Learning German on a budget

You mean the Volkshochschule (www.mvhs.de)... I am doing a course with them too, and I think they are also good..

Goethe is probably a lot better and is meant to be the best, however you pay for it.

@Hutcho - i'm hoping i'll be able to get the company to pay for it...

What sort of level do you need to be for the Volkshochschule? According to the Goethe online test, i'm level B2.

It depends what class you are taking. For Grundstufe 1 you don't need to know anything and it goes up from there. I have no idea what level B2 is unfortunately.

@hmspresident - if you're still here, how was the Goethe Institute experience?

Me been doing Inlingua for a year, but am still struggling with the grammar structure. Inlingua's approach seems to be: teach you the sentence structure by examples, and from there, you infer the grammar and learn that by practising sentences that are similar to the examples given.

Great for a quick start for complete beginners, but then after a certain point, one might get lost on the rules behind the sentence structure.

Am thinking whether the Goethe Inst 8-week evening class might help clarify points of grammar, clear the cloud. Have heard that students there get a good grounding in grammar, perhaps that's what I need...

... Or should I just stick to Inlingua and downgrade myself a few lessons down to repeat some of the parts (AND do more homework this time)?

Main concern is that it's 4 times a week. Anyone tried it while holding a normal day job? High risk of burnt out? It's still a freakin' tough language, but I'm determined to learn it , somehow...

Cheers, thanks in advance.

Oh I'm taking morning course at Klartext, and then immediately going to work without a lunchbrake or anything like that, and it's a total burnout - every day looks like: wake up, german, german, work work stress work stress work go home at 21/22h sleep , than again...I've never been happier when the weekend comes However it depends a lot on your job - my situation is a kind of 'special' in the last few months... however, if you could take a part time job and german classes 0 that might be a perfect combination.
all the luck with learning german!

forgot to say - 4 hours of classes every day with a small coffee brake in between, 5 times a week...

I know you're concentrating on German but take a break and try to remember for next time: the word is "break".

@why8

The Volkshochschule courses are very focused on grammar. I've been doing their courses since Grundstufe 1.. it costs about 200 euros for 3 lessons a week, 3 hours per session for around 8-10 weeks, so its pretty cheap.

I've got all my used books from the Volkshochschule if you want to just start by going through a book. I got a bunch of other stuff as well like tapes and books from UCLA. I'll sell them to you if you're interested. contact me at paarellano@earthlink.net or 089/20205142. Paul