Cactus staff get linguistic: practising what we preach

At Cactus we deal with languages every day, we take bookings for evening courses, we send people all around the world for language holidays and we hear different languages on a daily basis as we get phone calls from far and wide. Moreover, our current staff represents a total of eleven different nationalities. But still, do we really practise what we preach? Are we ourselves making the effort to learn languages in our pastime?

A quick question round in the office seems to give a positive answer – 88% of our employees have taken part in Cactus courses, either in the UK, abroad or both. 

And let’s not forget our New York branch where you can find a further 5 employees. One of our US staff took a German Level 1 evening course with Cactus in the Big Apple, and is soon going to test the skills acquired in real-life as she is moving to a German-speaking country. Italian learned in the classroom in Brighton was also quickly put into use when our Head of Marketing attended a wedding in Monterchi, Italy, half-way through her beginner course.

The range of languages studied by Cactus employees covers 10 languages, including Hindi, Japanese, Polish and Russian. What’s more, this list only includes the languages they have studied with Cactus – most of the staff already speak several languages on arrival at Cactus.

In general Spanish is by far the most popular language offered by Cactus, and this seems to hold true among our staff as well. Spanish is the most commonly heard answer when you ask any of us about the language courses we have taken during our time at Cactus. Besides taking Spanish evening courses in the UK, Cactus members have tried Spanish immersion courses in places such as Buenos Aires, Málaga and San Sebastián. If you decide to practise your skills in an authentic environment, you often also have the chance to combine the lessons with some fun after-class activity – it can be French and surfing in Biarritz or Spanish and salsa in Havana, to mention just a few combinations our staff has tried on their holidays!

The position of the second most popular language among Cactus staff is held by another Latin-based language, French. In France, the seaside city of Biarritz has attracted many of us.

Italian ranks high as well – our employees seem to be fond of Italy as many different corners of the country have been explored by members of Cactus: Florence, Taormina, Tropea, Cagliari and Alghero. Portuguese and German follow on the popularity list after these three languages, but several members of staff have also tried their hand at Japanese and Arabic.

The top 5 courses taken by Cactus staff:

1. Spanish Cactus Level 1

2. Spanish Cactus Level 2

3. Italian Cactus Level 1

4. Japanese Cactus Level 1

5. Arabic Cactus Level 1

The 5 most popular languages studied by Cactus employees:

1. Spanish

2. French

3. Italian

4. German

5. Brazilian Portuguese