This paper introduces and discusses two concepts of plain language in German and their usefulness in teaching German as a foreign language. While both concepts pursue the same aim of enabling readers to understand written texts more easily, they differ regarding their extent of rules and their target group: Einfache Sprache addresses a wider range of people, including language learners, and is less restricted than Leichte Sprache, which follows specific syntactical, lexicological and typological rules and has been developed explicitely for the purpose of inclusion of people with cognitive limitations. The article focuses on describing and comparing linguistic features of both concepts based on their respective rules and gives some examples of connecting them with foreign language teaching.