Learning German: starting from scratch on an evening course

Having not learnt a new language since taking the unknown foreign language component of my Trinity CertTESOL course in Russell Square in 2003 it was all a bit daunting going into a classroom to be confronted with the possibility of starting a new language from zero. Even on that Trinity course, we were really only learning an unknown language to put us in the position of being language learners to empathize with total beginners. For me, it was time to bite the bullet. I’ve travelled to Germany 4 times for work and each time I am embarrassed by my inability to even say “how are you” in German.

However, as with all new things, it’s never as difficult as you think and the teacher made all 5 of us feel very at home in the class and soon we were greeting each other and saying where we were from. The great thing about being a total beginner is that learning just a few phrases gives you a sense of achievement as you come out knowing relatively so much more than you did before! After we’d had just a few lessons, we’d got into a routine of a few of us getting together for a cheeky pint of beer (Becks of course) after the lesson to practice phrases and compare notes about all things German.

As the course progressed several things struck me. One was that I was the only British person in the class, highlighting how bad we are as a nation at learning languages, and the other was really how similar some German phrases are to English. For example, das ist gut.

Das certainly wasn’t gut when a few of us met up yesterday (just before our final lesson) to see the German football team annihilate England’s underachievers by a whopping vier goals to ein and send us crashing out of the World Cup. I’m sure our teacher won’t be feeling too smug for the final lesson, and I have no doubt that I speak for myself and my classmates when I say that we all have an excellent second team to support. Deutschland! Deutschland!

I mean, I couldn’t possibly support a team led by Maradona!

Alex took a beginners’ German evening course in Brighton. Cactus runs German courses in Brighton and other cities across the UK. German evening courses are also available in the US.

Those wishing to practise their newfound language skills abroad can take a German course in Germany, Austria or Switzerland. Learning a language in the country where it’s spoken is the ideal way to really immerse yourself in the language and culture.