkg	80 verbs	80	Top irregular verbs with all three principal parts + helper
themen.apkg	12 packs	~430	Survival German + 11 daily-life situations (restaurant, hotel, doctor, …)

Plus markdown reference docs (no Anki): connectors cheat sheet, Goethe exam prep at every level, curated learning resources.

Quickstart

If you just want to study:

1. Install Anki (free desktop app, also iOS/Android).
2. Download the .apkg files from anki/out/ in this repo.
3. In Anki: File → Import → pick the .apkg. Done.

Each .apkg imports as a hierarchy: German::<level>::<NN topic>. So A1 expands into 16 subdecks (German::A1::01 Personalpronomen + sein, German::A1::02 haben, …). You can study one topic at a time — read its .md file in grammar/ for the rule, then study just that subdeck in Anki.

How the cards look

Every grammar sentence produces three card types for thorough learning:

Card type	Front	Back
Cloze drill	German with one word blanked + audio	full German sentence + English + grammar note
EN → DE production	English sentence	German + audio + grammar note
Audio-only listening	just plays the audio	German text + English + grammar note

The verbs deck has one card per verb: infinitive on front, three principal parts (with helper) on back.

The themen deck has two cards per sentence: EN→DE and DE→EN, no cloze.

What makes this different from other German Anki decks

• Sentence-based, not vocabulary-based — you learn grammar through 20 example sentences per topic, not by drilling rules in isolation.
• Audio for every sentence — neural TTS, not robotic. Listening cards train comprehension explicitly.
• Markdown source-of-truth — edit a .md file, run make, get an updated .apkg. Stable card GUIDs preserve your Anki review schedule across rebuilds.
• Goethe-aligned curriculum — topics map to Grammatik aktiv A1-B1 (Cornelsen) and standard B2 syllabus. Exam prep schedules included.
• Free — no subscription, no API keys. edge-tts is free.

Building from source

If you want to edit content or rebuild from scratch:

git clone https://github.com/salmanmohebi/german-study-kit.git
cd german-study-kit
make install        # one-time: .venv + dependencies
make a1             # build one level
make all            # build everything (A1 + A2 + B1 + B2 + verbs + themen)

Audio is cached in anki/audio/ (gitignored). Only changed sentences hit the TTS API on rebuild — the rest is instant.

Requirements: Python 3.11+, make, internet (for first audio fetch).

Repository structure

german-study-kit/
├── grammar/                  # markdown source for grammar decks
│   ├── A1/                   # 16 topic files
│   ├── A2/                   # 18 topic files
│   ├── B1/                   # 18 topic files
│   └── B2/                   # 18 topic files
├── themen/                   # 12 thematic packs (survival, restaurant, hotel, …)
├── reference/
│   ├── irregular-verbs.md    # source for verbs deck + lookup table
│   └── konnektoren.md        # connector cheat sheet (A2-B2)
├── exam/
│   ├── A2.md                 # Goethe-Zertifikat A2 format & prep schedule
│   ├── B1.md                 # B1 format & prep
│   └── B2.md                 # B2 format & prep
├── anki/
│   ├── build.py              # grammar deck builder
│   ├── build_verbs.py        # verbs deck builder
│   ├── build_themen.py       # thematic deck builder
│   ├── tts.py                # edge-tts wrapper with on-disk caching
│   ├── audio/                # cached mp3s (gitignored)
│   └── out/                  # built .apkg files (committed)
├── resources.md              # curated apps, podcasts, YouTube, tutoring platforms
├── roadmap.md                # study plan, daily routines, scope
├── listening.md              # podcast curriculum by level
├── Makefile
└── requirements.txt

Customizing the kit

Add or edit a grammar topic

Each topic is a single markdown file:

---
title: Personalpronomen + sein (Präsens)
level: A1
topic_id: a1-01-sein
tags: [a1, sein, personalpronomen]
---

## Erklärung

(Short grammar explanation. Rendered as HTML on the back of every card.)

## Sätze

- Ich {{c1::bin}} müde. | I am tired.
- Du {{c1::bist}} sehr nett. | You are very nice.

Format rules:

• ## Erklärung → grammar note shown on the back of every card from this file.
• ## Sätze → list of - <German> | <English> pairs.
• Cloze markup {{c1::word}} produces a fill-in-the-blank card.
• Multi-cloze ({{c1::}} + {{c2::}} in the same sentence) generates separate cards per blank.

Run make a1 (or a2/b1/b2) to rebuild.

Add a thematic pack

Drop a new file in themen/ with the same markdown format. Cloze markup is optional. Each sentence becomes 2 cards (EN→DE + DE→EN).

Change the TTS voice

Edit DEFAULT_VOICE in anki/tts.py. Other German voices:

• de-DE-KatjaNeural (default, female)
• de-DE-ConradNeural (male)
• de-DE-AmalaNeural (female, younger)
• de-DE-BerndNeural (male, older)

Delete anki/audio/ to force regeneration with the new voice.

Study guides included

File	What's there
roadmap.md	Overall plan, daily routine, deck status
resources.md	Curated apps, podcasts, YouTube, tutors, dictionaries (per level)
exam/A2.md, exam/B1.md, exam/B2.md	Goethe-Zertifikat format + week-by-week prep schedules
reference/konnektoren.md	Every connector across A2-B2 with word-order rules
reference/irregular-verbs.md	80 verbs principal parts

Stack

• edge-tts — free neural TTS via Microsoft Edge's voice service (no API key)
• genanki — programmatic .apkg generation
• PyYAML + markdown — frontmatter parsing + grammar note rendering
• Python 3.11+

Acknowledgments

• Grammar curriculum based on Grammatik aktiv A1-B1 (Cornelsen) plus standard Goethe-Zertifikat B2 syllabus.
• TTS by Microsoft Edge neural voices (Katja).
• Inspired by Refold-style sentence mining + spaced repetition.

Contributing

Found a German error, awkward sentence, or grammar inaccuracy? PRs welcome — edit the relevant markdown file in grammar/, themen/, or reference/, run make to verify the build, and submit.