Menschen German — Co-learning Context Repo

This repo tracks what I've actually covered in the Menschen German course (course book + workbook), lesson by lesson, so that Claude (or any LLM) has exact context on my vocabulary and grammar level when we study together.

How to use this with Claude

At the start of a study session, point Claude at the relevant lesson file(s) (e.g. A1.1/lektion-05.md), or the whole A1.1/INDEX.md for a running summary. Ask Claude to only use vocabulary/grammar that appears in those files (or earlier lessons) when creating exercises, example sentences, or corrections — this keeps practice within what I've actually learned.

Structure

A1.1/
  lektion-XX.md   ← everything for one lesson: vocab, grammar, communication
                     patterns, course book + workbook exercise summaries,
                     official audio transcripts, answer key highlights
  _template.md    ← template used to build each lektion-XX.md
  INDEX.md        ← one-line summary of every lesson so far
A1.2/             ← added once I move on to the next book
  ...
scripts/
  transcribe.py   ← local ASR fallback (faster-whisper) for audio with no
                     official transcript

Each lesson is one combined file rather than separate course-book/workbook files, because Menschen's workbook exercises constantly reference course book sections (e.g. "KB 2b") and share the same grammar — splitting them apart would just duplicate content.

Adding a new lesson

1. Get the course book pages, workbook pages, and (if available) the official Hueber Transkriptionen PDF pages for that lesson — as PDFs, photos, or a folder path.
2. Claude extracts/summarizes content into lektion-XX.md using _template.md: vocabulary (from the workbook's Lernwortschatz page), grammar boxes, communication patterns, a brief summary of what each exercise practices (not full exercise text), audio transcripts, and answer key highlights.
3. Review and correct anything Claude got wrong or over-summarized.
4. Update INDEX.md with a one-line entry for the lesson.
5. Commit.

Audio (listening exercises)

Hueber releases official Transkriptionen PDFs for both the Kursbuch (course book) and Arbeitsbuch (workbook) — these are the primary source for audio content, not the Lösungsschlüssel (answer key — a different document). Raw audio files are not stored in this repo (see .gitignore); only transcripts (text) are, since that's what gives Claude context.

Primary workflow — official transcripts:

1. Get the Kursbuch and Arbeitsbuch Transkriptionen PDFs for the relevant book (A1.1, A1.2, ...).
2. Extract the per-track dialogue text into that lesson's .md file under "Audio / Listening", marked as official-sourced.
3. No review needed for accuracy — these are publisher-official text, not ASR.

Fallback workflow — local ASR (only if no official transcript exists for a given track, e.g. supplementary listening material):

1. Get the audio files locally (publisher CD/app/download), any folder outside git.
2. Run scripts/transcribe.py (uses faster-whisper on GPU) to transcribe them:

   pip install faster-whisper
   python scripts/transcribe.py "<path-to-lesson-audio>" "A1.1/transcripts/lektion-XX"
   

3. Skim the .txt output for ASR mistakes (names, numbers, fast speech) and fix them.
4. Reference/paste the transcript into the lesson's .md file under "Audio / Listening", flagged as ASR-generated — transcripts are small text files so committing them is fine.

Adding a new book (e.g. A1.2)

Copy the A1.1/ folder structure (minus content) into a new A1.2/ folder and repeat the process.