A1–A2 numbers vocabulary reading
Dutzend
Read German numbers at a glance while the total counts up in German.
Dutzend is a German numbers puzzle you play with your thumb. On a grid of tiles numbered 1 to 11, you clear tiles by drawing chains of neighbours: identical numbers, an ascending run like 2-3-4-5, or any group that adds up to twelve. Roughly half the tiles show their number as a German word (SECHS, ZEHN) instead of a digit, and a live read-out at the top spells your running total in German as you build - sechs, sieben, zwölf, sechzehn, vierundzwanzig.
German numbers are rarely a knowledge problem - they are a speed problem. Einundzwanzig arrives back-to-front, so your brain has to wait for the end of the word and then reassemble it, which falls apart the moment a native speaker rattles off a price or a phone number. Because half of these tiles are words rather than digits, you decode dozens of German number words per round without ever sitting down to study them, and the running-total read-out drip-feeds you the teens, the tens and the reversed und-numbers you never even tapped. It is spaced retrieval hidden inside a match-and-chain loop: short, calm sessions, no timer, and the repetition does the work.
Stop reciting the list and start reading numbers out of context, quickly, many times a day. The reason numbers feel hard is speed, not memory: you can recite eins-zwei-drei perfectly and still freeze on siebenundzwanzig in a shop. This game forces fast decoding because half the tiles are words, so every round is a few dozen reps of exactly that skill.
From 21 upward German says the unit first: einundzwanzig is literally one-and-twenty. Historically English did the same (four-and-twenty blackbirds). The only cure is exposure until you stop translating - which is why the running total at the top of the screen spells out numbers like einundzwanzig and vierunddreißig while you play, even when you never tapped those tiles.
Drag your finger across neighbouring tiles (up, down, left, right - no diagonals) or tap them one at a time to build a chain. A chain clears when every tile is the same number, when the numbers rise by one each step (three tiles minimum), or when they add up to exactly twelve. Remaining tiles slide up to close the gaps, and the Add button drops in fresh numbers when you need more room to work.
A1 upward. The number words eins to elf are the first vocabulary most learners meet, so absolute beginners can play from day one, while the read-out quietly stretches into A1/A2 territory with the teens, the tens and compound numbers. Nothing else in the game requires German, so you never get blocked by vocabulary you haven't met.
No timer, no lives, no move limit - one continuous board per run. A run ends either when you clear the whole board (Perfect, plus a 25-point bonus) or when no legal chain is left and the board is too full to add more. It's framed as retiring with your score, so it stays a relaxed brain snack rather than a test.
A list trains recognition in order, which is the one situation you never face in real life. Here the numbers arrive shuffled, mixed between words and digits, and you have to read them to make a move at all - so recall is the mechanic rather than the homework. Five to ten quiet minutes a day builds far more automatic recognition than one long session of copying numbers out.
No. It opens in any modern browser on phone, tablet or desktop and needs no signup, no download and no payment. It was built portrait-first for one-handed play on a phone.