The fastest routes are the ones you are already on: your German course, the school gate, and an au pair group for your city. Add one club or class that meets every week, and protect the free evenings you are entitled to, at least four a week plus 1.5 rest days. Making friends abroad is mostly a scheduling problem dressed up as a personality problem.
Your hours, tasks and host family chat, in one app.
Start with the course
Your German course is the single best room you will be in. Everybody there moved recently, nobody has an established circle, and you already have a shared thing to talk about, which is the bit that is hardest to invent from nothing.
Two habits make the difference: arrive five minutes early instead of on time, and suggest something small after class, a coffee, a walk to the station. First suggestions get accepted far more often than people expect.
Your host family contributes at least €840 towards the course over your stay and has to give you time off for it (Federal Employment Agency), so this is time you are entitled to, not a favour. What that contribution covers is in what your pocket money covers.
The school gate and the playground
You will be standing in the same place at the same time every day next to other au pairs, childminders and parents. That repetition is worth more than any app.
It is also the most awkward one to start, so lower the bar: ask a practical question. Which bus goes to the town centre, where the good playground is, whether the swimming pool is open on Mondays. Practical questions are easy to answer and easy to continue.
Au pair groups for your city
Search Facebook or WhatsApp for au pairs plus the name of your city. Most German cities of any size have a group, and the bigger ones organise meetups, trips and language tandems.
A word on expectations. These groups are good for meeting people quickly and for practical advice, and less good as your only social life, because everyone in them leaves within a year. Treat them as a start rather than the whole plan.
Join one thing that meets every week
Germany runs on Vereine, clubs for more or less anything: football, volleyball, climbing, choirs, dance, volunteering, church groups. Fees are often low and you do not need to be good at the thing.
The reason a club beats going out is repetition. German friendships tend to start slowly and then last, and repeat contact is what moves an acquaintance along. Turning up at the same place every Wednesday does more in two months than five one-off nights out.
A club is also where your German improves fastest, because there is something happening besides the conversation. You can be bad at the language and still belong in the room.
Use the free time you actually have
You have at least 1.5 full rest days a week, at least four free evenings and at least one free Sunday a month. On paper that is plenty. In practice it disappears if nobody names which evenings they are.
Fix the days. If your course is on Tuesday and the club is on Wednesday, put those in the weekly plan rather than negotiating them every week. The au pair schedule checker shows you whether the week you have been given actually leaves the evenings and rest days it should.
If the free evenings keep getting eaten by an extra hour here and there, that is a hours conversation rather than a social one, and how to raise it with your host family is the place to start. Extra hours have to be agreed in advance and come back to you as time off.
For a bigger trip with the people you meet, check what paid holiday you have earned with the vacation calculator before you book anything.
Ask your host family
Most host parents would happily introduce you to the neighbours, to other families, or to the couple down the road with an au pair, and simply never think of it. Ask directly. It is also a good moment to agree which evenings are yours, and to ask about the Deutschlandticket, which costs €63 a month and covers local and regional public transport across Germany (Bundesregierung). Whether you can get across town on a Friday evening changes what your social life can be.
The first two months are slow, and then they are not
Expect the first weeks to feel like effort with nothing coming back. That is normal here and it is not about you. The people you meet in month one are mostly not the people you will be close to in month six; the ones you keep seeing every week are.
If the loneliness is heavier than that, it may be the other thing: homesickness as an au pair covers what helps and how to tell the two apart.
Frequently asked questions
Where do au pairs in Germany meet other au pairs?
The German course first, because everyone in the room arrived recently. After that, au pair groups for your city on Facebook or WhatsApp, which often organise meetups, and the other au pairs and childminders at the school gate or the playground.
How much free time do I have to meet people?
At least 1.5 full rest days a week, at least four free evenings a week and at least one free Sunday a month. Your host family also has to give you time off for your German course.
What if my German is too basic to make friends?
Pick activities where something else is happening: a sports club, a choir, a volunteer group, a climbing wall. Doing a thing together carries a conversation that small talk cannot, and it is also the fastest way to improve the German.
Is it normal that it takes months to make friends in Germany?
Friendships here tend to start slowly and then hold. Repeat contact matters more than a good first meeting, so the same class or the same club every week does more for you than a string of one-off events.
Should my host family help me meet people?
They can introduce you to neighbours and to other families, and they can plan the week so your free evenings fall on the days things happen. Ask them directly, because most parents do not think of it on their own.
Your free evenings and rest days are rights rather than favours, and the au pair guide for Germany puts the official source next to each one.
AuPairSync keeps the week you agreed visible to both sides, so the evening you planned around stays free.