It is a gendered plural of "Anfänger und Anfängerinnen". So both (or all, would be off-topic here) gender male and female are addressed. As [Sebastian Redl][1] commented, this is called "[Binnen-I][2]". In opposition to [Jens Krügers][3] answer I'd like to point out, that > Anfänger/-innen is not "the normal way". Because in my observation there is no general way to address all gender in one or more words. [Others are e.g.][2]: > Anfänger_innen > Anfänger*innen > Anfänger(innen) > Anfänger/-innen <sub>[repeated to get a visual "complete" list]</sub> > Anfängerinnen und Anfänger (as "ladies first") > Anfänger/ Anfängerinnen > Anfänger (as "[generic masculinum][4]") "The normal way" is an ongoing debate in german society. [1]: https://german.stackexchange.com/users/5770/sebastian-redl [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binnen-I [3]: https://german.stackexchange.com/revisions/52781/2 [4]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generisches_Maskulinum