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Finished Nicos Weg: what should you do next?

After Nicos Weg, check which skills are really at B1, add speaking and corrected writing, then move on to new German to read and hear.

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Nicos Weg, Deutsche Welle’s free video course, stops at B1 and has no sequel. B1 is the third of six levels on the CEFR, the European scale that runs from A1 for beginners to C2.

You don’t need to start the course again. Instead:

  1. Check which of your skills are really at B1, with a free practice test.
  2. Add speaking, and writing that someone corrects.
  3. Move on to new German to read and listen to.

Five learners who report passing an official B1 exam with Nicos Weg as their main course all did more than the course: speaking practice, writing practice, practice papers or extra listening. For the course itself, see our Nicos Weg review. For the next level, see the B2 guide.

Am I really at B1 after finishing Nicos Weg?

Probably in reading and listening, and often not yet in speaking and writing. Two learners at the end of the course rated their reading at B1 and their speaking below it, and one also put their writing below B1.1 DW’s own final test can’t tell you, because it isn’t an official exam and has no speaking part.2

The free way to check is an official practice test. The Goethe-Institut, telc and ÖSD, the three main B1 exam providers, each put one online. Our B1 guide links all three and explains how the exams differ. A language school’s placement test is another check: one finisher who rated themselves upper A2 was placed at the start of B1.3

One learner who went from almost nothing to B1 in six months finished the B1 episodes three weeks before the Goethe B1 exam. They spent those weeks on a paid book of practice papers, Zertifikat B1 neu, on timed spoken answers, and on writing they checked with online tools. They passed all four parts.4 You can copy the order without their four to five hours a day: finish the course, then practise what it doesn’t train.

Should I do Nicos Weg again?

Not usually the whole course. Redo the episodes you found hard, then move on to new material.

If an episode was hard, watch it again with the script. Learners who reused the course did this: some watched each episode two or three times, first with subtitles and then without, and others read the script and noted new words before watching again. One B1 learner then retold each episode in their own words, and felt their speaking got more fluent.5 DW lets you reset a finished lesson and redo the exercises you got wrong, and many episodes have a script and word list you can download as a PDF.6

Going through the whole course again makes sense when little has stuck. One learner did A1 to B1 two or three times because they kept forgetting, and later passed telc B1 at the first try.7

What should I move on to after Nicos Weg?

Pick something that adds what the course doesn’t have: harder German, a teacher, or both.

Another free course

All of DW’s courses are free.8 On its page for advanced learners, DW lists two series at B1: Jojo sucht das Glück, a drama series with exercises, and Top-Thema, news stories with word lists. At B2 it lists Ticket nach Berlin, a travel show in which six German learners tour the country, along with Video-Thema, short subtitled reports, and Langsam gesprochene Nachrichten, the news read slowly. These are DW’s own labels. One finisher found Jojo useful for new words and phrases,9 and another found Ticket nach Berlin much harder than the B1 episodes.10

The VHS (Volkshochschule), Germany’s network of public adult-education centres, has a free online B1 course on vhs-lernportal.de, with 12 lessons and about 900 exercises. Like Nicos Weg, it’s self-study, with no teacher.11

A class

Classes cost money, and a placement test decides which class you join.

  • The Goethe-Institut runs B1 courses in person and online. One learner found its intensive B1 classes demanding, with plenty of homework and pressure to speak, and much denser than A1 and A2. Some teachers were supportive and some were not.12 See our Goethe-Institut review.
  • Online small groups. A learner in Lingoda’s B1 classes liked the small groups, sometimes with only one or two classmates, and got more speaking and structure than Nicos Weg gave them. Another found full groups left less time to speak than they wanted, and the written feedback generic.13 See our Lingoda review.

A tutor

A tutor gives you what Nicos Weg doesn’t: someone who listens to you and reads your writing. It costs money too. One B1 learner made progress once they found a tutor who spotted the gaps in their grammar, set small homework and checked it, and practised speaking and writing with them. They passed Goethe B1 with every part at 80 out of 100 or above.14

How do I fix the speaking, writing and grammar gaps Nicos Weg leaves?

Talk to people every week, and get someone to read what you write. The course gives you neither, as our review explains.

Speaking. One learner, who went from zero to B1 in a year with Nicos Weg, was far better at grammar than at speaking. About two months before the exam, they joined a free online speaking group, spoke along with podcast audio (this is called shadowing), and chatted on Discord. They got 73 out of 75 for speaking in their B1 exam.15 For free feedback, one learner filmed themselves talking without notes and asked for comments online, and found them useful.16

Writing. Write about what you watch. One learner wrote a summary of each episode, noted their grammar and vocabulary questions, and went through both with a teacher at the next lesson.17 Friends who speak German can correct your messages for free. One learner who had this still kept making the same mistakes.18 Some learners check their writing with online grammar tools or ChatGPT, but the six-month learner above still wanted a person to assess it.19

Grammar. Learners added paid grammar workbooks such as Grammatik aktiv and Deutsch für Besserwisser, or looked for online exercises on the topics they kept getting wrong, such as subordinate clauses, the Perfekt (the past tense used in speech) and modal verbs like können and müssen.20

What should I read and listen to after Nicos Weg?

Read books written for learners, and simple news. Listen to real conversations, with subtitles or a script at first.

Reading. Graded readers are books written for learners at a set level, and you buy them like other books. Learners at B1 named books by Angelika Bohn and Daniela Fries, and short crime stories called Lernkrimi.21 Our graded readers page has easier ones. For news, Nachrichtenleicht, from the broadcaster Deutschlandfunk, publishes daily news in simpler German, free and with no login. You can read or listen, and hard words are explained under each story. One Nicos Weg learner swapped their flashcards for it.22

Learners disagree on when you can read books written for Germans. Of two who tried Harry Potter around B1, one got through several chapters by looking up about six words a page and guessing the rest. The other looked up every unknown word, found it too hard, and only managed it after B2.23

Listening. Easy German posts free street interviews on YouTube every week, at normal speed with German and English subtitles, and sorts its videos into playlists by level, including B1. Its podcast is harder. One learner who started it after A2 found it hard at first and easier over time, and another, between B1 and B2, could follow it while missing some words. Full podcast transcripts are only for paying members.24 Slow German is slower, and its creator recommends it from B1. The episodes and their texts are free.25

Sources

Footnotes

  1. Alex_Paulo on how long the course takes and DW Nicos Weg B1 Abschlusszertifikat, r/German. ↩

  2. Has anyone only used and completed Nicos Weg DW?, r/German. ↩

  3. How far will Nicos Weg take me?, r/German. ↩

  4. From almost nothing to B1 in 6 months with Nicos Weg, r/German. ↩

  5. How to use Nicos Weg properly in 2024 and Is it natural that in Nicos Weg A1 the audio clips…, r/German; Nicos Weg, Ekşi Sözlük (in Turkish). ↩

  6. Deutsche Welle, Help and Nicos Weg B1 introduction: script and vocabulary. ↩

  7. Is Nicos Weg enough to learn German?, r/German. ↩

  8. Deutsche Welle, Learn German: overview. ↩

  9. B2 content on DW Learn German, r/German. ↩

  10. Jeremy Kong, Burning Smoke: Q1 2021 review, personal blog. ↩

  11. Deutscher Volkshochschul-Verband, Online-Kurs B1-Deutsch. ↩

  12. Goethe-Institut, Deutsch B1; Goethe-Institut Almanca kursu, personal blog (in Turkish). ↩

  13. Should I move to Lingoda?, r/German; Yet another in-depth review of Lingoda and Babbel, r/languagelearning. ↩

  14. Ivan Trusov, My path to the Goethe-Zertifikat B1, Medium. ↩

  15. How I went from A0 to B1 using Nicos Weg, r/German. ↩

  16. Oswald Writes, How I learnt A1 German, Medium. ↩

  17. How do/did you use Nicos Weg?, r/German. ↩

  18. Looking for general study advice, r/German. ↩

  19. From almost nothing to B1 in 6 months with Nicos Weg and Is Nicos Weg enough to learn German?, r/German. ↩

  20. How I went from A0 to B1 using Nicos Weg and From almost nothing to A2 in 3 months with Nicos Weg, r/German; Jeremy Kong, Burning Smoke: Q1 2021 review, personal blog. ↩

  21. Passed B1 Goethe Prüfung and Books for extensive reading at B1/B2 level, r/German; Reading material for an A2/B1 student, r/languagelearning. ↩

  22. Deutschlandfunk, Wie benutze ich diese Seite?; Passed B1 Goethe Prüfung, r/German. ↩

  23. Can B1 students actually read Harry Potter? and a second reply, r/German. ↩

  24. Any A2/early B1 German podcasts? and Listening material for B1, r/German; Easy German, Easy German and The Easy German Podcast. ↩

  25. Annik Rubens, Slow German: FAQ. ↩