Deutsch Dojo is out on all three platforms at once — iOS, Android and the web trainer. It prepares you for one exam, the Goethe-Zertifikat A1 (Start Deutsch 1), and it does it on the real material.

That last part is the whole point, so it is worth being precise. Every exam task and every audio track in the app comes from the Goethe-Institut's own freely published practice material. Nothing is imitated, rewritten or “inspired by”. When you sit Übungssatz 01 in Deutsch Dojo, you are sitting Übungssatz 01.

The Deutsch Dojo web trainer showing the three official A1 exam sets and the training modules
The web trainer. Three official sets, then the two modules that train the parts those sets punish you for.

Sit the exam properly

Three official sets — the Modellsatz and two Übungssätze — with the original recordings, an exam timer, and automatic marking on everything that can be marked automatically. You get a score at the end, not a vibe.

Then train the parts that cost you points

Reading and listening are the easy half: they are multiple choice, so a machine can mark them and you can grind them. Writing and speaking are where A1 candidates actually lose the exam, and they are exactly the parts a practice PDF cannot help with.

  • Email writing. Fifteen real exam tasks. You write the email, an AI examiner grades it against the official rubric, corrects your German, and shows you a model answer. There is a quiz mode that throws a random task at you, and its own leaderboard.
  • The partner game. The A1 speaking exam is done in pairs, so this is too. 176 cards, including every official one, with the card name hidden until you tap and an example question on each. Two phones, no internet, nothing scored — it is practice, not judgement.
An email writing task with per-line English translation buttonsA partner game picture card for the speaking examThe Deutsch Dojo home screen with the A1 exam sets and progress
Email writing with a translation on every line, the partner game for speaking, and the home screen.

A translation on every line

Every German line in the app has an English translation one tap away. This was contentious internally — immersion purists would rather you struggle — but at A1 the struggle is often with the instructions rather than the language, and failing a task because you misread what it asked teaches you nothing.

Where it runs

iOS, Android and the browser, with the same account across all three and one-tap sign-in with Google or Apple. Start a set on the train, finish it on a laptop.

A1 is what is live today. The level picker in the corner is not decorative.