There are lots of language learning strategies and programs out there for beginners, and I think that most of them probably work—if only because they involve spending lots of time with your new language. But I’m lazy. And maybe you are, too. So if you’re wondering if it’s possible to learn a new language with no real plan and close to 0 focused study, you’re in the right place. Welcome to my silly experiment.

Writing is one of my favorite ways to actively study German. It is great for vocabulary building and grammar practice, and in the absence of speaking opportunities, it is the only way to get practice with production skills. But beyond simply being a great way to practice on its own, writing is a key component of how I use flashcards and spaced repetition to learn German. In this post, I break down how to use writing practice to get more out of spaced repetition systems like Anki.

I’m a bad cook, so it’s difficult for me to follow recipes even when they’re written in plain English—let alone sputtered out rapid-fire in German as I try to handle knives and hot pans without maiming myself. But I’ve been cooking more with my boyfriend, and when he bothers to use a recipe all it always ends up as rapid-fire German sputtering even if it started out a written recipe. Clearly it was time to get to work on a flashcard deck of German cooking verbs.

German science videos were some of the first “real” German media that I could understand. It might sound like a tough place to start, but thanks to the overlap between English and German scienctific vocabulary, science videos can actually be a great entry into authentic German content (especially if you’re a nerd like me). These 10 channels are a great resource for German learners or anyone else looking for awesome science videos in German.

When we learn a new language, we focus on learning the words we actually need to communicate. But eventually, you might want to be able to get across points like “pine tree” without having to say things like “der Baum, der Nadeln statt Blätter hat.”

After almost a year of experimentation, I’m finally satisfied enough with my German Anki template to dare to think it might be useful for others. So in the spirit of Mads Mikkelsen advertising a pretty mediocre Danish beer as “probably the best beer in the world,” I’ll say that this is “probably the best German Anki template on the internet.” You can download it for free.