Yesterday we got an email from our friends Tom and Danika about a Sprachschule (Language School) they had just enrolled in. Their course starts next Monday, is an intensive four week thing and the price was okay. This place is the Deutsch Akademie and I had read some good things about it before we came to Berlin.
We met up with Tom and Danika at last nights Toytown catch-up. This was at the 'Red Rooster' in Friedrichshain which is directly around the corner from where we live. Very convenient for us!
At the Rooster we found out a little more about the Deutsch Akademie. One of the things that is better about the Deutsch Akademie compared to the Volkshochschule is that the class sizes are guaranteed to be smaller. They say that there will be no more than 10 students per class, compared to the Volkshochschule's 20 plus numbers.
As an aside, for those wondering if Tom and Danika ever got power back at their apartment, they did, finally on Tuesday. They are much relieved, but a weekend away from the power outage at a hotel was required to cling to their sanity (and sanitary?). Hah.
Back to the language school. We had also emailed the Deutsch Akademie and they replied that spots were still available. We thought we may as well go for this instead of the Volkshochschule as we were not going to be guaranteed a place there anyway and wouldn't find out for two weeks. Better to get started right away we thought.
At the Rooster we checked with Tom and Danika that if we enrolled would it be an issue for them if we ended up in the same class as them. The reason why this is a problem is that part of the reason to do the course is to meet people and if there were only 5 in the class, then that's the four of us and one loser by themselves! They said they would actually prefer that we were in the same class so we resolved that if we could get in we would do it.
Today we went off to the Deutsch Akademie by U-Bahn. This place is off in the snooty west, near the Berlin Zoo, just off the famous Kurfurstendam shopping street and pretty much opposite the fancy Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDaWe) department store.
Inside the Deutsch Akademie we did a written test. Similar (but a bit easier than) to the one we did at the Volkshochschule. A young lady marked our tests and was pretty impressed with Nordines effort and suggested she go into the B1 class (one higher than we were aiming for). She was particularly taken with Nordines understanding of the language and when Nordine said she was Dutch the lady seemed to agree that would help. She then marked my test and I got lots of ticks too and she asked if I was also Dutch. I said no. She gave me no compliments. Without the feedback I don't know how well we did compared to one another.
We then did separate oral tests with the lady (ha ha yes there are dirty connotations, but this was language speaking oral people). I was told to go away while Nordine did the test first. She took quite a while because the lady really wanted to test her beyond the A2 level we wanted. Nordine found the extra questioning much more difficult.
When she was done I went in and had my shot. Stumbling on a few things, 100% nailing others, I did ok. I was done much quicker than Nordine. She didn't put me through any extra paces...maybe coz I'm not Dutch.
We both got to sit together again and the lady agreed that the A2 is the right level for us to go in. We started booking our places and requested the 3pm session so we could be with Tom and Danika. By now all spots were gone and we had to book into the 12 midday classes. Although a little disappointing there is that positive that we will both be maybe meeting other people instead of insulating in a little comfortable group. It was out of our hands anyway.
The course cost us 205 Euros each, and will run Monday to Thursday from 12 - 3pm for four weeks.
With all that done we went to check out KaDaWe and some of the other shops on the Kurfurstendam. No need to do them all today though, we will be coming here four times a week for the next month!
Now that we will be travelling a lot on the trains over the coming month, it is now economically beneficial for us to splash out on a month train pass. There are two normal passes you can get, the standard monthly pass at 77 Euros (valid all day every day for a month), or an after 10am card for 55.50 Euros (valid after 10am weekdays and all day on weekends). I had asked at the Deutsch Akademie if we get discounts as students now and she said they sometimes let their students have the discounts and sometimes not so it was worth a try.
First we tried the DeutscheBahn travel centre at the nearby Bahnhof Zoo train station. The guy flat out rejected our claim as students as 'learning German is not good enough'. We asked what the discount was anyway for students to which he said the month card would be 54 Euros. Not much of a difference for us to worry about compared to the after 10am card, but it would be valid before 10am on the weekdays (If we could ever get out of the house that early!).
To get home we had to pass through Berlins main railway station, the Hauptbahnhof, so we got off there to have another crack at our poor student routine. Again at the travel centre the guy said this course wouldn't entitle us to the student card. We weren't surprised and not particularly bothered and got two after 10am cards.
You would think that for 55 Euros you would get some plastic credit card important looking thing, but these tickets looks exactly like a regular one way ticket with 'Month Ticket' written on it. I was a bit disappointed with how indistinguishable and non-durable this thing looked and asked if he had something to put it in. He gave us a spiffy little plastic sleeve to put them in. Much happier.
It's been a 520 Euro day today...sheeeeeeeeeeeeesh.
We met up with Tom and Danika at last nights Toytown catch-up. This was at the 'Red Rooster' in Friedrichshain which is directly around the corner from where we live. Very convenient for us!
At the Rooster we found out a little more about the Deutsch Akademie. One of the things that is better about the Deutsch Akademie compared to the Volkshochschule is that the class sizes are guaranteed to be smaller. They say that there will be no more than 10 students per class, compared to the Volkshochschule's 20 plus numbers.
As an aside, for those wondering if Tom and Danika ever got power back at their apartment, they did, finally on Tuesday. They are much relieved, but a weekend away from the power outage at a hotel was required to cling to their sanity (and sanitary?). Hah.
Back to the language school. We had also emailed the Deutsch Akademie and they replied that spots were still available. We thought we may as well go for this instead of the Volkshochschule as we were not going to be guaranteed a place there anyway and wouldn't find out for two weeks. Better to get started right away we thought.
At the Rooster we checked with Tom and Danika that if we enrolled would it be an issue for them if we ended up in the same class as them. The reason why this is a problem is that part of the reason to do the course is to meet people and if there were only 5 in the class, then that's the four of us and one loser by themselves! They said they would actually prefer that we were in the same class so we resolved that if we could get in we would do it.
Today we went off to the Deutsch Akademie by U-Bahn. This place is off in the snooty west, near the Berlin Zoo, just off the famous Kurfurstendam shopping street and pretty much opposite the fancy Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDaWe) department store.
Inside the Deutsch Akademie we did a written test. Similar (but a bit easier than) to the one we did at the Volkshochschule. A young lady marked our tests and was pretty impressed with Nordines effort and suggested she go into the B1 class (one higher than we were aiming for). She was particularly taken with Nordines understanding of the language and when Nordine said she was Dutch the lady seemed to agree that would help. She then marked my test and I got lots of ticks too and she asked if I was also Dutch. I said no. She gave me no compliments. Without the feedback I don't know how well we did compared to one another.
We then did separate oral tests with the lady (ha ha yes there are dirty connotations, but this was language speaking oral people). I was told to go away while Nordine did the test first. She took quite a while because the lady really wanted to test her beyond the A2 level we wanted. Nordine found the extra questioning much more difficult.
When she was done I went in and had my shot. Stumbling on a few things, 100% nailing others, I did ok. I was done much quicker than Nordine. She didn't put me through any extra paces...maybe coz I'm not Dutch.
We both got to sit together again and the lady agreed that the A2 is the right level for us to go in. We started booking our places and requested the 3pm session so we could be with Tom and Danika. By now all spots were gone and we had to book into the 12 midday classes. Although a little disappointing there is that positive that we will both be maybe meeting other people instead of insulating in a little comfortable group. It was out of our hands anyway.
The course cost us 205 Euros each, and will run Monday to Thursday from 12 - 3pm for four weeks.
With all that done we went to check out KaDaWe and some of the other shops on the Kurfurstendam. No need to do them all today though, we will be coming here four times a week for the next month!
Now that we will be travelling a lot on the trains over the coming month, it is now economically beneficial for us to splash out on a month train pass. There are two normal passes you can get, the standard monthly pass at 77 Euros (valid all day every day for a month), or an after 10am card for 55.50 Euros (valid after 10am weekdays and all day on weekends). I had asked at the Deutsch Akademie if we get discounts as students now and she said they sometimes let their students have the discounts and sometimes not so it was worth a try.
First we tried the DeutscheBahn travel centre at the nearby Bahnhof Zoo train station. The guy flat out rejected our claim as students as 'learning German is not good enough'. We asked what the discount was anyway for students to which he said the month card would be 54 Euros. Not much of a difference for us to worry about compared to the after 10am card, but it would be valid before 10am on the weekdays (If we could ever get out of the house that early!).
To get home we had to pass through Berlins main railway station, the Hauptbahnhof, so we got off there to have another crack at our poor student routine. Again at the travel centre the guy said this course wouldn't entitle us to the student card. We weren't surprised and not particularly bothered and got two after 10am cards.
You would think that for 55 Euros you would get some plastic credit card important looking thing, but these tickets looks exactly like a regular one way ticket with 'Month Ticket' written on it. I was a bit disappointed with how indistinguishable and non-durable this thing looked and asked if he had something to put it in. He gave us a spiffy little plastic sleeve to put them in. Much happier.
It's been a 520 Euro day today...sheeeeeeeeeeeeesh.
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