German time vocabulary
These are the German words about time that come up most often in real speech, ranked by how often they appear in film and TV subtitles. Start with the first ones, such as heute (today), morgen (tomorrow), Tag (day), because you will run into them on almost any page about the subject, and the rarer words make more sense once those are familiar.
Words in this list: 30
| # | Word | Pronunciation | Translation | Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | heute | /ˈhɔɪ̯tə/ | today | A1 |
| 2 | morgen | /ˈmɔʁ.ɡn̩/ | tomorrow | A1 |
| 3 | Tag | /taːk/ | day | A1 |
| 4 | Nacht | /naxt/ | night | A1 |
| 5 | Abend | /ˈaːbm̩t/ | evening | A1 |
| 6 | Moment | /moˈmɛnt/ | moment | A1 |
| 7 | Uhr | /uːɐ̯/ | clock | A1 |
| 8 | Sterben | /ˈʃtɛʁbn̩/ | dying | A1 |
| 9 | Jahr | /jaːɐ̯/ | year | A1 |
| 10 | Geschichte | /ɡə.ˈʃɪç.tə/ | history | A1 |
| 11 | Woche | /ˈvɔxə/ | week | A2 |
| 12 | alt | /alt/ | old | A2 |
| 13 | Stunde | /ˈʃtʊn.də/ | hour | A2 |
| 14 | Zukunft | /ˈt͡suːˌkʊnft/ | future | A2 |
| 15 | Augenblick | /ˈaʊ̯ɡn̩ˌblɪk/ | instant | A2 |
| 16 | Monat | /ˈmoː.nat/ | month | A2 |
| 17 | Weile | /ˈvaɪ̯lə/ | while | A2 |
| 18 | Minute | /miˈnuːtə/ | minute | A2 |
| 19 | tief | /tiːf/ | deep | A2 |
| 20 | Geburtstag | /ɡəˈbuːɐ̯t͡sˌtaːk/ | birthday | A2 |
| 21 | Sekunde | /zeˈkʊndə/ | second | A2 |
| 22 | Vergangenheit | /ˌfɛɐ̯ˈɡaŋənhaɪ̯t/ | past | A2 |
| 23 | Wochenende | /ˈvɔxn̩ˌʔɛndə/ | weekend | A2 |
| 24 | Pause | /ˈpaʊ̯zə/ | pause | B1 |
| 25 | Urlaub | /ˈuːɐ̯ˌlaʊ̯p/ | holiday | B1 |
| 26 | Nachmittag | /ˈnaːx.mɪˌtaːk/ | afternoon | B1 |
| 27 | Sommer | /ˈzɔmɐ/ | summer | B1 |
| 28 | Freitag | /ˈfraɪ̯taːk/ | friday | B1 |
| 29 | Grab | /ɡʁaːp/ | grave | B1 |
| 30 | Sonntag | /ˈzɔntaːk/ | sunday | B1 |
How to make these words stick
A list helps you see what matters, but a word only stays after you have met it several times in real sentences and pulled it out of memory yourself. That is how NativeLingo works: it swaps a few of these words into the pages you already read, at your level and in the right form, and then a short daily review asks you to type them back.
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Sources: translations and pronunciation from Wiktionary (wikdict, CC BY-SA 3.0) and ipa-dict (MIT), frequency from OpenSubtitles (FrequencyWords).