🤔 Learn German at DeutschAkademie: Is it worth the money?

We tested the DeutschAkademie for you and have a few things in this article which you should know before you book your German course. So let's get right into it.

Learning Amount at DeutschAkademie

The Deutschakademie is offering courses to all German levels.
Which includes: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, and C2.

All those levels have a subdivision into two sections.

For example: A1 = A1.1 & A1.2

One sublevel can be done in one month with an intensive German course (or visa course). This course will have 3 learning hours per day and an optional exam at the end.

So you will get 60 lessons in German in one month which is definitely a high amount of german.

Otherwise, you can also choose a part-time solution at the Deutschakademie so-called "semi-intensive course".

In total they offer a great variety of courses. So here a little overview for you:

Courses at the Deutschakademie

Intensive German Course  → Small Group, 1 month, 2 h/day → 350€
Online German intensive course → 1 month, 3 h/day, 100% online → 290€
Online semi-intensive German course → Twice a week, 2 months → 310€
Online German grammar course → Twice a week, 1 month → 150€
Online German conversation course → Twice a week, 1 month → 150€
Individual Tutoring lessons → Private lessons, online or offline → 70€/h
Online preparation course for DAF-Test → Only fridays, 3 h/week → 100€
German Visa course → On all weekdays, 1 month, 3 hours per day → 445€
(Complete Review)
German evening course → Twice a week, 2 months → 310€

Here you will find more.

You can take many lessons online and in-house, which is a very nice service and espacially in and after the Corona Pandemic a real life saver.

We didn't test the online courses so our evaluation of the learning amount is only referencing to the live in-house course.

Learning Experience at DeutschAkademie

The Deutschakademie is focusing on a communicative way to learn the language.
That sounds good in the first place but also has some disadvantages.

I personally didn't like this learning style too much due to the fact, that I didn't really felt like I learned a lot. I talk more about that in my experience report of the Deutschakademie.

Other reviews of the learning experience are very positive, so it really depends on your preference. Here you can read other reviews about the Deutschakademie on Google.

Quality of the German Course

With over 800 reviews the Deutschakademie is a well-known and proven concept that works.

Nevertheless, there are complaints which claim that the teachers are just freelancers and often also students and rarely professional language teachers. That confirmes my experience with the DeutschAkademie also very much.

In other reviews, you can see that it just really depends on the teacher that you are getting. This, of course, is not really a sign of extremely high quality but due to the many great reviews, it seems that the majority of the teachers are good.

In our test, this won't get full points due to the named reasons.

Pricing of the DeutschAkademie

The pricing of the academy is for sure one of the best things about it. All courses on all levels are really affordable for all budgets and it is a great place to go for people who can't or don't want to pay prices around 1000€ like in the Goethe-Institut.

A German intensive course (visa course) at the DeutschAkademie costs around 420€ for one month with 60 hours of lessons.

The price per hour is just 7€ which is definitely very good and cheaper than the competition.

Combined with the amount and the quality this is still a medium good offer.

The individual tutoring lessons are on the other hand way overpriced. With prices like 60€-70€ per 60 minutes it is far over competitors on the market like Tutor Boost.

Real Review of DeutschAkademie

I personally went to the DeutschAkademie in 2018 to improve in German. Before that, I was at the Goethe-Institut also in Munich. That is why I can compare these two very well. 😇

Disclaimer:
Before we start, I want to make it very clear, that this part here is just my personal opinion and experience. I saw many good reviews and also had also friends who recommended the DeutschAkademie for me.

So whenever I write something "negative" keep in mind that it was just one particular teacher in one particular course mixed with my personal opinion, so it does certainly not represent the institution as a total.

Application Process of the intensive German course

The application process started through the website. I had to register and give them multiple information.

After that, I had to attend an online test to evaluate my German level. To my surprise, they put me at a higher level than I graduated at the Goethe-Institut.

So they evaluated me at level B2.1. I was pretty excited to jump over one level and also a little nervous to see if the level was not too high for me.

The first day at the DeutschAkadamie München

I arrived in the building of the DeutschAkademie München. The building was little but everything was very organized and clean. In general, the learning environment was okay not as great as in Goethe though.

I had to buy books myself which was like 20-30€. After that, we started the class pretty fast.

There was no cultural instruction like in Goethe to help you get around in the city.

Luckily I knew Munich already but for a person who is completely new in Germany, I imagined that instruction would have been nice.

The classroom the DeutschAkademie Munich

The classroom is fairly little but this is generally not a problem. I was there to learn a language. In the middle of the room, there was a big squared table where everybody sat around. We were about 10-12 classmates which was fine from the size.

In every classroom, there was a whiteboard where the teacher could explain things.

The Lesson at the DeutschAkademie

I had 3 hours of lessons per day. That was not much for me, because I basically just came to Germany to learn the language. It was good for a person who worked full-time at the same time. We had lessons on 5 days in the week and mine was from 8 a.m. till 11 a.m.

My teacher was talking very much right from the beginning. We really didn't do many exercises. I personally expected way more exercise. Sometimes the teacher would literally choose a random topic and everybody had to contribute to that discussion. 

Other times she would go to the book and take a topic out of it and talk about it.

I'm sure some people enjoy this learning style, I didn't really, because I never felt like we are actually learning something new.

Another thing was that there were some people in my class who shouldn't have been there because they basically didn't really speak German. That shouldn't be the case at a B2 level.

Because of them, the teacher switched sometimes to a discussion in English.

Her way to talk German was very clear and at normal speed which made it easy for me to follow and she was also very friendly and sympathetic.

She rarely used the whiteboard to actually write things down.

Here you can read other reviews of DeutschAkademie: ProvenExpert or you go to Google Reviews.

The Homework at the DeutschAkademie

We had homework every day. We didn't regularly check the homework and I felt like she didn't really care if we did them or not. To be honest, because we didn't really correct them I also didn't really felt like doing them all the time.

They were basically exercises from the Workbook (in German "Arbeitsbuch").

In Goethe, I had to write sometimes a little essay which I had to give to the teacher the next day for homework. Therefore there was more pressure to actually do it and also she then really corrected every single one of our texts which was awesome.

The Exam at the DeutschAkadmie

In the end, I didn't do a test so I really can't say much about it. On the last day, I just said goodbye so I didn't get my certificate for B2.1. On their website, it says that you need to register for the exam in the front office of the DeutschAkademie.

The exam fee is about 160€ extra.

Conclusion of my DeutschAkademie Experience

I personally would not book a course again and rather save my money for a course at the Goethe-Institut.

For some people who haven't been to Goethe and therefore can't compare, it is probably a better experience but nevertheless I would in nearly all cases recommend the Goethe-Institut over the DeutschAkademie.

The only scenario when I personally would recommend the DeutschAkademie is when someone really is short on money and needs a quick course in german.

The pricing is very cheap at the DeutschAkademie with just 7€ per lesson.

But like I said before, do not take my word for granted, read other reviews on Google, and on ProvenExpert about them so you can make a really good decision about it.

If you want to learn german in 1-to-1 lessons I can also highly recommend you check out our 5€ trial lesson* at Tutor Boost. We offer high-quality single lessons with a german native or real german teachers. You can discuss grammar, spelling, talking, and also write together at the same time via keyboard and video chat.

If you are interested then we would like to meet you in the 5€ trial lesson :)*

Do you have more questions? Let me help in the comment section.