I made a lesson-by-lesson vocab deck for the Menschen A1 textbook (1411 cards, all 24 lessons)

[u/Kurzdeutsch]

disclosure up front: I made this deck myself, it's free, no account needed beyond AnkiWeb.

I'm learning German as an adult immigrant in Germany, self-study with a textbook. Every premade deck I found was either frequency-sorted or alphabetical, which is useless when your course follows Menschen. So I built the deck I wanted: all 1410 words from Menschen A1, split into 24 subdecks matching the lessons, in book order. You unsuspend the lesson you're on and that's it.

Each card has the word, an example sentence with translation, audio for both, a picture matching that exact example sentence, colored articles with plural forms, and verbs come with separable prefixes marked (an|fangen) and government (warten auf +Akk).

Being upfront since the rules ask for it: free, no paywall anywhere, and the audio, pictures and non-German translations are AI-generated (I judged the TTS good enough to study with, but listen for yourself before committing). The lesson mapping and word list are from my own pipeline built around the book's vocabulary.

English version: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1190966227

Same deck with translations in other languages: Russian, Turkish, Polish, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Persian.

If you spot a wrong translation or a weird example, tell me and I'll fix it in the next update (updates keep your review progress, note GUIDs are stable). Arabic and Persian are the newest, so I'd especially like eyes on those, but corrections in any language are welcome.

Edit 1: added direct links for all language versions.

Edit 2 (Aug 22): disclosure. These decks are machine-translated. The German source was translated with OpenAI GPT-4o-mini (GPT-4o for the example sentences), and no native speaker has reviewed them yet. Every language has since passed an automated Claude Sonnet sense-check that reads each card against its German example sentence and flags wrong-sense picks; those corrections ship with the next deck update, by the end of next week at the latest. The same note is going into every AnkiWeb deck description at that point. Expect errors, and please report anything you spot in a language you know.

Edit 3 (Aug 27): the disclosure from Edit 2 is now on all twelve AnkiWeb deck pages, not just in this post, and the Claude Sonnet corrections shipped with yesterday's deck update. Two days ahead of the date I gave, for once. Cards also have a report link at the bottom now, so a wrong translation takes one tap instead of an email.

[u/Danika_Dakika]

Same deck with translations in other languages:

Were these decks created from source material originally published in that language? Or are they machine translations of the first deck you made?

If they are translations, did you translate the English to that language, or did you translate the German to that language?

[u/Kurzdeutsch → u/Danika_Dakika]

Good question, and fair to ask. The source material is the German textbook, so everything starts from German.

The translations are machine translations, done directly from German to each target language, not through English. Each entry was translated with its German example sentence as context, so the model picks the sense that fits the sentence, and one human-reviewed translation set went along as a reference. The English deck is a translation like all the others, not the source.

On top of that, Arabic, Persian and Turkish went through an automated semantic audit afterwards: a model checks every card against the German example and flags wrong-sense picks, and the flagged ones got fixed. The other languages are queued for the same pass.

No native speaker has reviewed most of them yet, which is why I keep asking for exactly that in this thread. If you spot anything off in a language you know, I'll fix it.

[u/Danika_Dakika → u/Kurzdeutsch]

You should disclose the AI/LLM use for all of these decks (on their shared-deck pages) -- especially with no human verification at all. Not every LLM/translator is reliable or accurate for every language, or for every language pair, so you have no way of knowing how much of these decks is garbage. Learners don't know either, and should be warned before they start relying on a deck.

No native speaker has reviewed most of them yet, which is why I keep asking for exactly that in this thread.

You're obviously publishing these to promote your paid product, so relying on volunteers to step up on Reddit is asking a lot. If you care about learners, the "has been reviewed by native speakers, fluent in both languages, and found to be accurate" step should come before the publishing step, not after.

[u/Kurzdeutsch → u/Danika_Dakika]

Fair point on the deck pages. The disclosure belongs there, not just in this thread.

I've updated the Reddit post already. The AnkiWeb descriptions get the same note as soon as the edit cooldown clears, end of next week at the latest. It will say what it should say: German to target language via OpenAI GPT-4o-mini (GPT-4o for the example sentences), no native-speaker review yet, and every language additionally passed a Claude Sonnet sense-check that reads each card against its German example sentence and flags wrong-sense picks. Those corrections ship with the same deck update. Treat it as a draft and report errors.

On the paid product: the decks are free, complete for all 24 Menschen A1 lessons, no account, no paywall, nothing held back. The web trainer is a free beta. If I wanted a funnel, I would have gated the deck.

On review-before-publish: across 11 languages that is not a bill this project can carry yet. So it was publish with honest caveats and fix what gets reported, or publish nothing. I went with the first. Anyone who wants only human-verified material should skip these, and now the description will tell them that before they download instead of after.

[u/Danika_Dakika → u/Kurzdeutsch]

Thanks for making those disclosures.

[u/Kurzdeutsch → u/Danika_Dakika]

Thanks for pushing on it. The deck pages get the same note when the edit cooldown clears.

[u/runslack]

Mind sharing this with me ?

[u/skeAnofeyt → u/runslack]

its linked in the post above

[u/Kurzdeutsch → u/runslack]

ha, sorry - I somehow managed to post the title without the body. fixed now, everything's in the post. direct link so you don't have to scroll: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1190966227

that's the DE→EN version, translations in 7 other languages are linked on the support page. would love to hear if the lesson-by-lesson split works for you.

[u/runslack → u/Kurzdeutsch]

I have started it (DE->FR), so far, love it.

[u/Kurzdeutsch → u/runslack]

great to hear, thanks for coming back to tell me.

if anything feels off once you're a few lessons in (a word in the wrong lesson, a weird example sentence), reply here and I'll fix it. that's the part I care about most.

Arabic and Persian versions are landing this week too...

[u/koi88 → u/Kurzdeutsch]

that's the DE→EN version, translations in 7 other languages are linked on the support page. would love to hear if the lesson-by-lesson split works for you.

Thank you for your work!

The link to the Chinese version does not work for me, says "missing or currently unavailable" (https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1924206252). Japanese also does not work.

[u/Kurzdeutsch → u/koi88]

thanks for flagging it, and glad the deck is useful!

that's AnkiWeb's review window, not a dead link: Chinese and Japanese went up this morning (Arabic and Persian followed today too), and newly shared decks stay hidden for roughly the first 24 hours. the older eight languages work already.

I'll reply here as soon as ZH/JA links go live, should be tomorrow.

[u/koi88 → u/Kurzdeutsch]

Thank you. My GF is Chinese, that's why I asked.

[u/Kurzdeutsch → u/koi88]

nice, that's exactly who it's for. the Chinese version should clear AnkiWeb's review sometime tomorrow, and I'll reply here the moment the link works.

if she ends up trying it, I'd honestly love to hear what she thinks of the translations. Chinese is one of the newest additions, and feedback from a native speaker is worth more to me than any download number.

[u/koi88 → u/Kurzdeutsch]

Thank you. I will only see her in a few months and I'm not sure if I can install Anki on her phone, but if she uses it, I will certainly tell you. :-)

Thank you for your effort, again.

[u/Kurzdeutsch → u/koi88]

update as promised: Chinese and Japanese are live now.

Chinese: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1924206252 Japanese: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2085529469

Arabic and Persian are still sitting in review, taking longer than the rest did. I'll drop a note here when they clear.

No rush on your side at all. And if installing the app turns out to be the blocker, she doesn't really need it: ankiweb.net reviews cards right in the phone browser for free, same account, same progress. Only the iOS app costs money, AnkiDroid is free.

If she does try it, I'd love to hear what she thinks of the Chinese translations. That's worth more to me than download numbers.

[u/koi88 → u/Kurzdeutsch]

Thank you!

[u/Kurzdeutsch]

Update as promised: Arabic and Persian are live now too.

Arabic: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/573360043

Persian: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/731866463

That's every language version up, Chinese and Japanese included.

One ask while I'm here. If you read Arabic or Persian, I'd really like a second pair of eyes on those two, they haven't had a native speaker pass yet. Three things I care about most: does the text render right to left properly in your Anki app, does the word order break where a German word sits in the same line as the Arabic, and does any example sentence read like something a person would actually say. Reply here or write to [hi@kurzdeutsch.com](mailto:hi@kurzdeutsch.com) and I'll fix what you find.

Thanks again for flagging the dead links, that's the only reason I kept an eye on the review queue.

[u/Kurzdeutsch → u/[deleted]]

Thanks! Hope it helps with the course. If you hit a card that looks off, just tell me and it goes into the next update.

[u/Kurzdeutsch]

Update on the disclaimer. Someone here said it belongs on the deck page and not just in this post, which was fair, and I said it would be up by the end of the week. It is up now, on all twelve language versions.

It names what did what: OpenAI GPT-4o-mini for the translations, GPT-4o for the example sentences, and a Claude Sonnet pass that reads every card against its German example and flags the ones that picked the wrong sense. Those corrections shipped with yesterday's update. Updating keeps your review progress, the note GUIDs are stable.

Two other things landed in the same update. Every card now has a report link at the bottom, so a wrong translation takes one tap to send instead of an email you have to compose. And the official Goethe A1 Wortliste is tagged, tag:pruefung gives you the 583 cards that are on it, out of 1410.

One ask. All twelve are at zero ratings, and AnkiWeb sorts shared decks by rating, so right now they are close to invisible to anyone browsing rather than following a link. If the deck is useful, a thumbs up on its AnkiWeb page takes a second and does more for it than anything I can do from here.

Arabic and Persian still have not had a native speaker pass, and Arabic is now second by downloads. If you read either, I would like to know whether the right to left rendering holds up in your Anki app.

[u/jfurchert]

his is really impressive. Putting 1,411 words into the right lessons must have taken so much work. I love that you split everything into small parts, and even added example sentences, audio and matching illustrations. It looks really well made and easy to learn with. How long did it take you to build all of this?

[u/Kurzdeutsch → u/jfurchert]

thanks! it grew over a couple of months next to actually going through the book myself, so honestly hard to count the hours.

the generation part (audio, pictures) is tooling and scales cheap, that's disclosed in the post. the slow part was the lesson mapping: making sure every word sits in the lesson where the book actually introduces it, and catching the weird ones by hand. that's the thing I couldn't automate and the reason I built this instead of using a frequency deck.

if you end up trying the per-lesson split with a course I'd really like to hear how it goes, that's the whole bet of the deck.

[u/lazydictionary]

1400 cards for A1 is insane. Giant waste of time.

Just do a frequency deck and use a textbook to pass your courses.

[u/Kurzdeutsch → u/lazydictionary]

fair, let me give the actual numbers. the book's full glossary is over 2100 words; the deck is the curated half, 1410, with the recognition-only vocab already cut. the official Goethe A1 list is about 650, but your Kurs tests you on the book's words, not the official list.

and the design assumes you never grind it all at once: 24 subdecks, you unsuspend the lesson your course is on, reviews stay small.

a frequency deck answers a different question. Thursday's test asks about Lektion 7, not the top 1000 words.

still, point taken: I'll tag the official exam word list inside the deck so you can suspend everything else and run the lean version. thanks for the push.

[u/jfurchert → u/Kurzdeutsch]

That makes sense. The lesson mapping is exactly the part that makes it useful with the book. I have not used Menschen myself, so I cannot test this one honestly, but I hope someone taking the course reports back. Thank you for explaining it.

[u/Kurzdeutsch → u/jfurchert]

Fair, and thanks for saying that instead of just nodding along.

Which book are you working with? Asking because the lesson mapping is the only part that doesn't transfer to another textbook, everything else does. So if there's a book a lot of people here are stuck with, that's probably the one I should map next. Netzwerk and Schritte come up most in my feed, but I'd rather hear it from someone than guess.

And if you ever do land on Menschen, the offer stands: tell me what's off and I'll fix it.

[u/Kurzdeutsch → u/lazydictionary]

Following up on the Goethe list. The decks got re-uploaded yesterday, so the tag is live: 583 of the 1410 cards carry pruefung, which is the official A1 Wortliste. Search tag:pruefung to drill only those, or select -tag:pruefung and suspend the rest.

Why a tag and not a separate deck: the exam list is spread across all 24 lessons, so "just take the first 600 cards" does not get you there.

One caveat on the list itself, straight from its preface: "Frequenzkriterien hinsichtlich der muttersprachlichen Kommunikation von Deutschen wurden hingegen nicht herangezogen". The institute is saying it is deliberately not frequency based. It is what the exam tests, not what Germans actually say most.

[u/MohammadAzad171]

AI slop.

[u/Kurzdeutsch → u/MohammadAzad171]

fair enough, the images are AI and the audio is TTS, that's disclosed in the post itself.

what the screenshot actually shows is ankiweb's preview mangling the card btw. it strips the line break, so the German example and its translation run together, and "[non-mp3 audio]" is ankiweb's own label. in anki it's two lines and the audio plays.

the part I actually care about is the one no screenshot shows: 1410 words mapped to the 24 Menschen lessons in book order, colored articles, separable verbs marked, verb government on the cards. that mapping is why the deck exists, frequency decks don't help when your course follows a textbook.

and yeah, that Job picture is a fair catch, thanks. some illustrations came out broken like this one, I'm removing them from the deck as people find them, so calling them out actually helps.