The school handbook

How the school is organised

Übungszeit is laid out like a real school. In Classrooms you will find five doors — one for each level of German on the CEFR scale, from A1 (first steps) to C1 (advanced). Behind every door wait the same four stations:

Every exercise is original and written by hand for its level. When you finish one, it is graded, explained, and — if you are signed in — recorded in Progress. Helfen, the school tutor, sits in the corner of every page: ask for a hint, a rule, or an explanation whenever you like.

Alongside the classrooms there is the vocabulary side of the school: Words is the glossary to read, and Flashcards is where you drill it. Drilling runs entirely on material we already hold, so once you have an account there is no daily limit on it at any tier — as a guest you get 1 round a day (20 cards) to try it out.

Under each card there is a microphone, metered separately, so saying the words aloud keeps working even once the round is done. Once you're signed in, Übungszeit remembers which words you found hard and schedules them to come back just before you would forget; signed out, every deck is a fresh shuffle and nothing is saved.

Two more places to learn rather than practise: Study Material explains the grammar in plain English, and Lessons is the same thing on video — full lessons and 45-second fixes, each linked back to the guide and the exercises. Both are free and open to everyone, with or without an account.

How your mistakes are handled

This is the part that makes practice here different from an exercise book, so it is worth two minutes.

When Helfen corrects you, the correction is tagged to the grammar rule behind it — not just the sentence. “Ich habe eine Kaffee” isn't filed as a typo; it is filed under the accusative after haben. Those rules collect on your Progress page, each one showing your own sentence and Helfen's correction, so the rule never has to explain itself in the abstract.

Every rule sits at one of four stages, and you move up by getting it right — not by waiting:

• Shaky — you've slipped on it recently.
• Improving — one clean use since that slip.
• Steady — two in a row.
• Solid — three in a row. The rule is yours, and we stop pushing it at you.

A “clean use” means you met the rule again and nothing was corrected — a set answered with nothing wrong, a piece of writing the red pen left alone, or a whole spoken conversation without that slip. One mistake resets the streak, which is what stops “Solid” meaning anything less than earned. When a rule needs work, the Practise your rules page builds a session from exactly those rules rather than making you hunt for them.

Vocabulary works the same way in Flashcards: a word you get wrong comes back within a day, one you knew won't return for days or weeks. None of this happens signed out — there is nowhere to keep it.

Daily allowances

Grading, tutor answers and spoken conversation cost us real money, so each account gets a clear daily amount of each. These are the things that count:

• Graded sets — submitting any set for checking, in every section including Reading. Reading the text itself, and replaying audio, are always free.
• Helfen assists — each question you ask Helfen. Corrections inside a graded set are included.
• Speaking minutes — counted while you talk in a speaking exercise, and when you say a flashcard out loud.

Saying a flashcard aloud is checked by a speech service, so it draws on your speaking minutes like any other spoken practice. As a guest or on Free you get a small daily sample of it (3 and 5 tries); Scholar and Master lift that cap entirely, leaving only your speaking minutes.

Your remaining amounts are shown on the Classrooms page and on Progress. Everything resets at midnight (UTC). Nothing ever charges money unless you subscribe.

Guest, Free, Scholar or Master?

A guest can read every exercise on the site — the German text, the vocabulary, the prompt — and grade up to 3 sample sets a day — Reading and Listening samples sit at every level, and Writing and Speaking samples at A1 and A2. The table above counts what you can grade, which is the part that costs an allowance. A free account opens all Reading and Listening sets with bigger daily allowances and turns on Helfen's memory. Both paid plans unlock the same content — every Writing and Speaking set at every level — and differ only in how much you can do each day: Scholar gives 15 graded sets and 8 minutes of speaking, and Master doubles that to 30 sets and 16 minutes.

Your data, honestly

• • Your account and practice history are stored in the European Union (Frankfurt).
• • Speaking audio is transcribed on EU servers, and neither the recording nor the transcript is stored — a finished set records which rules you slipped on, never your words.
• • Your exercise answers are sent to our AI provider as text only, to grade and explain them.
• • We do not sell your data or show third-party ads.
• • We count which pages get visited, using no cookies and nothing that identifies you — and your browser can switch it off.