Cheapest German language schools and courses

well, the title says it all. i am struggling to make way with my phrase book and dictionary, but a good course mught take me much farther.

anyone know any courses that aren't 800euros?

Volkhochschule probably your safest bet - depending on where you go, the classes might be overly full, but still good value for money:

http://www.vhsit.berlin.de/VHSKURSE/Busine...CourseList.aspx

Hi Analogjack,

not sure how far Shöneberg is from Pankow but I was going to Hartnackschule just off Nollendorfplatz. I think you can go there with the U2 directly from Pankow. I paid 177 for a course where you go daily, three hours each time. The morning classes are a little bit more expensive, 199, I preferred the lunch time classes as they were much smaller, my class had 5 people so we had more personalised attention from the teacher.

Good Luck.

CM

thanks guys,

177 for 3hr/day sounds very good.

Hey, I know of a great little school that is around 125 euro a month. It's right off the U9, in Moabit.

One word of advise: be careful, you will get what you pay for. If you are serious about learning the language beyond tourist or Straßedeutsche, then spend the money and get a proper, certified course: Die Neueschule, Goethe and Prolog have been very highly accredited and can get you on a fast, intensive track with highly appraised methods and instruction.

be careful: Volkhochschule will produce the lowest result as well as the famed Hartdnackschule which is very notorious of processing students, taking their money and delivering very little in return. (the maximise by charging high fees, hiring inexperienced instructors and low end materials...the most efficient part of their organisation is their fee processing, what does that tell you?)

disagree with what you say about the VHS... I studied there for 3 months, in the Frankfurter Allee unit, and it was great. Nice students, great teacher... I learned a lot, more than most of my friends who were doing GLS at the time which charges you 600 a month for a course which I was paying 200 (entire 3 months intensive course)... people who study at the VHS are there only because they really need to learn German, and that makes it more interesting, IMHO...

In the end it depends mostly on yourself...

consider it an extraordinary experience...an exception to the rule. good for you for having one of the rare, really rare, good experiences and hopefully gained speaking knowledge out of a VHS:

consider me another 'exception' then. have completed several VHS language courses and always been satisfied, as have my fellow classmates.

I had one intensive course that lasted 12 weeks, 5 hrs/day. It was costly, but my german is impeccable in both spoken and written form. I have to give presentations to board members and other staff in business german. in the end, you will get what you pay for and it totally depends on how far and where you want to take it.

You learnt "impeccable" german in 12 weeks, at 5 hours a day?

yes, i received Bescheinigungenabschluss for DEa1 thru DE c1, the rest I improved by practice. However, the practical side is perhaps the most important and getting over the insecurity of speaking another language.

not convinced about the 'you get what you pay for', have had friends who've paid lots of money for intensive courses and they've had bad experiences. I do agree it depends on how far you want to take it as a student.
have taken French, German, Portuguese and Spanish VHS classes in the past & always been impressed with them.

I find it hard to believe you speak "impeccable" (ie. Having no flaws; perfect) German after a 12 week course. I don't really care how good the course is, you cannot expect such results. I did my German classes through the VHS, and I don't think I would have been much better if I'd taken a more expensive course. Some people have a talent for languages, but for the other 99% of us, learning a language just takes time (hence my doubt at learning perfect German in 12 weeks).

As I stated earlier (sigh), my practical experience speaking in the "real world" really cleaned up my german...my hoch deutsch was very good. then again you find it hard to believe, perhaps that is the difference between the VHS and accredited language schools...maybe something you have yet experienced is something hard to believe.

anyways, irregardless of where you began your language learning, it is the practical experience (speaking with german friends, colleagues, spouse, etc.) that will really enable you to communicate like a native, rather than a bookworm.

The VHS isn't an accredited language school? It's where the government sends you to do integration lessons. I can't imagine a course would be any better than the VHS that I did, except for the fact that it might have been better with less people. Although with less people there is less conversation, which is the most important in my opinion, so maybe a smaller class wouldn't have been better. I still can't imagine any school that would have taught me "impeccable" German in 12 weeks, but maybe you have an extraordinary talent for languages. For the average person though, you cannot expect to even get past basic understanding and speaking in 12 weeks at 5 hours a day.

actually im the worst with languages, it was just a good experience, but not just me, the other participants as well.

In that case, I call bullshit..

I might also note, that the three times you have attempted to speak any German in this thread, you have screwed up. You've spelt "Hartdnackschule" incorrectly (putting a "d" in there can hardly be blamed on a typo), and the comment about "Straßedeutsche" simply makes no sense. You could have meant "Straßendeutsch", which makes a bit more sense, but not really..

And for your biggest, most glaring mistake (easily obvious to my VHS learnt German) - Bescheinigungenabschluss is not even a word. You could have a bescheinigten Abschluss however, maybe that is what you meant.

PS. I'll let you off with "hoch deutsch", maybe you were just being lazy..

can you provide links to these articles, I only had good experiences there you see...

sounds German ... isn´t German

google for Abschlussbescheinigung ...

expat_j!

You may have "flawless" German but are you really happy with your English?
Read through your posts again.

I went to Tandem near the Eberswalderstraße u-bahn for my A1 and passed fine and the course was just over €500.
Then i went to the VHS on Wassertorstraße for my A2 for €200.
I could definately see a difference for the money. The VHS class was too full for anyone to learn properly and the teachers weren't helpful at all. In the end i only did half the course, taught myself at home and with the aid of a friend who's fluent, i went back for the exam. Which i passed.

But still you definately get what you pay for.I'm now planning on going to the Neue schule. Anyone else been there? Quality for money?

expat j, if I had time and inclination I would correct your German because there is always room for improvement in everyone .

before spending your money for some crappy German classes, why not just try to read a book and learn as much as you can. It's really not a difficult language and most of the vocabulary is close enough to English that it probably does mean what you think it means.

Try some websites, or the Teach Yourself books from amazon.

I can understand a German tutor for more advanced things, but for the basics you'll be dealing with some really crappy method book (which you'll have to buy of course) that sits you in a classroom to talk about mindless dribble. It's a passive learning deal where you are just supposed to figure out the grammar on your own.

Just read online first. and more than anything, label everything in your apartment, fridge, at work, in the car. Buy a pack of labels and put the German word (with the article) on it. It may sound funny, but it's the absolute best way to learn new words.

Then with a little bit of grammar instruction (from a book or website) you can start making sentences. It's self-teaching, but all language learning is like that. Either do it yourself, or pay someone else to sit in front of you while you still do it all yourself.

The most important stuff you can learn on your own and don't need to pay anyone for:

Conjugation of the verbs:

Haben (to have) in the present and past
sein (to be), waren (was/were), and werden (will)

Time phrases:

Days of the week
Months of the year
before/after/ etc
seconds, minutes, hours, etc

Colors

members of the family

Foods:

Fruits
Vegetables
spices
meats

Once you learn all this, and get used to seeing the words for all the things around you everyday, THEN pay somebody, but don't waste your time or money until then. Language learning is 100% on the student. Nothing to it, but to do it.

I went to parlando and thought it was great. and not too pricey considering the small class size and location (located at rosenthaler platz close-ish to me) and good teachers.

Parlando Berlin.

I have heard varying reports about the VHS. Depending on the people in your class, the size of the class, your teachers, whatever, it could be great or shitty. I think it's a "you pays yer money, you takes yer chances" kinda deal.

and nobody has impeccable speaking skills in any language, mother-tongue or otherwise, so just let it go.

The mods deleted my last post (as well as expat_j's last as well), which was probably for the best.. however I would like to reiterate one thing here.. contrary to what other people have posted, my experience with the VHS was excellent.. I think it really depends on who you get as a teacher, but the one I had was experienced and organised and really one of the best teachers I've had in anything.. the courses are fairly priced, convenient for the most part and structured so that they cover everything, even though they might (I'm not sure) take more time than others.. I wouldn't be put off them because of some of the posts here..

Oh hell, but what's with you Munich people butting in every where??? Amongnst other things, quit feeding the troll!! Good grief...

Before God and his dog descend upon me, I'd like to modify my previous statement to read "...some of you Munich people..." Peace.

The most well preserved VHS secret is this: they pick up native speakers, show them the book and tell them: "Teach starting at chapter X and finish at chapter Y". That is it. If you are lucky, you get an excellent teacher with many years experience. If you are not, you get a moron reading from the book that got the position because he gave "some private lessons in Mallorca".

If you look for a cheap solution go to the VHS but do yourself a favor and choose by teacher, never by curse/location/time/etc or you might end up simply wasting your time and money.

little surprise ...

English ist basically just another Northern German dialect brought to England by the victorious Anglo-Saxon conquerors some 1500 years ago ... with a considerable amount of Norman/French and Scandinavian vocabulary added as a result of later waves of invasions

wow all the whiners had our posts (mine and hutcho's) deleted but decided to make a few of their own. jeesh, people, grow up. people probe and nudge, but when push comes to shove, they hide. dont engage in the debate, if you cant handle the retort.

irregardless, hutcho, i took no offense to your post and am not above receiving aggressive commentary. I certainly didnt complain and have the post removed. I actually appreciated your point of view and knew eventually we could find common ground or simply agree to disagree. no worries mate, have a beer on me.

I have to say, I find it ironic, if not hypocritical, that some call names and jr high insults to one another on this very forum, some of them very vulgar, but yet a non descript heated debate without so many personal attacks becomes flagged.

What exactly does "irregardless" mean?
Oh, on second thoughts, since your German is so good maybe you could translate it!

What about distance learning? I am doing the Open University course 'L130 Auftakt: get ahead in German' which I am finding most useful. You need to be a UK resident if you don't want to pay the Earth though.
I would also recommend subscribing to Deutsch Perfekt which apart from giving you practice in reading German, is also quite a good read about German news and culture.
What I am lacking though is confidence in speaking German. The OU course has an online tutorial using headsets, but it is rather un-nerving talking to people whom you can't see, ie their faces and expressions.

Swaying off from the thread, I wonder if being a Yorkshire dialect speaker (as I am) is useful in learning German? We instictively know the difference between 'tha' (du) and 'thine' (dein), and the formal you (Sie), and even use Germanish verb endings for second person familiar eg 'ow hast tha bin?'

There are many people in Munich, Frankfurt and elsewhere who have also lived in Berlin. There are also people currently living outside Germany who have lived there. All of these people may have something to contribute to a particular regional discussion.

I found IFS in Berlin excellent. cost is 245 euros per month for morning lessons. Very friendly teachers however they have will not be happy if you don't do your homework. I mean it... non homework completing means you are the person writing out the days example on the whiteboard. Embarrassing as everyone can see your mistakes. Its popular with professionals that have to learn the language.

http://www.ifs-bonn-berlin.de/ENGLISH/IFS_...ifs_berlin.html

Herr Ferret

I had a email from a old German, the father of my ex, who i still speak too, i could only just understand about half his German, so i asked a girl about my age to translate it, she said it was pretty hard German to understand, and a lot of stuff only old Germans use and not often...

oh?? Hartnackschule is not good?? I need to do a 600 hours German course in 3 years by the government with only 1€ pro Stunde... many people pointed my partner and me to that... if not that, what other should I go to??

Hi Giorgio, I also had to take that required Intergration Course and I took it from Berlitz. It was completely excellent and intensive but I learned so much and I was also able to work part time at the same time (I mean there wasn't a lot of homework at all and I still learned a lot.) Plus the teachers I had were so nice and motivating- I highly reccomend it and their Intergration Course is the same one you can use which are required from the gov't. And, at the end of the course the students take the test which certifies you with the Zertifikat Deutsch.
Berlitz has many locations in Berlin.

thanks a lot for the tips... I had a friend said Berlitz is good too... I might as well give it a try now... btw, which Berlitz you went to?

I went to the Berlitz in Steglitz, but their main office is on Ku'damm- they have branches in Friedrichstrasse and I think Wedding...they have a website- www.berlitz.de

thanks a lot for the information

Easy easy break it up.

If anyone is interested I am currently doing an 'intensive' eight week course at the goethe institute for the tidy sum of 2200 euros. For my two cents the common complaint in the school is that it isn't intensive. I started at the lowest level, and the progress is too slow for most of the members of my class. The aims are very limited. We are not expected to be able to be 'creative' language speakers even by the end of the course, which is to say that we are not expected to be able to converse with native german speakers; nor are we supposed to be able to read except to glean basic info from bus timetables etc. Instead we are given a phrasal knowledge - ''how much does that cost?'' etc. The course reminds me of english GCSE courses and we work through a textbook of a basic school format. I believe that if you were to complete all the GI courses you would have an excellent knowledge of German, but seriously doubt whether it is a suitable place for older people to develop their language skills within the time and cost constraints they are likely to face. Classes are conducted entirely in German which has obvious benefits but also means that unless you have a proficient enough knowledge of german to ask questions about grammar in german you have no way of finding out the grammatical rules underlying the language, not in the initial courses anyway. I shoul dhave said, the course itself doesn't teach grammatical rules, at least not in a theoretical way. This again may suit some - but for anyone who is used to dealing with theoretical concepts - university students etc. - this may be an unnecessary limitation. I am taking the course to help me read german for my philosophy PhD, as are several people in my class, and although I entered this information on my application form and was told that I would have the course suited to my needs it seems implausible that the course is the best possible platform for learning academic german. That said, the teaching is of a high standard, and there is a comprehensive attached kulturprogramm which provides lectures, tours etc. each afternoon. Again however the teaching seems to me to be more suited to a school level learner, and the kulturprogramm, whilst interesting, is not likely to be of enormous benefit to people who are used to organising their own free time in a city in which culture is not hard to find.

I would be interested to hear anyone else's experiences of the Goethe institut.

Best

Adam

Adam,
I have no personal experience from the GI but have of course heard of their "excellent" reputation. I can see how you aren't totally satisfied with the class. What I appreciated about the class I took is that the teachers were really creative in teaching the basic German grammar- so that I have a good starting base and that has empowered me to continue learning on my own- and reading newspapers, books, and Ceramic (my own field of study) textbooks in German.

Before I come to Germany, I lernt my German to Grundstufe 1 in our university but it was a joint course with GI, our teacher were pretty good in teaching us and leading us to our understanding just one problem is that she teach and explained to us in English or Malay... hehehehe

Thanks for the feedback guys, good luck with the ceramics and everything else!

I want to vouch for the Hartnackschule, as I find it teaches a higher standard of german but at a lower cost than the 'mid-range schools' ie berlitz, prolog, etc. I have been attending a course there for 9 months now starting at the very bottom (in retrospect as was previously recommended, I could have gone without the first few months and taught myself at home) and I find their teaching methods and philsophy really great. I have to admit that comparatively my spoken german is still pretty crap, but I think that has more to do with this being my first foreign language and problems getting over my insecurities in speaking a foreign language. But even so, I still get lots of compliments from germans on my german and the ways i am constructing (or trying to construct) my sentences (off topic - why is it so damn hard to get a sentence that is perfectly constructed in your head out of your mouth without swapping words around??? is it just me??)

A few things though:

- CHOOSE YOUR TEACHER
whatever school you go to, make sure to pester the office (or if you can speak to previous/current students) and get recommendations for a teacher. i know, i know, a lot of it is up to the student, but if you are a willing student AND you have a great teacher theres nothing stopping you!!! i cant emphasize this point enough. i had a teacher once (yes, at the hartnackschule) that sat at the front of class whilst we were doing activities and, get this, painted watercolour comic characters (copied from a magazine) into an art diary when he was meant to be supporting us. i was also sure that he pretended to not understand our questions so he wouldnt have to answer them, although i guess i have no proof on that one! needless to say, i changed out of that class very quickly. most of the staff were unwilling to say which teachers were more talented than others but I found if you are pesistent you will eventually find someone that gives you a tip and I have since always had great teachers at that school (or if you are thinking of going there PM me).

- i went to a 1euro/hour school in kreuzberg when i first got here, wasnt the VHS but another similar one and I found that, of course I could get somewhere with it but it was probably going to be a lot more work and a lot slower than if i went to a better school. most of the people in my class were of turkish backgrounbd and sent there by the government in order to learn german and get a job. but they didnt really want to be there and just wanted to fill their required hours so they could still receive their benefits. i found the turkish element pretty fun (lots of tee drinking, joking, etc) but not really conducive to learning (think loud conversations/arguments all in turkish). and aside from this, an exercise that in another school should only take 10min took 20min or longer there. when you have too many unmotivated people in your class it slows everything down a lot. and anyway, because i am australian i couldnt get the european price of 1euro/hour like everyone else, so that made it definitely not worthwhile.

Hi all...

I originally found TT whilst searching online for a new language school to join, so I thought i'd better add my findings...

The potted history:

Last year I first checked out the Friedlaender school, in Friedrichshain. The people at Admin couldn't speak English !!... I walked away.

Then I enrolled at the Hartnackschule and stayed for a month. I fell way behind the others as I desperately needed English explanations of the grammar, but the teachers at the Hartnackschule refuse to "sprechen" the English. I totally understand this policy, but it wasn't working for me. Something that would have taken 2 minutes to explain to me in English, wasted an hour of lesson time as I waited frantically for the penny to drop !!

Over the next month I took a break and slowly made sense of what I had been taught there. After that month I re-enrolled at the Hartnackschule and managed 2 and a half months before having to leave again... the pace was just too fast for me.

Exberliner ran an article on local language schools and they described Sprachtpunkt in Kreuzberg as "an affordable gem", so as it's close, I gave it a try. Oh dear... this place is far, far too slow... only about 4 students, but none of them wanted to learn, and the teachers are rubbish. I stayed for 2 months because it was so easy, seriously, the only time I actually learned something new was on the very last day of the course. Anyway, this month they had no other students left to provide a class for, so I had to find a new school.

This time around, i'm hoping i've got lucky. I started at BSI on Kottbusser Damm a week ago and so far so good. There's about 15 students in my class, everyone seems to be motivated, and the teacher is excellent. In addition to these plus points, the price is only €160 for the usual 20hrs/week afternoons and €170 for mornings, and remains that way even over the summer period when most other schools increase their prices. Follow the link BSI Berlin

If it all goes tits-up, i'll let you know...

For those of you, like me, that crave simple English explanations to supplement the "barmy" German grammar being taught at language schools... look no further than this website Tom's Deutsch Page - It's a free course in English, created by a German dude in order to teach his Asian girlfriend the language.

Jimmy

Hi,

I'm sure this has been gone over time and time again, but nothing popped up when I searched for "german language lessons berlin", so...

Does anyone have any recommendations for cheap or affordable german lessons in Berlin. Perhaps night classes in a university or in a cultural/public institution (i.e. not-for-profit language classes), or even a good, low-cost, for-profit classes?

I would be very interested in doing an intensive 2/3 week course, as have a little time on my hands right now until early May, but not much money (read: recently unemployed). Would be a boost to future employment, and general integration, so willing to spend some money, just not hundreds of Euros.

Any help or guidance would be appreciated!

Thanks.

Topics merged by admin

Cheapest German language schools and courses, Info on classes in Berlin (particularly Pankow)

Full search for German classes Berlin.

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