"Help Me Learn A1 German": an iOS and Android App

Please note that due to personal time constriants and the complexity of mobile app development, I am no longer maintaining this application. It may no-longer be available on the App stores.

Background

A couple of years ago I took an A1 level German language course at the Goethe institute in London. A1 is the beginner level within the CERF - Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. It's a great course - I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to learn German.

Unfortunately, I have a really bad memory for names - people and things. By far the most challenging part of the course for me was memorising German words, and there's lots to memorise. For example, not only do you need to memorise nouns but German nouns also have a gender (masculine, feminine or neuter) which you need to know for each noun as well as the plural version.

During the course I figured out that rote learning worked best for me and developed a paper based system to help me rote learn words as well as practice grammar. When the course ended I got distracted on other things and learning German was put on the back burner.

A while later we started doing some mobile App development at work which I really enjoyed. One of the technologies we used was Xamarin. Although we didn't end up doing very much Xamarin, I was still keen to learn more in my spare time. So I decided to develop an app for both iOS and Android using Xamarin.Forms and release it to the Apple App and Google Play stores.

Looking around for a suitable project, I though it would be a great idea to try convert some of the paper based techniques for learning German into an App. The resulting App was developed using Xamarin.Forms and C#. Although technically two separate Apps for iOS and Android, the vast majority of the code is shared between them - I'd guess around 99%. This is the first version of the App and it's pretty simple. There's a long list of features that I plan to implement!

App screen-shots

About the App

This App is designed to help students attending an instructor led A1 level German language course.

A1 is the beginner level within the CERF - Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. The App can be used alongside other courses or book led learning but it's not intended to be used to learn German on it's own.

The App is completely free, contains no Ads, doesn't require internet access or access to any data on your device.

How does the App help me learn?

During your German course, memorising the German words that are introduced in each lesson can be challenging. Especially if your memory isn't that great. And once you start falling behind it can get harder and harder to catch back up.

One memorisation technique is rote learning. Rote learning is where you memorise something by repeating it over and over.

This App contains a database of over 800 German translations used in many A1 courses, organised into themed lists, such as food, buildings and animals.

You can use the App to generate a list of revision cards to help you memorise the German versions of words and then test yourself to see how well you remember them. The order of the words is randomised to help you recall individual words more easily.

You can also build your own test from a themed list of words to make sure you know the German versions, can spell them correctly and use the correct gender, singular or plural versions of the words.