German work vocabulary
These are the German words about work 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 Arbeit (job), Büro (office), Doktor (doctor), 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 | Arbeit | /ˈaʁ.baɪ̯t/ | job | A1 |
| 2 | Büro | /byˈʁoː/ | office | A2 |
| 3 | Doktor | /ˈdɔk.toːɐ̯/ | doctor | A2 |
| 4 | Arzt | /aːɐ̯.t͡st/ | physician | A2 |
| 5 | General | /ɡenəˈʁaːl/ | general | A2 |
| 6 | Anwalt | /ˈanvalt/ | lawyer | A2 |
| 7 | Firma | /ˈfɪʁma/ | firm | A2 |
| 8 | Major | /maˈjoːɐ̯/ | major | A2 |
| 9 | Professor | /pʁoˈfɛsoːɐ̯/ | professor | A2 |
| 10 | Richter | /ˈʁɪçtɐ/ | judge | A2 |
| 11 | Lehrer | /ˈleː.ʁɐ/ | teacher | B1 |
| 12 | Labor | /laˈboːɐ̯/ | laboratory | B1 |
| 13 | Soldat | /zɔlˈdaːt/ | soldier | B1 |
| 14 | Karriere | /kaˈʁi̯eːʁə/ | career | B1 |
| 15 | Schnauze | /ˈʃnaʊ̯t͡sə/ | gob | B1 |
| 16 | Oberst | /ˈoːbɐst/ | colonel | B1 |
| 17 | Offizier | /ɔfiˈt͡siːɐ̯/ | officer | B1 |
| 18 | Farm | /faʁm/ | farm | B2 |
| 19 | Staatsanwalt | /ˈʃtaːt͡sʔanˌvalt/ | prosecutor | B2 |
| 20 | Hauptmann | /ˈhaʊ̯ptˌman/ | captain | B2 |
| 21 | Diener | /ˈdiːnɐ/ | servant | B2 |
| 22 | Lektion | /lɛkˈt͡si̯oːn/ | lesson | B2 |
| 23 | Jäger | /ˈjɛː.ɡɐ/ | hunter | B2 |
| 24 | Walker | /ˈvalkɐ/ | fuller | B2 |
| 25 | Arbeiter | /ˈaʁ.baɪ̯.tɐ/ | worker | B2 |
| 26 | Studio | /ˈʃtuːdi̯o/ | studio | B2 |
| 27 | Pilot | /piˈloːt/ | pilot | B2 |
| 28 | Botschafter | /ˈboːtˌʃaftɐ/ | ambassador | B2 |
| 29 | Leutnant | /ˈlɔɪ̯tnant/ | lieutenant | B2 |
| 30 | Lincoln | lincoln | B2 |
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.
Try it on what you read today.
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Sources: translations and pronunciation from Wiktionary (wikdict, CC BY-SA 3.0) and ipa-dict (MIT), frequency from OpenSubtitles (FrequencyWords).