How to meet new people and make friends in Berlin

This is the quickest start: a small group who have not met, a table booked for you, nothing to organise.

• Socials by Detor (this site): 4 to 6 people who have not met at a social table, for dinner, drinks, coffee or brunch, or a small group doing one activity. We put the group together from a few answers you give once, a person checks every group, and we book the venue and send the address the day before. There are no profiles, and nobody sees a name until the table's chat opens, an hour before. A seat has a price per session, shown before you pay, with no membership; everyone pays the venue for their own food and drinks.
• Timeleft: you fill in a questionnaire in its app and get a small group each week. In Berlin the dinner is on Wednesday; you hear about your group on Tuesday and get the restaurant on Wednesday. No profiles, no swiping, and you pay for your own food and drinks at the restaurant. Evenings run in English and in German.
• Supper clubs in people's flats: The Berliner has written about one in a Friedrichshain flat. It runs once a month, you join through a mailing list, dinner is free, and there's a DJ set afterwards.

Go twice. The second time you relax.

The Volkshochschule Berlin Mitte (the adult education centre) runs a free Sprachcafé for practising German every Wednesday from 13:00 to 15:00 at the Schiller-Bibliothek, Müllerstraße 149 in Wedding, near Leopoldplatz. There's no registration. Everyone in the room has come to talk to strangers, and a beginner is the most welcome person there, because everyone else gets to be the expert.

Meetup has a whole category of language exchanges in Berlin.

Sport is the easiest way to talk to strangers, and bouldering might as well have been designed for it. Between attempts you stand next to someone failing the same problem. Boulderklub Kreuzberg is known for exactly that kind of community.

Running has its own Berlin institution, the Lauftreff: a fixed group at a fixed time, open to whoever shows up. tip Berlin keeps a list for beginners and the experienced. Socials also runs bouldering and runs as small activity meetups where nobody knows anyone yet.

A volunteer shift puts you beside people for a few hours with a job to do together. Vostel lists Berlin opportunities, among them Berliner Obdachlosenhilfe, Berliner Stadtmission and the Repair Café in Treptow.

Serve the City Berlin and Give Something Back to Berlin both work in English, so a shift with either is also a good place to meet other people who moved here.

Locals' circles open slowly here, so the first hellos tend to come from people who also arrived from elsewhere. Meetup has many Berlin groups in English. The small ones, with the same twenty people every week, work better than the large ones.

InterNations runs events for immigrants. r/berlinsocialclub is where the English-speaking Reddit crowd organises itself, and the universities' Erasmus community changes every semester.

This is how Germans make friends: a Verein (a members' club), a sports team, a Stammtisch (a regular pub table). It's slower than a dinner with strangers, but it lasts longer, because you see the same people every week.

Know the form. Plans are made well in advance. Directness is normal, not hostile, and early reserve is caution rather than disinterest. Joining a Verein is an investment in your second and third years in Berlin.

• Go to the same thing more than once. Repetition is what turns an acquaintance into a friend.
• Be the one who proposes the next step. "Same time next week?" is enough.
• Pick small groups with something to do. A crowded bar is the hardest room in Berlin to meet anyone in, because everyone is already with someone.
• Expect churn. Some of your first friends will leave the city. Keep showing up, and the ones who stay become your circle.

For the fastest start, see this week's tables and meetups in Berlin.