French evening course in Brighton: Cactus staff review

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Language Course Advisor Jennifer Maynard tells us how she immersed herself in culture and cuisine during her 10-week French course…

I’ve been taking language courses for years now, many of which concentrate around the basic GCSE criteria, i.e. what pets do you have? How many brothers and sisters do you have? Do you live in a house or an apartment? Of course, all of this is helpful to know, however it is much more exciting and useful to have real life conversations with the teacher and with other people in the class. A class in which you can learn to express yourself, just as you’d need to when abroad and using the language in question, is just what I was looking for.

I was extremely lucky to find that this is exactly what Cactus was offering. To begin with, Helène is French, which helped with perfecting the authentic French accent. She’s a lovely lady with a wonderful personality and very excited about teaching us French and sharing her culture with us.

The tasks and conversations revolved around our true interests and daily activities. Helene is really passionate about food and her opinions really shine through. By witnessing Helene in action it has been possible for me to express myself with new phrases and learn about many of the culinary delights France has to offer. I especially enjoyed the homemade Choux bread with fromage! I even learnt how to make a Swedish desert thanks to the multicultural array of students in the class.

Above all, I am relieved I now know how to warn people that we don’t have enough vin rouge for our camping trip!

All in all a thoroughly enjoyable course with some very lovely people that are hungry for la langue française.

Cactus runs evening and part-time language courses in schools across London and in cities nationwide. Courses are available in over 20 languages and on regular start dates throughout the year.

German evening course in Brighton: Client review

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Cactus client Dan Broadley tells us how he hopes his evening course in German will help him retrace his roots…

You would have thought, having German-speaking heritage, that I would have shown an interest earlier. You would have thought that, when faced with the option of studying either French or German at school for my GCSE’s, I would have thrown myself into some serious Deutsch! I didn’t! Not only did I shun my German speaking lineage, but to add insult to injury I went on to achieve a truly awful F grade in French! “Sacre-bleu!”.

My Grandfather, Erich Bauch, a German speaking Czech from the town of Teplice in the Bohemian region of Czech Republic, would be most aggrieved to learn that the extent of my German is currently limited to the very, very basics…and by basics I mean that I can say “guten tag”, “auf wiedersehen” and I do a mean “eins, zwei, drei”…and that’s pretty much it! A terrible state of affairs!

I’m sure that he tried to impart some basic German phrases on me – he even used to sing to me in German – but it seems that none of it sank in. So when faced with the opportunity of learning German with Cactus, I saw it as the chance to right a terrible wrong! My first lesson is in Brighton later this month and I can’t wait!

This year has already been one for reconnecting with my roots. In the Spring I travelled to the Czech Republic for the very first time and went to the town where my family once lived. We even found the old house that they, being Jewish, had to abandon when the Nazi’s invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939, forcing them to flee to England.

My Grandfather, only 15 at the time, was one of 669 mostly Jewish children rescued by Nicholas Winton (now Sir Nicholas), an English stockbroker who saw the plight of the Jews while on a trip to Prague. Winton arranged trains to take the children to England and found sponsors for them in the UK so that they had a place to live once they were here.

Winton kept his humanitarian exploits secret for many years and it was only when his wife found a scrapbook (complete with a list of all of the childrens’ names that he had saved), in their loft at their home in 1988, that his heroics were bought to light. My Grandfather was one of the extremely lucky ones who were not only saved, but who were actually reunited with their families once in the UK. He never really spoke of exactly how he came to England; I think looking back to that time was too upsetting for him. It wasn’t until after his death in 1998 that we found his name on Winton’s list.

Visiting my homeland this year for the first time was a truly amazing and emotional experience, one that I will never forget. It bought home exactly what my family went through and the terrible upheaval that they endured. The next step on my personal pilgrimage is to finally learn a language that I should have learnt a long time ago. I only hope that I can do my old Grandad proud! With the help of Cactus I’m sure that I can!

Dan has just started his 10-week German course, and will report back on his progress once it has finished…

Cactus runs evening and part-time language courses in schools across London and in cities nationwide. Courses are available in over 20 languages and on regular start dates throughout the year.