telc B1 Vocabulary: What Should You Actually Learn?

Last updated: August 2026 · 7 min read

One clarification first: telc does not publish a closed word list for the B1 exam. There is no official document saying "only these words appear". What telc does publish is free B1 vocabulary lists for its own coursebooks — and the official Übungstest shows very clearly which kind of word actually earns points.

telc's free vocabulary lists

In the free-downloads section of telc.net, telc offers coursebook vocabulary lists as PDFs. At B1 the relevant ones are:

• Einfach gut! Deutsch für die Integration B1.1 and B1.2 — for integration courses, with alphabetical and unit-by-unit lists.
• Einfach besser! Deutsch für Berufssprachkurse B1 — for vocational language courses.

Some of these lists are published with a translation column. The key point: they are coursebook lists, not an exam syllabus. They give you a reliable foundation, but "I finished the list, so I am ready" does not follow.

The words that really earn points

In Sprachbausteine Part 2 of the official Übungstest 1, candidates get this bank of fifteen words:

Look at the list: there is not a single "difficult noun" in it. Almost all fifteen are connectors, prepositions, adverbs and Konjunktiv II forms. When telc B1 tests vocabulary, what it asks about is not rare words but the function words that hold a sentence together.

Your priorities should therefore run like this:

1. Connectors: weil, da, damit, obwohl, wenn, falls, deshalb, trotzdem, außerdem, schließlich, zuerst, danach.
2. Verb + preposition patterns: sich interessieren für, warten auf, sich freuen über/auf, denken an, sich kümmern um, teilnehmen an, sich bewerben um.
3. The language of politeness and requests: hätte gerne, könnten Sie, wären Sie so nett, ich würde gerne wissen, ob …
4. Opinion and suggestion phrases: meiner Meinung nach, ich finde, dass …, ich schlage vor, dass …, wie wäre es, wenn …
5. Topic vocabulary — last.

The real themes in the official practice test

The topics of the texts and tasks in Übungstest 1 map out the exam's thematic range concretely:

• Home and family: sharing housework (the topic of Hörverstehen Part 1 is Gleichberechtigung im Haushalt)
• Leisure and clubs: a sports club, computer and hobby habits
• Travel and transport: rail and cycling holidays, flights, accommodation, booking a guesthouse
• Health: sleep disorders and a patient guidebook
• Education and youth: private tuition, language courses, speech therapy, a youth club
• Food and drink: choosing a restaurant, hot food to take away
• Oral exam themes: Gruppenreisen, Fernsehen, Handy, Haustiere, Online-Einkaufen, Auto in der Stadt, Stadt oder Land

This is not a word list but a map of themes. Group your vocabulary under these headings and it works on both sides: recognition in reading and listening, production in writing and speaking.

Building your own list

• Record the pattern, not the bare word. Not "interessieren" but sich interessieren für + accusative.
• Note nouns with article and plural. Case decisions in the exam depend on it.
• Separate active from passive. Recognition is enough for reading and listening; for writing and speaking, build a small but solid active core of 300–400 words.
• Generate the list from your own mistakes. After each practice test, add the words you did not know, grouped by theme — this beats any ready-made list for speed.

Conclusion

There is no official exam dictionary to memorise for telc B1 — and none is needed. The official practice test shows that the points sit largely in function words: connectors, prepositions, Konjunktiv II and request phrases. Securing that core is worth far more than memorising thousands of rare nouns.

For the grammar side see our grammar topics article, and for writing phrases our Redemittel article.