# Exploring the Limits of LLMs for German Text Classification: Prompting and Fine-tuning Strategies Across Small and Medium-sized Datasets

> Source: <https://aclanthology.org/2025.jlcl-2.1/>
> Published: 2026-10-14 00:00:00+00:00

##### Abstract

Large Language Models (LLMs) are highly capable, state-of-the-art technologies and widely used as text classifiers for various NLP tasks, including sentiment analysis, topic classification, legal document analysis, etc. In this paper, we present a systematic analysis of the performance of LLMs as text classifiers using five German datasets from social media across 13 different tasks. We investigate zero- (ZSC) and few-shot classification (FSC) approaches with multiple LLMs and provide a comparative analysis with fine-tuned models based on Llama-3.2, EuroLLM, Teuken and BübleLM. We concentrate on investigating the limits of LLMs and on accurately describing our findings and overall challenges.
- Anthology ID:
- 2025.jlcl-2.1
- Volume:
- [Journal for Language Technology and Computational Linguistics, Vol. 38 No. 2: LLM Fails - Failed experiments with generative AI and what we can learn from them](https://aclanthology.org/volumes/2025.jlcl-2/)
- Month:
- July
- Year:
- 2025
- Address:
- Editors:
- [Ngoc Duyen Tanja Tu](https://aclanthology.org/people/ngoc-duyen-tanja-tu/unverified/) ,[Annelen Brunner](https://aclanthology.org/people/annelen-brunner/unverified/) ,[Christian Lang](https://aclanthology.org/people/christian-lang/unverified/)
- Venue:
- [JLCL](https://aclanthology.org/venues/jlcl/)
- SIG:
- Publisher:
- German Society for Computational Linguistics and Language Technology
- Note:
- Pages:
- 1–12
- Language:
- URL:
- [https://aclanthology.org/2025.jlcl-2.1/](https://aclanthology.org/2025.jlcl-2.1/)
- DOI:
- [10.21248/jlcl.38.2025.277](https://doi.org/10.21248/jlcl.38.2025.277)
- Cite (ACL):
- Elena Leitner and Georg Rehm. 2025. [Exploring the Limits of LLMs for German Text Classification: Prompting and Fine-tuning Strategies Across Small and Medium-sized Datasets](https://aclanthology.org/2025.jlcl-2.1/) .*Journal for Language Technology and Computational Linguistics* , 38(2):1–12.
- Cite (Informal):
- [Exploring the Limits of LLMs for German Text Classification: Prompting and Fine-tuning Strategies Across Small and Medium-sized Datasets](https://aclanthology.org/2025.jlcl-2.1/) (Leitner & Rehm, JLCL 2025)
- PDF:
- [https://aclanthology.org/2025.jlcl-2.1.pdf](https://aclanthology.org/2025.jlcl-2.1.pdf)