telc B1 Grammar Topics: What Actually Comes Up
Last updated: August 2026 · 8 min read
telc does not publish a closed "these topics will appear" grammar syllabus for B1. But the official telc Deutsch B1 Übungstest 1 shows exactly which structures are tested: the ten items of Sprachbausteine Part 1 each target a different grammar point. The list below is not guesswork — it is derived from those real items.
Where grammar earns points
Grammar turns into points in three different places, not just one:
- Sprachbausteine Part 1 (items 21–30): grammar directly, 15 points.
- Schriftlicher Ausdruck: one of the three criteria is Formale Richtigkeit — a third of the 45 points.
- Mündlicher Ausdruck: one of the four criteria covers linguistic accuracy and range.
So "Sprachbausteine is only 30 points, I can skip it" is a mistake: the same structures are assessed again in writing and speaking.
Ten items, ten topics, from the official test
The Sprachbausteine Part 1 text in Übungstest 1 is a personal letter to a friend called Karin. The options offered give away exactly what is being tested:
| Item | Options | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| 21 | aber / denn / sondern | Main-clause connectors |
| 22 | eine / einen / einer | Indefinite article + case |
| 23 | bin / habe / wurde | Perfekt: haben or sein? |
| 24 | anstrengend / anstrengende / anstrengendes | Adjective endings |
| 25 | trotzdem / wegen / weshalb | Contrast and cause linkers |
| 26 | bis / in / nach | Time prepositions |
| 27 | gelernt / lernen / lernte | Verb form and tense |
| 28 | dem / denen / die | Relative pronouns |
| 29 | meine / meinen / meiner | Possessives + case |
| 30 | dir / Ihnen / uns | Personal pronoun (dative) and register |
Source: telc gGmbH, telc Deutsch B1 Übungstest 1 — Sprachbausteine, Part 1.
1. Connectors: where most of the points sit
Connectors appear in both parts of Sprachbausteine. Even the Part 2 word bank in Übungstest 1 contains da, damit, deshalb, wenn, schließlich. Learn the three families together with their word order:
| Family | Examples | Verb position |
|---|---|---|
| Coordinating | und, oder, aber, denn, sondern | Unchanged (verb second) |
| Subordinating | weil, da, dass, wenn, obwohl, damit, bevor, nachdem | Verb goes to the end |
| Connecting adverbs | deshalb, trotzdem, dann, schließlich, außerdem | Adverb first, verb second |
Item 25 tests exactly this: trotzdem is an adverb (a verb follows), wegen is a preposition (a noun follows), weshalb is a question/relative word. All three live in the same semantic space but demand different sentence structures — the item is about structure, not meaning.
2. Konjunktiv II: the language of politeness at B1
The Sprachbausteine Part 2 text in Übungstest 1 is a formal letter to a guesthouse, and Konjunktiv II runs through every line: hätte gerne nähere Informationen, Wie viel müssten wir bezahlen?, wären wir Ihnen sehr dankbar. The word bank even offers könnten and müssten as options.
The core you need at B1 is tiny: hätte, wäre, könnte, müsste, würde plus gerne. These five forms carry your requests in the writing task and your suggestions in the oral exam.
3. Relative clauses
Item 28 makes you choose between dem / denen / die. The same booklet contains this real sentence: "Wir haben einen kleinen Hund, von dem sich meine Kinder nicht trennen können." Note what decides the pronoun: not the gender of the noun alone, but the case the preposition demands (von + dative → dem).
What you need at B1: nominative (der/die/das/die), accusative (den/die/das/die), dative (dem/der/dem/denen) and the prepositional forms (mit dem, für die, von denen). The dative plural denen is the single most-missed detail.
4. Adjective endings
Item 24 offers three forms: anstrengend / anstrengende / anstrengendes. Instead of memorising the whole declension table, ask three questions in order: is the adjective predicative (then no ending: Die Arbeit ist anstrengend), does it stand before a noun, and which article precedes it? After a definite article the ending is almost always -e or -en; the real work is with indefinite articles and bare nouns.
5. Cases, prepositions and the Perfekt
- Preposition + case (items 22, 26, 29): mit, bei, von, zu, aus, nach, seit → dative; für, ohne, gegen, um, durch → accusative; in, an, auf, über, unter, vor, hinter, neben, zwischen → accusative for movement, dative for position.
- Verb + preposition patterns: sich interessieren für (item 31 in the practice test), warten auf, sich freuen über/auf, denken an. These are vocabulary, not grammar — list them and learn them.
- Perfekt auxiliary (item 23): verbs of movement and change of state take sein (gefahren, gegangen, geblieben, aufgestanden); everything else takes haben.
6. Register: the rule that comes before grammar
In item 30 all three options — dir, Ihnen, uns — are grammatically sound. What decides it is the form of address in the text: if the letter opens "Liebe Karin … wie du ja weißt", the answer is dir. The same rule applies in the writing task: replying with Sie to an email written in du costs points even when the content is right.
Work through it topic by topic
The Sprachbausteine exercises on Zertifly are built around exactly this topic list, and after each item you see which structure tripped you up.
In what order should you study?
- Connectors and word order — the topic that touches the most items, and it pays off directly in writing and speaking.
- Preposition + case and verb + preposition patterns.
- The five Konjunktiv II forms — little effort, high return.
- Relative clauses, then adjective endings.
Conclusion
The grammar scope of telc B1 is not broad — it is narrow and repetitive: connectors, cases, relative pronouns, adjective endings and Konjunktiv II. The official practice test shows this plainly. Securing those six areas pays back far more than the 30 points of Sprachbausteine alone.
For subtest tactics see our Sprachbausteine article; for real items with the answer key see our sample questions article.