CEFR A1 · Starter

A1 English - Beginner

Your first real sentences in English - to be, the present simple, and the handful of words everything else is built on.

Levels
10
Grammar points
97
Active vocabulary
≈500 words
Certified by
No adult Cambridge exam at this level (A1 Movers is for young learners)

Where A1 counts. The level the UK Home Office asks for on a first partner or spouse visa - speaking and listening only.

What you can do at A1

Story length

80–120 words · 5 pages

Typical study time

90–100 guided hours

English you meet here

there is · because · I don't

Study-time figures are the guided-hour ranges commonly published by English language schools, counted cumulatively from zero. They describe a classroom average, not a promise.

Why A1 is the level it is

A1 is the level where English stops being a wall of sound and starts being a system. Almost all of it is one job: getting be, have, do and can so far into your hands that you never have to assemble them consciously again. Every tense, every question and every negative from A2 upward is built on those four, and learners who rush this level pay for it twice.

The second job is word order, and it is stricter than most learners expect. English lost its case endings, so position is what tells you who did what: the dog bit the man and the man bit the dog use identical words and mean opposite things. Languages that mark the object with a particle or an ending let you move things around; English does not. Questions invert, negatives take do, and adjectives go before the noun - none of it optional.

Then there are the articles. If your first language has none - Japanese, Korean, Russian, Mandarin, Polish - a and the will be the most persistent error in your English for years, and no rule will fix it, because the choice depends on what the listener already knows rather than on the noun itself. The only method that works is meeting each noun enough times, inside enough sentences, that the wrong article starts to sound broken. That is an argument for reading, not for flashcards.

The A1 curriculum, unit by unit

10 levels and 97 grammar points, in the order Leo teaches them. Each unit lists its must-know forms with a real example - the supporting points are covered inside the stories.

  1. A1.1 Naming and describing: be, someone, somewhere

    be — affirmative

    I'm Mia. She is my sister. We are at home.

    I am / you are / he is / we are / they are (+ contractions I'm, he's)

    subject pronoun I / you / he / she / it / we / they

    They live here. It is raining.

    subject pronoun + verb

    articles a / an

    a dog, an apple, a big house

    a + consonant, an + vowel (+ a + adjective + noun)

    article the

    A boy opened the door. The sun was hot.

    the + noun already mentioned or unique

  2. A1.2 Denying, asking, placing: the setting

    be — yes/no questions

    Are you OK? — Yes, I am.

    Are you...? / Is it...? + short answers Yes, I am. / No, it isn't.

    possessive determiners my / your / his / her / our / their

    My sister lost her bag.

    possessive determiner + noun

    there is / there are

    There is a cat in the garden. There are two beds.

    There is + singular / There are + plural (+ negative There isn't / There aren't)

  3. A1.3 Everyday actions: the present simple

    present simple — affirmative + third person -s

    I live in Osaka. My father works at a school.

    I/you/we/they work — he/she/it works

    present simple for habits and general facts

    She walks to school every morning. Cats sleep a lot.

    recurring actions, routines, permanent states

    present simple — negative don't / doesn't

    I don't like fish. She doesn't have a car.

    I don't like / he doesn't like

  4. A1.4 Asking questions: open questions, time and numbers

    present simple — questions Do / Does

    Do you want some tea? — Yes, I do.

    Do you...? / Does he...? + short answers Yes, I do. / No, he doesn't.

    questions with What / Who

    What is your name? Who is that man?

    What + be/do...? / Who + be/do...?

    questions with How + How old / How much / How many

    How are you? How old is she? How much is it? How many books do you have?

    How + be/do...? | How old/much/many + ...?

  5. A1.5 Wanting and liking: tastes, wishes, quantities

    like / love / hate + -ing

    I like swimming. She loves reading.

    verb of liking + V-ing

    want / need / like + to + infinitive

    I want to go home. She needs to sleep.

    verb + to + base form

    would like / 'd like — wishes and polite offers

    I'd like a coffee. I'd like to see you. Would you like some cake?

    I'd like + noun | I'd like to + verb | Would you like...?

  6. A1.6 Ability and requests: what drives a conversation

    can for ability

    I can swim. She can speak two languages.

    can + base form

    Can you...? / Can I...? — requests and offers

    Can you help me? Can I have some water?

    Can + subject + base form

    imperative affirmative

    Come here. Look at this. Sit down, please.

    base form, subject dropped

  7. A1.7 Right now: present continuous, frequency, intensity

    present continuous — affirmative

    I'm reading a book. They're playing outside.

    be + verb-ing

    intensifiers very / really

    It's very cold. I really like her. She was really happy.

    very / really + adjective or adverb ; really + verb

    adverbs of frequency always / usually / often / sometimes / never

    She always walks to school. Sometimes I go to the beach. He is never late.

    mid position (before the main verb, after be); sometimes can also open the sentence

  8. A1.8 Movement: phrasal verbs and everyday gestures

    go out

    We go out on Friday nights.

    go out (intransitive)

    put on / take off (clothes)

    He put on his shoes and took off his hat.

    separable : put on your coat / put it on

    prepositional verbs listen to / look at / wait for / look after

    I listen to music. Look at the sky. Wait for me!

    verb + preposition + object

  9. A1.9 Telling a story: the past

    past simple of be — was / were

    It was cold. My parents were happy.

    I was / you were / it was / they were (+ negative wasn't, weren't)

    past simple — regular verbs in -ed

    We walked to the river. She opened the door.

    walk → walked, play → played

    past simple — the most frequent irregular verbs

    He went home and made dinner.

    go→went, see→saw, have→had, say→said, come→came, take→took, get→got, make→made

  10. A1.10 Looking ahead: future, comparison, opinion

    will / 'll for intentions and promises

    I'll come tomorrow. I will help you.

    will + base form

    comparative in -er + than

    Tom is taller than Ben. Today is colder than yesterday.

    short adjective + -er + than

    I think / I know / I hope + clause

    I think it's a good idea. I hope you're OK.

    opinion verb + clause without that

The app

Leo teaches A1 by reading

The roadmap on this page is not a chart we drew for the article - it is the syllabus the app is built on. Leo takes you from your first sentence to reading the press without a dictionary, one story at a time.

Stories, not drills

Every level is taught through illustrated stories written at that level - short at A1, full pages of natural prose by C1. You learn English the way you learned to read: by reading something you want to finish.

Tap any word

Translation, pronunciation and the grammar behind the form, on the word itself. No dictionary in another tab, no losing the thread of the sentence to look something up.

A real curriculum underneath

63 levels and 970 grammar points from A1 to C1 - 317 of them flagged must-know - in the order they build on each other. The stories are ordered by that curriculum, so a form is always introduced before it is used again.

Download on the App Store GET IT ON Google Play

Be told the day it lands

The app is in development. One e-mail, on launch day - that is the whole deal.

One e-mail, on launch day. No newsletter, no drip campaign.

How to actually get through A1

Learn the verb, not the word

Never store go alone. Store go to work, go home (no to), go shopping. English meaning lives in the combination, and retrofitting prepositions onto a few thousand verbs later is the most common regret of intermediate learners.

Listen and read at the same time

English spelling hides a third of what it says: would have comes out as one blurred syllable that no dictionary prints. Following the audio with your eyes on the text is how the written and the spoken version of a word get filed together instead of learned twice.

Do not skip the contractions

Real speech is I’m, don’t, it’s, can’t - almost never the full forms. Beginners who only learn I am and do not spend a year sounding like a textbook and, worse, fail to recognise the contracted form when they hear it.

Ten minutes daily beats ninety on Sunday

At A1 you are building recognition, not knowledge, and recognition is a frequency effect. A short session every day moves you faster than one long one per week, by a wide margin.

A1 English - frequently asked questions

How long does A1 English take?
Cambridge budgets roughly 90 to 100 guided hours to bring an absolute beginner to A1, plus about the same again in independent study. At 20–30 focused minutes a day that is around four to six months. Speakers of Spanish, Portuguese, French or Italian tend to sit at the fast end, because thousands of Latin-derived words are already half-familiar.
Is there an exam at A1?
Not a mainstream adult one. Cambridge starts its adult ladder at A2 Key, and IELTS does not resolve meaningfully below about band 4. A1 does appear in immigration rules - the UK asks for A1 speaking and listening on a spouse or partner visa, taken as an approved Secure English Language Test - so if that is your route, check the approved provider list rather than assuming any certificate counts.
Is English hard at A1?
The start is unusually easy and the middle is not. There are no genders, no case endings and barely any conjugation - I work, you work, he works, and that -s is the whole story. What is hard from day one is spelling, which maps onto sound less reliably than in any other major European language, and articles if your first language does not have them.
Should I learn vocabulary or grammar first at A1?
Neither in isolation. A1 grammar is so small and so load-bearing - four verbs, the present tenses, questions, negatives, articles - that you meet it constantly in even the simplest text, so reading gives you both at once and attaches each word to a context you can recall. Isolated word lists give you the word and nothing that goes with it.
Do I need to choose between British and American English?
Not at A1, and probably not ever. The differences amount to a few hundred words, some spelling conventions and a handful of grammar preferences - none of it blocks comprehension in either direction. Pick whichever you hear more of, stay roughly consistent in writing, and understand both. Exams accept either, as long as you do not mix them inside one piece of writing.

Starting point

A1 is the first level. There is nothing before it.

Next level

A2 - Elementary

The whole roadmap: 63 levels, 970 grammar points

Leo teaches A1 through illustrated stories written at A1. The app is in development - we will write once, on launch day.

One e-mail, on launch day. No newsletter, no drip campaign.

See all five levels, A1 to C1