Who We Are

Hey there!

I'm Berto López, the creator of Deutsch GO! — an app for learning real German, without dressing it up as a video game. This is the story of why I built it.

My relationship with German started from birth: I'm Spanish, but I was born in Germany and lived there for 19 years, all the way through the Abitur (Germany's university entrance exam).

By profession I'm a software engineer, but for a decade — while studying my degree and for a few years after — I worked as a private German tutor to earn some extra income.

If you're familiar with the world of blogging and online marketing, you may know me through Ciudadano 2.0, which was at one point one of the most well-known Spanish-language blogs in that niche. That project is still alive, though my current focus is Deutsch GO!

This project, however, didn't come from my native connection to the language — it came from a very personal frustration.

A "toy" born out of frustration

It all started with my two children, students at the German school in Madrid.

Watching their learning process as a parent opened my eyes: even in a supposedly "ideal" environment like a prestigious German school, the effectiveness of the learning left a lot to be desired — especially for non-native children.

For example: I found it baffling to see how, at ages 7 or 8, so much emphasis was placed on working through classic fairy tales (Märchen) — often written in an archaic, complex language that was, in my personal opinion, completely inappropriate for the needs of non-native children at that age.

It's virtually impossible for a child with a still-fragile foundation to understand that kind of language. It's far removed from what they practically and realistically need to learn, and it adds an extra layer of difficulty that, in my view, is counterproductive. I saw this firsthand with my own children through the frustration and rejection these texts generated in them.

When they still have a very basic vocabulary, confuse genders, struggle to conjugate verbs, or find it hard to form subordinate clauses — what's the point of something like this?

None. It's just an excessive, unnecessary difficulty that leads students to frustration. In my view, it would be far more productive to master the fundamentals of the language through appropriate texts and exercises — using current language about current topics that kids can actually relate to.

The origin of the Deutsch GO! philosophy

This experience reconnected me with my past as a teacher, because I ended up developing my own method — and with my work as a software developer, because good software can be enormously helpful here.

Let's start with the method.

During my teaching years I used the Themen books from Hueber Publishing. They were a good starting point, but I quickly began developing my own "tweaked" materials.

I realized that the book's approach could be dramatically enriched and accelerated by introducing "hacks" early in the learning process — things that aren't very hard to learn, but that massively boost your command of the language:

High-impact vocabulary: Drilling essential vocabulary and the most frequently used words (the 250 most common nouns, the 100 essential verbs, etc.).
Key structures for building richer sentences: This means, for example, prioritizing conjunctions to form subordinate clauses (going beyond trivial sentences) and the basic declensions that appear in the vast majority of sentences.
Cutting the noise: Systematically skipping the "filler" in lessons that added little learning value.

And it worked. Students who applied this method were already achieving remarkable results in the first year.

That combination of traditional learning stages with the right kind of "drilling" at each point was the key: it allowed students to reach much sooner that tipping point where you're able to actually communicate with a native speaker.

I had students who signed up to prepare for a trip to Germany and finished the course amazed at what they had achieved in just 60 hours of class.

The other key is software — the tool I didn't have at my disposal back then, and which makes everything even more effective.

The truth is that the experience with my children at the German school was disappointing — I can't put it any other way. I expected that by age 11 or 12 at the latest they would have a near-native level, and that simply wasn't the case.

And it's not an isolated problem with this particular school. I've been able to compare notes with other parents at other bilingual schools.

The reasons, in my opinion, are mainly these three:

Lack of intensity: The actual language-learning activity at this school doesn't carry the weight it should — especially given that we're in Spain, not Germany. Classes are taught in German, but the focus on mastering the language itself is insufficient. The German school system is essentially replicated as-is, but doing that with non-native children creates significant gaps.
Room for improvement in the method: Materials are used that aren't optimized for efficient language acquisition — like the example of the fairy tales, with their difficult and impractical language that bears little resemblance to everyday speech.
Classroom dynamics: A student's performance in a group of 20 people is simply no match for what a good private tutor achieves in a 1:1 setting. That's inherent to group teaching — and even more so when those groups are made up of children with relatively low motivation.

My answer: Deutsch GO!

The combination of these two experiences — as a teacher and as the parent of children learning the language — is what gave shape to the philosophy of Deutsch GO!: the software guides and monitors the student, provides the method, acts as that ideal private tutor, and through high-intensity training delivers optimal learning performance — both in depth and over time.

The curse of gamification

I can't finish without a few words on this crucial topic.

The idea that good software is the ideal tool for learning languages is nothing new. In fact, modern language-learning apps like Duolingo or Babbel have become giants.

However, they have a significant problem: practically all of them have gone all-in on a student motivation strategy built around "gamification."

That means they place heavy emphasis on making the language-learning experience feel like a video game — making it as fun as possible using attractive graphics, animations, and constant stimuli to keep the student engaged.

I'm genuinely in favor of elements like challenges, rewards, badges, and progress bars — in fact, Deutsch GO! will be incorporating more of these over time.

But the problem arises when these platforms become so focused on retaining users by making the experience enjoyable that learning efficiency and depth get left behind.

For unmotivated students, it can be a way to spark more engagement — but for motivated, committed students, it's a trap.

I see two serious problems with these methods:

A terrible effort-to-result ratio: Learning is slow. Wrapping everything in gameplay produces little real output.
A very low glass ceiling: You might brush up against an A1/A2 level, but forget about building a solid B1/B2. If you do a bit of research or ask any expert (or even your favorite AI), the consensus is clear: the strategy of disguising learning as play works for simple challenges, but for advanced and difficult material, it doesn't hold up.

So if you compare the Deutsch GO! philosophy I've described with these platforms, you'll quickly see that it's radically opposed to theirs.

Our promise is clear: here you will learn faster and with greater depth — but in return, we require your firm commitment. If you're looking to play, there are other options. If you're looking for results, Deutsch GO! is for you.