Two weeks learning Italian in Florence - A Language School Review
Feb 4th, 2010, 04:47 PM
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Two weeks learning Italian in Florence - A Language School Review
We are recently back from Italy, which included spending 2 weeks at an Italian Language School. When researching this part of our trip I found limited useful information in terms of reviews of language schools, so I thought I would post our experience and hope it is of some use to other Fodorites.
My daughters (aged 16 and 17) and I attended a 2 week beginners course at the ABC Language School in Florence (www.abcschool.com). None of us had any previous Italian language experience, so as total beginners we did not have to sit any placement tests. As background, we have some foreign language abilities between us, but not in Italian. I speak Afrikaans and studied German for 5 years at school. My elder daughter has a good command of French having studied it for 6 years and having gone on exchange to France. My younger daughter studied French at school for 1 year. We decided to attend a language course when my younger daughter chose Beginners Italian for her Higher School Certificate, and we wanted to make sure she enjoyed it before committing to it for 2 years.
Dealing with ABC via the internet was very easy, and once we had booked our course it was guaranteed to go ahead even if there were no other participants enrolled for that period. Our course was actually 9 days as our second day was a public holiday. We did not use the school’s accommodation facility, instead organised our own apartment (a wonderful apartment which I will review separately!!) just around the corner from the Duomo in the heart of Florence. It took us less than 10 minutes to walk to school each day.
CLASS STRUCTURE: Our classes ran Monday to Friday from 9am – 1pm with a 20 minute recess break in the middle. The first 2 hours of each day were grammar and after recess we had 2 hours of conversation classes. “M” was our grammar teacher every morning except for Wednesdays. We had a different stand-in teacher each Wednesday, but this was not a problem as it gave us access to slightly different teaching styles and accents. “L” took the conversation classes every day except for one day when she was sick. During the second week we also had a “student teacher” who was lovely. Generally we found the teachers spoke clearly and usually not too fast. One of the stand-in teachers spoke quicker and with a much “thicker” accent, and we found that more difficult on the days we had her, but we felt it was all part of learning a foreign language.
WHO WAS IN THE CLASS: The three of us (aged 16, 17 and mid 40s); an Australian girl (23) – she only attended the course for the first week; a Spanish girl (23 year old lawyer); a Somalian fellow (23) and an Eritrean fellow (25). We spoke no Italian; the Australian girl spoke no Italian but had an Italian boyfriend and had been in Italy about 3 weeks, so was exposed to the language at home and in social environments; the Spanish girl had no Italian but commented on the similarities between Spanish and Italian; the two fellows had been in Italy for about 8 months and seemed to have quite a good vocabulary, but poor grammar. In summary, that left the 3 of us starting at the bottom of the class. The common language between us all was ...... Italian.
WHAT DID WE LEARN: The pace of the class was fast and we covered a large amount in just 9 days!!! In grammar we covered: the alphabet and how to pronounce sounds; gender and plural rules for nouns and adjectives; conjugation of regular and irregular verbs; question words; adverbs; determinative and indeterminative articles; prepositions (with and without articles); reflexive verbs (all in present tense) ........ The conversation classes were mostly related to themes: ourselves; time; I like / don’t like; in the house; going shopping; food etc etc. The entire lesson was in Italian and if we did not understand anything, little drawings etc were used to aid understanding.
HOMEWORK: We had about 45 minutes to an hour’s homework set each day and double that at weekends (mostly grammar but often something related to our conversation classes as well). We felt the success of the course was related to the amount of effort we put in out of class and spent about 2.5 – 3 hours each day doing homework, consolidating what we had learned that day, and checking our homework amongst ourselves. Without this we would definitely have been lost as the Spanish girl and the two fellows were at a definite advantage over us in terms of vocabulary. We never did the grammar home work by just “applying the rules”; we always tried to understand each sentence we were working with, so our dictionaries were in constant use at homework time. (We had only taken one dictionary between us, but fortunately there was an English - Italian dictionary in the apartment!)
WHAT DID WE THINK? We all really enjoyed the course and feel we learned a lot in a short period of time, but all agree some “revision” or consolidation would have been good. Once we had covered a subject it was finished and not reviewed again, which we thought was surprising given the fast pace of the course.
The grammar teacher was quite loud and somewhat intimidating (scary was a word we sometimes used to describe her). She did not mean to be so, it was just her nature and I really don’t think she realised how scary it can be when an exercise is done in class and it is your turn to answer ..... you know the rules but don’t understand the vocab so don’t know what the sentence means ...... so you slowly work your way through it and she says “R your turn to answer” ..... and I answer in English “just give me a minute....” .... she says”R!!!!” .... I try to ignore it while I work out the answer ...... she says “R!!!!!!!!!!!” ........ by then I just give up and say “I don’t know!”. I know this is not true; I can work out the answer, but not as fast as she would like! There were days when my younger daughter and I felt close to tears in class (and I know the young Australian girl felt the same), and towards the end as it was getting harder I wondered whether I wanted to finish the class, but I DID (and am so pleased I did)! We coped with this in a few ways. Firstly, we knew grammar was only 2 hours of the day, and our conversation class teacher was a much calmer / gentle person, so we had that to look forward to. Secondly, we knew the grammar teacher was not mean spirited (just intimidating), and she was the first to encourage “Just try!!” and “Remember, you have only been doing this for 5 days, you cannot expect to know it all!” Thirdly, we used to laugh about it at home in the evenings, imitating her exclamations of “No stress!! No STRESS!!” (knowing full well we had in fact felt some stress that day). Lastly, my elder daughter has the greatest aptitude for languages and found similarities between French and English, (I think she was actually the star of the class), so we used to sit either side of her and she used to help us both in our times of need!
We were amazed at just how much we did learn. We found we could follow parts of overheard conversations on the street, we could often understand signs and labels, we travelled buying tickets, asking directions, shopping etc using our newly learned Italian! When we had arrived in Florence I tried to talk to our landlady who spoke no English, and she resolved the issue by calling her son on her mobile and letting him act as interpreter. By the time we left Florence two weeks later I was able to have a basic conversation with her and explain that we had not used one of the beds in the apartment and that the bedding was therefore still clean on that bed! She exclaimed in return “You speak Italian!”
After nearly 5 weeks in Italy we travelled to Budapest and felt so isolated not understanding any Hungarian, and often found ourselves saying “Grazie!” to the Hungarians. We realised then just how much Italian we had learned and how we had continued to use it in our further travels!
Towards the end of our course my younger daughter had serious doubts about continuing her Italian studies back at school. We explained that the pace would definitely be slower back at school, and that it would be taught from an English context. Well she eventually decided to “give it a go” and so far is enjoying it very much, feeling quite proud that she has already done some of the work. My elder daughter is starting university doing a double degree in Commerce and Arts, and is considering adding Italian to her French studies at university. I have been invited to join some ladies studying Italian at home and am weighing up whether to continue my Italian studies (which was never MY passion but something I did with my daughters), or whether to return to German and further my studies there. Either way, the course reignited my desire to speak a foreign language fluently.
HOW DID STUDYING FIT IN WITH SIGHTSEEING? The ABC Language school did offer after school activities in Italian (eg. a visit to the Uffizi etc), but we never participated in these activities, so we cannot comment on those. We felt we probably did not have enough language as beginners to get much out of these activities which were open to all students irrespective of their level of study, and also we enjoyed being able to “switch off” the brain for a while after school each day, and to be “just us girls” (hubby/father was joining us later in the trip). After school we used to hurry home for lunch and then spent a couple of hours visiting an art gallery, a church, shops, drinking hot chocolate etc etc. Then at about 4:30pm we would head home for homework time before cooking dinner and dropping into an exhausted sleep. (I knew we were making progress with Italian one night when one of my daughters started speaking Italian in her sleep!!) Also, we had arrived in Florence on a Friday, so we had 2 full weekends and a public holiday for longer sightseeing trips. We took the bus to Fiesole in the hills a couple of times; we went to Pisa for a day one weekend; we had a Friends of the Uffizi Pass so we could go in and out of galleries for relatively short periods of time; we climbed up to Piazzala Michelangelo one day, we attended an English church service in the Duomo one Sunday evening ...... I would say that we saw a lot of Florence and felt that we “lived the life” during our two weeks there. It was certainly the highlight of our 7 week trip to Europe!!!
I would definitely recommend such Italian classes to anyone trying to learn Italian. I think had we gone with some Italian to start with, it would have been even better (I could imagine doing something like this in German!) I imagine if my daughter had attended classes for say 4 – 6 weeks and had lived with an Italian family during this time, she could have been quite proficient in a short period of time.
When looking at language schools we had initially wanted to attend one in Orvieto, thinking the small nature of the town would have been ideal to practise our newly learned language in. However, as our dates were very close to Christmas this did not work out for us. We did however spend 5 days in Orvieto after our course, and whilst it is a lovely town, we were all SO glad we had been in Florence for 2 weeks. Florence was big enough to keep us amply occupied for two weeks, yet felt small enough staying in the old town to feel safe living alone. We really LOVED Florence and its people and the language school was a large part of that wonderful experience! It was definitely a “memory making time” and something I would consider doing again!! Please don’t let my descriptions of the grammar classes deter you from going to the ABC Language School. I have tried to be perfectly honest on this review, and even despite what may seem to be some “negatives”, I would definitely consider returning and doing a further course at the ABC Language School.
My daughters (aged 16 and 17) and I attended a 2 week beginners course at the ABC Language School in Florence (www.abcschool.com). None of us had any previous Italian language experience, so as total beginners we did not have to sit any placement tests. As background, we have some foreign language abilities between us, but not in Italian. I speak Afrikaans and studied German for 5 years at school. My elder daughter has a good command of French having studied it for 6 years and having gone on exchange to France. My younger daughter studied French at school for 1 year. We decided to attend a language course when my younger daughter chose Beginners Italian for her Higher School Certificate, and we wanted to make sure she enjoyed it before committing to it for 2 years.
Dealing with ABC via the internet was very easy, and once we had booked our course it was guaranteed to go ahead even if there were no other participants enrolled for that period. Our course was actually 9 days as our second day was a public holiday. We did not use the school’s accommodation facility, instead organised our own apartment (a wonderful apartment which I will review separately!!) just around the corner from the Duomo in the heart of Florence. It took us less than 10 minutes to walk to school each day.
CLASS STRUCTURE: Our classes ran Monday to Friday from 9am – 1pm with a 20 minute recess break in the middle. The first 2 hours of each day were grammar and after recess we had 2 hours of conversation classes. “M” was our grammar teacher every morning except for Wednesdays. We had a different stand-in teacher each Wednesday, but this was not a problem as it gave us access to slightly different teaching styles and accents. “L” took the conversation classes every day except for one day when she was sick. During the second week we also had a “student teacher” who was lovely. Generally we found the teachers spoke clearly and usually not too fast. One of the stand-in teachers spoke quicker and with a much “thicker” accent, and we found that more difficult on the days we had her, but we felt it was all part of learning a foreign language.
WHO WAS IN THE CLASS: The three of us (aged 16, 17 and mid 40s); an Australian girl (23) – she only attended the course for the first week; a Spanish girl (23 year old lawyer); a Somalian fellow (23) and an Eritrean fellow (25). We spoke no Italian; the Australian girl spoke no Italian but had an Italian boyfriend and had been in Italy about 3 weeks, so was exposed to the language at home and in social environments; the Spanish girl had no Italian but commented on the similarities between Spanish and Italian; the two fellows had been in Italy for about 8 months and seemed to have quite a good vocabulary, but poor grammar. In summary, that left the 3 of us starting at the bottom of the class. The common language between us all was ...... Italian.
WHAT DID WE LEARN: The pace of the class was fast and we covered a large amount in just 9 days!!! In grammar we covered: the alphabet and how to pronounce sounds; gender and plural rules for nouns and adjectives; conjugation of regular and irregular verbs; question words; adverbs; determinative and indeterminative articles; prepositions (with and without articles); reflexive verbs (all in present tense) ........ The conversation classes were mostly related to themes: ourselves; time; I like / don’t like; in the house; going shopping; food etc etc. The entire lesson was in Italian and if we did not understand anything, little drawings etc were used to aid understanding.
HOMEWORK: We had about 45 minutes to an hour’s homework set each day and double that at weekends (mostly grammar but often something related to our conversation classes as well). We felt the success of the course was related to the amount of effort we put in out of class and spent about 2.5 – 3 hours each day doing homework, consolidating what we had learned that day, and checking our homework amongst ourselves. Without this we would definitely have been lost as the Spanish girl and the two fellows were at a definite advantage over us in terms of vocabulary. We never did the grammar home work by just “applying the rules”; we always tried to understand each sentence we were working with, so our dictionaries were in constant use at homework time. (We had only taken one dictionary between us, but fortunately there was an English - Italian dictionary in the apartment!)
WHAT DID WE THINK? We all really enjoyed the course and feel we learned a lot in a short period of time, but all agree some “revision” or consolidation would have been good. Once we had covered a subject it was finished and not reviewed again, which we thought was surprising given the fast pace of the course.
The grammar teacher was quite loud and somewhat intimidating (scary was a word we sometimes used to describe her). She did not mean to be so, it was just her nature and I really don’t think she realised how scary it can be when an exercise is done in class and it is your turn to answer ..... you know the rules but don’t understand the vocab so don’t know what the sentence means ...... so you slowly work your way through it and she says “R your turn to answer” ..... and I answer in English “just give me a minute....” .... she says”R!!!!” .... I try to ignore it while I work out the answer ...... she says “R!!!!!!!!!!!” ........ by then I just give up and say “I don’t know!”. I know this is not true; I can work out the answer, but not as fast as she would like! There were days when my younger daughter and I felt close to tears in class (and I know the young Australian girl felt the same), and towards the end as it was getting harder I wondered whether I wanted to finish the class, but I DID (and am so pleased I did)! We coped with this in a few ways. Firstly, we knew grammar was only 2 hours of the day, and our conversation class teacher was a much calmer / gentle person, so we had that to look forward to. Secondly, we knew the grammar teacher was not mean spirited (just intimidating), and she was the first to encourage “Just try!!” and “Remember, you have only been doing this for 5 days, you cannot expect to know it all!” Thirdly, we used to laugh about it at home in the evenings, imitating her exclamations of “No stress!! No STRESS!!” (knowing full well we had in fact felt some stress that day). Lastly, my elder daughter has the greatest aptitude for languages and found similarities between French and English, (I think she was actually the star of the class), so we used to sit either side of her and she used to help us both in our times of need!
We were amazed at just how much we did learn. We found we could follow parts of overheard conversations on the street, we could often understand signs and labels, we travelled buying tickets, asking directions, shopping etc using our newly learned Italian! When we had arrived in Florence I tried to talk to our landlady who spoke no English, and she resolved the issue by calling her son on her mobile and letting him act as interpreter. By the time we left Florence two weeks later I was able to have a basic conversation with her and explain that we had not used one of the beds in the apartment and that the bedding was therefore still clean on that bed! She exclaimed in return “You speak Italian!”
After nearly 5 weeks in Italy we travelled to Budapest and felt so isolated not understanding any Hungarian, and often found ourselves saying “Grazie!” to the Hungarians. We realised then just how much Italian we had learned and how we had continued to use it in our further travels!
Towards the end of our course my younger daughter had serious doubts about continuing her Italian studies back at school. We explained that the pace would definitely be slower back at school, and that it would be taught from an English context. Well she eventually decided to “give it a go” and so far is enjoying it very much, feeling quite proud that she has already done some of the work. My elder daughter is starting university doing a double degree in Commerce and Arts, and is considering adding Italian to her French studies at university. I have been invited to join some ladies studying Italian at home and am weighing up whether to continue my Italian studies (which was never MY passion but something I did with my daughters), or whether to return to German and further my studies there. Either way, the course reignited my desire to speak a foreign language fluently.
HOW DID STUDYING FIT IN WITH SIGHTSEEING? The ABC Language school did offer after school activities in Italian (eg. a visit to the Uffizi etc), but we never participated in these activities, so we cannot comment on those. We felt we probably did not have enough language as beginners to get much out of these activities which were open to all students irrespective of their level of study, and also we enjoyed being able to “switch off” the brain for a while after school each day, and to be “just us girls” (hubby/father was joining us later in the trip). After school we used to hurry home for lunch and then spent a couple of hours visiting an art gallery, a church, shops, drinking hot chocolate etc etc. Then at about 4:30pm we would head home for homework time before cooking dinner and dropping into an exhausted sleep. (I knew we were making progress with Italian one night when one of my daughters started speaking Italian in her sleep!!) Also, we had arrived in Florence on a Friday, so we had 2 full weekends and a public holiday for longer sightseeing trips. We took the bus to Fiesole in the hills a couple of times; we went to Pisa for a day one weekend; we had a Friends of the Uffizi Pass so we could go in and out of galleries for relatively short periods of time; we climbed up to Piazzala Michelangelo one day, we attended an English church service in the Duomo one Sunday evening ...... I would say that we saw a lot of Florence and felt that we “lived the life” during our two weeks there. It was certainly the highlight of our 7 week trip to Europe!!!
I would definitely recommend such Italian classes to anyone trying to learn Italian. I think had we gone with some Italian to start with, it would have been even better (I could imagine doing something like this in German!) I imagine if my daughter had attended classes for say 4 – 6 weeks and had lived with an Italian family during this time, she could have been quite proficient in a short period of time.
When looking at language schools we had initially wanted to attend one in Orvieto, thinking the small nature of the town would have been ideal to practise our newly learned language in. However, as our dates were very close to Christmas this did not work out for us. We did however spend 5 days in Orvieto after our course, and whilst it is a lovely town, we were all SO glad we had been in Florence for 2 weeks. Florence was big enough to keep us amply occupied for two weeks, yet felt small enough staying in the old town to feel safe living alone. We really LOVED Florence and its people and the language school was a large part of that wonderful experience! It was definitely a “memory making time” and something I would consider doing again!! Please don’t let my descriptions of the grammar classes deter you from going to the ABC Language School. I have tried to be perfectly honest on this review, and even despite what may seem to be some “negatives”, I would definitely consider returning and doing a further course at the ABC Language School.
Feb 4th, 2010, 05:32 PM
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Grazie for the most comprehensive account of your language school experiences. It must have been such a boon to have your daughters sharing this experience! I understand completely what you say about the grammar teacher .. I had one like that, at a different school.
Feb 4th, 2010, 05:32 PM
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What a great post! I've often thought of trying to take a similar foreign language class and really enjoyed reading your thoughts. I was a French student in high school and took some private tutoring after that and often think I'd love to do an immersion course in either French or Spanish. Thanks for talking about your experience.
Feb 5th, 2010, 05:44 AM
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PRLCH...
Thank you for posting this wonderful account of your language learning experience. I've been trying the self-teaching method with a computer program and although I've retained some of the information I've often considered doing a program like you described.
Thank you for posting this wonderful account of your language learning experience. I've been trying the self-teaching method with a computer program and although I've retained some of the information I've often considered doing a program like you described.
Feb 5th, 2010, 07:13 AM
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Excellent report! Thank you so much for sharing your experiences.
One question-
Your course was for 2 weeks. Considering the intensity of the course, if you had the time, do you feel you could have continued for additional weeks without feeling too overwhelmed/stressed/burned out? I'm just wondering if a 4 week or longer course would be too much for a beginner. I know that everyone is different, so I'm just trying to get an idea based on your experience.
One question-
Your course was for 2 weeks. Considering the intensity of the course, if you had the time, do you feel you could have continued for additional weeks without feeling too overwhelmed/stressed/burned out? I'm just wondering if a 4 week or longer course would be too much for a beginner. I know that everyone is different, so I'm just trying to get an idea based on your experience.
Feb 5th, 2010, 07:24 AM
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A very interesting read, especially your thoughts on Florence as your chosen town. I wonder how it would be to do a course on my own, though, as the average age in your class seems to be about 30 years younger than mine.
Feb 6th, 2010, 12:23 PM
#8
ciao PRLCH,
thank you for your most interesting post. there have been some previous threads about language schools [almost always Italian for some reason] bu as said above, never as detailed as this. It is something I'd hoped to have done this year [memo to self - translate THAT sentence into Italian - lol] as I have italian exams to do in May [completely self-inflicted] but I know I won't be able to get away for even a week between now and the exam dates. so I'm hoping to do it next year and your account wil lbe really helpful in picking a school.
one question about accommodation - do you think that it would have been an advantage to learning to have stayed with a family? I did this when I was learning German at school and I'm sure that it helped a lot, but I'm not sure the same applies to adults.
thank you for your most interesting post. there have been some previous threads about language schools [almost always Italian for some reason] bu as said above, never as detailed as this. It is something I'd hoped to have done this year [memo to self - translate THAT sentence into Italian - lol] as I have italian exams to do in May [completely self-inflicted] but I know I won't be able to get away for even a week between now and the exam dates. so I'm hoping to do it next year and your account wil lbe really helpful in picking a school.
one question about accommodation - do you think that it would have been an advantage to learning to have stayed with a family? I did this when I was learning German at school and I'm sure that it helped a lot, but I'm not sure the same applies to adults.
Feb 7th, 2010, 08:11 AM
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Thank you for the report. The experience sounds really interesting. Please tell us about your apartment.
In LA I had an Italian language teacher like your intimidating one. Three of us signed up, one of us fled midway through the first class, the second one left after the second class and I stayed on until the teacher stood in front of me screaming in my face in Italian. She was a petite feisty dynamo and very mean, lol.
I would like to try ABC school sometime.
In LA I had an Italian language teacher like your intimidating one. Three of us signed up, one of us fled midway through the first class, the second one left after the second class and I stayed on until the teacher stood in front of me screaming in my face in Italian. She was a petite feisty dynamo and very mean, lol.
I would like to try ABC school sometime.
Feb 7th, 2010, 11:27 AM
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Thank you for the interesting trip report. I have often entertained the idea of attending a language school in a foreign country as I teach limited English speaking elementary children English here in the US and it would be interesting to see the different teaching techniques and styles. It sounds like you and your daughters made great progress even though the grammar teacher was less than stellar. Please keep in mind that it takes the average person at least 6 years of study in speaking, reading, and writing to become truly fluent in another language and the older you are, the harder it is.
Feb 7th, 2010, 06:45 PM
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Thanks for all the kind feedback.
Zoecat - you ask if we could have continued for another 2 weeks without burnout. On careful reflection, I think 2 weeks was enough for us, and a further 2 weeks would have spoiled the experience. Pergaps if one had more Italian to start with, and had a real passion for the language it may have been possible. The two fellows in our group were doing a 4 week course, but the school was closing for about 2 weeks at the end of our course and they were coming back in the new year for the rest of their course. Perhaps that would have been a good way to do it.
Tarquin, you commented on the age of the participants and doing it alone. I think it is always nicer to do it with someone (I know we studied together for our homework). It appeared most of the classes running at that stage had students aged in their mid 20s, but I know ABC does offer over 55 age group courses. As a mid 40's person, I think I would probably have prefered that if I was doing it alone. However, I never felt "out of it" with our group - they were all lovely people.
Annhig - I think staying with a family would give one even greater exposure to the language, but personally I think I am too old for that. I like my space and privacy at the end of the day, especially when tired or frustrated.
Seaurchin - I will try to post a review of the apartment in the next day or two.
Suru11 - you are correct - the older one gets the harder it is to learn new things, including a foreign language. The problem we face living in Australia is that there is so little opportunity to practice our new found skills here in every day life. We are just too far from countries which speak European languages. A couple of years ago I met a German lady and we used to meet once a week for an hour's chat in German - that was absolutely a fantastic way for me to practice my German vocabulary, although probably did not do anything for my grammar. It was fun though!
Zoecat - you ask if we could have continued for another 2 weeks without burnout. On careful reflection, I think 2 weeks was enough for us, and a further 2 weeks would have spoiled the experience. Pergaps if one had more Italian to start with, and had a real passion for the language it may have been possible. The two fellows in our group were doing a 4 week course, but the school was closing for about 2 weeks at the end of our course and they were coming back in the new year for the rest of their course. Perhaps that would have been a good way to do it.
Tarquin, you commented on the age of the participants and doing it alone. I think it is always nicer to do it with someone (I know we studied together for our homework). It appeared most of the classes running at that stage had students aged in their mid 20s, but I know ABC does offer over 55 age group courses. As a mid 40's person, I think I would probably have prefered that if I was doing it alone. However, I never felt "out of it" with our group - they were all lovely people.
Annhig - I think staying with a family would give one even greater exposure to the language, but personally I think I am too old for that. I like my space and privacy at the end of the day, especially when tired or frustrated.
Seaurchin - I will try to post a review of the apartment in the next day or two.
Suru11 - you are correct - the older one gets the harder it is to learn new things, including a foreign language. The problem we face living in Australia is that there is so little opportunity to practice our new found skills here in every day life. We are just too far from countries which speak European languages. A couple of years ago I met a German lady and we used to meet once a week for an hour's chat in German - that was absolutely a fantastic way for me to practice my German vocabulary, although probably did not do anything for my grammar. It was fun though!
Feb 7th, 2010, 07:46 PM
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I really enjoyed this report.
I have attended several Goethe Institutes in Germany over the years. I think I'll go to the one in Dresden next year, as I haven't seen much of the former GDR. The Goethe Institutes have all levels of language skills, so you might look into one of those if you're interested in improving your German.
They're all over the country, so one has numerous locations from which to choose. I have generally stayed in the institute's guesthouse, which costs about 400 euros for a single room for a month. A month's course costs about 950 euros.
I had been considering attending a school in Spain, and your description of the woman exclaiming that you speak Italian made me really want to study Spanish and to see how much I can understand, but the cost seems to be a good deal higher than studying German.
I think maybe I'll attend the Goethe Institute and then possibly spend a month or so in Spain, just traveling around and staying in inexpensive hotels. If I can afford it...
I have attended several Goethe Institutes in Germany over the years. I think I'll go to the one in Dresden next year, as I haven't seen much of the former GDR. The Goethe Institutes have all levels of language skills, so you might look into one of those if you're interested in improving your German.
They're all over the country, so one has numerous locations from which to choose. I have generally stayed in the institute's guesthouse, which costs about 400 euros for a single room for a month. A month's course costs about 950 euros.
I had been considering attending a school in Spain, and your description of the woman exclaiming that you speak Italian made me really want to study Spanish and to see how much I can understand, but the cost seems to be a good deal higher than studying German.
I think maybe I'll attend the Goethe Institute and then possibly spend a month or so in Spain, just traveling around and staying in inexpensive hotels. If I can afford it...
Feb 7th, 2010, 10:14 PM
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Thanks for a very interesting report.
Might there be a place for say, a course comprising lectures with Q & A opportunities, for those of us who, realistically, are never going to 'learn' another language, but would still like to pick up a little of a language and culture or perhaps add to bits and pieces accumulated over the years, but without the pressure of the 'hothouse' interactive/ tutorial form of language classes? (if you know what I'm getting at - some of us are still struggling with our native English!) I'm thinking of something more involved than the basic 'language courses for travellers' sometimes offered or the spinoff from a foreign cooking class. Would we be willing to shell out for the right sort of course, either at home or abroad?
Might there be a place for say, a course comprising lectures with Q & A opportunities, for those of us who, realistically, are never going to 'learn' another language, but would still like to pick up a little of a language and culture or perhaps add to bits and pieces accumulated over the years, but without the pressure of the 'hothouse' interactive/ tutorial form of language classes? (if you know what I'm getting at - some of us are still struggling with our native English!) I'm thinking of something more involved than the basic 'language courses for travellers' sometimes offered or the spinoff from a foreign cooking class. Would we be willing to shell out for the right sort of course, either at home or abroad?
Feb 8th, 2010, 03:22 AM
#17
Pegontheroad - DD's high school Spanish teacher took a group to Spain every summer for three weeks. She always used Enforex in Salamanca as she thought Salamanca had the purest dialect.
http://www.enforex.com/courses-spain.html
http://www.enforex.com/courses-spain.html
Feb 8th, 2010, 03:44 AM
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Thanks so much for sharing this experience - it's something I would love to do - perhaps combining it with a cooking coarse - or would be too much?
I appreciate your report, and am glad to have the link to the school.
Cyn
I appreciate your report, and am glad to have the link to the school.
Cyn
Feb 9th, 2010, 06:19 PM
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It is interesting to see that there is a real interest out there to learn a foreign language. I wish you all well with your language studies.
Sidny - I don't recall the price off hand but the latest rates are on their website. They did offer us a 15% discount because there were 3 of us doing the course together, which was appreciated.
SeaUrchin - as promised I have posted my apartment reviews today - see separate post.
Cystalker - you mention learning Italian and doing it along with a cooking course. We would have liked to do a cooking course in Orvieto but found them to be really very expensive (multiply everything by 3 for us). I see the ABC website has been updated and they seem to now offer cooking classes, but I cannot comment on that.
Sidny - I don't recall the price off hand but the latest rates are on their website. They did offer us a 15% discount because there were 3 of us doing the course together, which was appreciated.
SeaUrchin - as promised I have posted my apartment reviews today - see separate post.
Cystalker - you mention learning Italian and doing it along with a cooking course. We would have liked to do a cooking course in Orvieto but found them to be really very expensive (multiply everything by 3 for us). I see the ABC website has been updated and they seem to now offer cooking classes, but I cannot comment on that.
