Help in finding the right school to learn German

Language Corner
1
Hi - I'm new here, though I've been reading messages on this forum for a while, and found your info very helpful and.. well... informative :-)

hopefully you'd be able to help me out

i have been studying German for a few month is Migrosklubschule but am looking to change schools since Migro cannot commit to sequential courses and my next course won't start till mid Feb, which is too late for me

I'm also looking for a Semi-intensive course, i.e 3 times a week in the mornings.

The only school I found that has that option is SKK which are merging with Benedict Sprachschule come January.

have any of you heard or studied in this school and can recommend it?

i went to a trial class today and I'm not too sure

also tried inlingua and NSH, but they only have daily courses which is a bit too much for me

your input would be greatly appreciated!

thanks so much in advance

2
Benedict are a sausage factory. They advertise to the extent that they support much of Switzerland's ailing press. Their turnover in teachers is high and their 'free system'/language lab (if they still do it) works like mustard manufacturers Coleman's: it's what you leave on your plate that is their profit. Rather an appropriate analogy for a sausage factory.

In short do I rate them? No...

3
oh!! ok...

so, do you know of any schools that provide semi-intensive courses? i'm in Basel btw

thanks

4
I agree with AbFab.

I went to HDS they where very good.

5
unfortunately, as far as I could see, NDS is only in St. Gallen, and I'm in Basel :-(

6
Sorry about that, i would of thought there would be 1 in Basel

7
I'm currently attending an intensive course with AlphaSprach in Stadelhofen. It is 1/2 day am, Mon-Friday; but they are very good and I am learning so much and the max group size is 10. I would recommend them, and although they are a little dearer than other schools, you get your money's worth. But like all courses you need to put the work in too!

Hope this helps

http://www.alphasprachstudio.ch/e/

8
hey -thanks for the rec, my problem is i work 80% and 1/2 a day is too much for me - otherwise I would do either the NSH or Inlingua courses which came highly recomended

also, unfortunately no AlphaSprach in Basel..

9
I ́m just finishing a course with ALD. Here is the website. Am planning to do another.

www.auslaenderdienstbl.ch

The staff are friendly, the course books really visual ( I learn by seeing things rather than hearing so this helps). Most of the courses are based in Pratteln, East Basel. So you can get there by tram.

Best of all the courses are cheap. I paid 490CHF for 4 lessons per week for 15 weeks,

Regards

Anne

10
hi, complete newbie here, I was wondering if you could tell me who/what HDS stands for? I'm moving to st gallen in march with my girlfriend, we're looking for a place to take german courses but HDS doesn't correspond to any of the schools I've been able to find online so I was wondering if you could elaborate....? At the moment, inlingua seems to get the most favourable reviews, but I'm open to suggestions.

thanks!

11
I'm about to finish my second 10 week intensive course at Benedicts in St Gallen and I can honestly say they are excellent.

Friendly staff, helpful teachers, great resources and very reasonably priced.

Its also a great place to meet new people and make friends.

Drop me a line if you'd like more details

12
I just arrived 1 week ago, my native language is english and I'm also looking for the right school, I live in Wil, St Gallen and would need to be either in St. Gallen or Winterthur.

So far I am heavily considering HDS www.hds.ch , I also looked at Migros, but the intensive course is only 1 month long for 1,000 CHF. I don't think the brain can absorb that much in only a month. Their other courses are too long, only 1 day per week.

I'm trying to check out Benedict, but their website is all in German, the other one would be Inlingua, but courses are at night.

Also there is Wilingua, but they start in April.

If anyone has any other recommendations, I would greatly appreciate them.

13
thanks topper, that is a glowing recommendation, especially the making friends component as my wife won't be working when we first arrive. We're there at the beginning of march so will be trying to start a course pretty soon afterwards.