So you reach that age, you know the one where life is supposed to begin and you’re not over the hill and all that jazz, and guess what? It would be really useful to be able to speak some German because it would make your work role easier. Then you think back to school days and the French you did and you… put off doing anything about the German, because you’re busy. Then another email comes in from the German office and… it’s in German, or at least the attached document is. Then it comes back to you in a flash - a friend talking about a German course he did at work and how it really helped him and, more to the point, how much he enjoyed it. The teacher even got him telling a joke in German! So you, “the dyed in the wool anglophile” reach for the phone.
David Pratt, General Manager of Keim Mineral Paints, wanted to be able to converse with colleagues and understand written German. He started one-to-one sessions last year, and has progressed from reading about the doings of one Helmut Muller, Privatdetektiv to writing his own detective story, in German, in which David plays a key role and Helmut will turn up shortly before the first murder. Frivolous? Not a bit of it! Fun, certainly. And the business side? That definitely comes into it. David’s fictional character is a marketing director for an English brewery, which is launching a new English beer onto the German market. And if you don’t think that would test your persuasive powers in English, let alone in German then think again! David mails the instalments in at intervals, and we always look forward to the next twist in the tale.
Click here to download a slurp of Bier und Leichen
And David? This is what he has to say:
“As a continuing student of Barbara’s I have first hand experience of her innovative, open and fresh approach to language training.
Our study sessions are always stimulating and challenging. She has managed through a mixture of traditional and modern techniques to inspire foreign language confidence in a middle aged “dyed in the wool anglophile”.
I have no hesitation in recommending her services to anyone who is either desirous or in need of a second language.”
IF YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE DAVID’S BREAKTHROUGH EXPERIENCE AND MAYBE EVEN WRITE YOUR OWN (DETECTIVE) STORY IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE THEN CLICK HERE. |
