Is a private German teacher a good idea for us?

Language Corner
1
Hi all - my girlfriend and I are moving to zurich soon for 2 years. I will be starting work immediately, but girlfriend will be in about 2 months time. I learned german in school (for 5 years, but 15 years ago now!) and she never has. We both want to improve our German. However, while she can go to classes during the days, I cannot. As we're going to be new in the city we'd also not like to "loose" too many evenings / weekends in a classroom

I think in summary we probably need 1-2 months to kick start us both. We could take it from there later.

What we're wondering is should we get a private German teacher, who could come and work with us a few hours a week? The benefit would be we could pick the time, so we wouldn't be possibily loosing 2 evenings a week each, and they could cater to our 2 different levels at the start. The downside may be the cost.

Just wondering:

1) Roughly what does a private teacher charge per hour?

2) Roughly what is an "average" cost per hour for a beginners class?

3) In your experience which is better for what we're looking for

Apologies if it's a vague question, or hard to answer, just struggle to find an answer even with all of the info on these boards.

Cheers

K

2
A suggestion. Ur gf goes to school in the morning/afternoon, make new friends while you can do it privately (most companies offer free German classes).

Reason is she will be lonely while you are at work and if she is not able to work, then all the more she need her new friends..

It work the best for both of you.

3
If you are still in .ie it may be better to just "jump" in so to speak. even if you start lessons right now the moment you are here you will find things completly different.

Most people arriving will embed themselfs with people who speak their own language effectivly segregating themselfs from the language of the host country.

It ́s a natural thing and a difficult barrier to overcome

However I would not worry too much, you will learn bit by bit.

4
Great idea - love it!!!

Yeah - so she takes on German a few mornings a week. Then we see later on can we pick up a German teacher, or play it from there. Urgency is more to get her "some" base. I'm sort of ok, I can get the gist of things. Definitely need work, and want to get better, but if no one here spoke English I could survive with my Germ-ish

Just to keep the other question open though:

1) Any recommendations for cheaper intensive day courses in Zurich

2) Any idea of the price of a private German teacher per hour?

5
Why not try asking the people in some of the posts linked below

In my experience you can pay around 110chf for one on one general german. Once it's more specialized you pay more. If in a pair you could get away with around 60chf an hour per person.

Though I guess negotiation is key.

Another option is to get German friends, listen lots and ask lots of questions. They respect that a lot.

Viel Glück!

(Good luck!)

Puddy

6
Check with your company to see if they provide German lessons.

Most of the large companies do.

Send your girlfriend to an intensive course at www.klubschule.ch IMHO.

7
Hi all .... thanks again for the input, you're making my overloaded brain, less fuzzy : )

'In my experience you can pay around 110chf for one on one general german. "... ok so that's officially out of our budget Considering the migros one is intensive 76 * 50 mins for 950 CHF.

BUT that migros one is say 1000 a month for the first month or two (intensive), then say we both go one evening a week each, to a 2 hr class are looking at probably 500-600 each for 4 months (at one evening a week) = c 50 CHF a week. So if you add that up for 6 months would be c. 3000 CHF

So assume she does her intensive the first month at least. Then after that we could get a private teacher 1 hour a week for 4 months, if we could get them for 100 CHF an hour at the same price - 1000 intensive + 20 * 100 for private ... ... interesting! Woudl only be getting half as long with them, but would be almost 1 on 1 AND on our terms.

RIGHT head clear thanks all for help.

Cheers

K

I suppose if we *could* find a teacher for one evening a week to work for

8
Hello,

I am also considering German lessons in the Zurich area, nr Pfaefikon. Any recommendations and cost?

I am Bristish and never learnt German at school, only French and Italian.

Andrea

9
kev

i can recommend this school for a beginner, i have been going to the branch in luzern but they also have one in zurich. i have found the teachers and classmates to be friendly and easy going. www.alamania.ch

10
Hi All,

I would just like to point out that this school is actually Alemania (and not Alamania) and can be found on the web at: www.alemania.ch

Cheers,

Hotspur

11
Hello, I ́m a German and I work also for a Language School as a Germanteacher. (So I have to excuse my bad english). I got this link from a english-theacher, which I teach in german and who theaches me in english. So I read your question and I thougt, I can give you some references.

There are a lot of german schools here in zürich and some are more and some are less good. Some of my german studends, which testet the migros language school were not so happy with this school also it is not so expensive. The classes are too large, so that the students can ́t speak enough and the learning progress is not so fast and good in large groups. So, if you are search after a school I think a important think is to search after small classes (3Ps are perfekt). At the beginning - intensive courses are good, but -it ́s depend on the learner- every day for some houres- its havy. Often it ́s too much learning matter for the students in this short time so that they can ́t use the new learning matter. After my experiences, a small class for 2 time per week is a perfekt possibility for fast and good learning. If you thought about privat lessons, it ́s also good and intensive for learning. (In our school you have to pay for a privat lesson 80 or 90 Fr. for 60min, so I think). This one to one lesson is good for higher level studends and also for realy beginners.

I like teaching small groups and also privat lessons. But - after my experience- the benefit of small-group -lesson is, that the lesson takes not 1 hour - it takes 1,5 hour and in small groups you can have -if it ́s a good group - more fun and more motivation. And this is also important for learning. So if you could find a good small class I would advise german lessons in small classes. Ask after the numer of participants!

It ́s cheaper (in our school 40 fr. for one lesson with takes 90 min) and an half hour more lesson. (Anyway this are the conditions of the language school where I theach, but think they are nearly the same all about). And again what I can ́t advise, is a intensive course for some oures every day! This is too much money for a short time, which you can ́t use.

So, I hope I could help you a little and you could understand my chaotic and bad english.

nice regards.

12
I've taken 5 semi-intensive German courses through Migros Klubschule and really enjoyed them all (though I did find that which teacher you get makes a HUGE difference). I think the school even offers a free placement test.

But I think that also having an English-speaking German tutor on the side would have been a lot of help. I say this because, in the class itself, the teacher was allowed to only speak German, and so I was incredibly confused in the first few courses because I couldn't even understand the instructions. And I also couldn't ask questions in English because the teachers didn't always understand my English. So I think that having a one-on-one English-speaking teacher or tutor would have really helped ease some of that frustration for me... someone who I could ask to further explain things, etc.

I wish you much luck!!!

13
Hi there,

I am a German teacher and have sent you a PM with some information about my German courses.

Kind regards,

Lianne

14

I couldn't agree more with this. I arrived 2 months ago from the UK only with the knowledge of, "Yes, please", "No thanks", some "beers" please and felt utterly pathetic. My G/F is joining me in 4 weeks time and she's really nervous about it.

I was rubbish at languages at school, but having made the move here, decided using the good old fashioned Brit way of communicating in Europe (speaking.......very slowly and shouting louder) maybe wouldn't work long term. As I don't have time to take some language lessons yet, I just got one of those language CD's, installed it on my iPod and read the accompanying book on the plane or train. But, the best advice for learning was from some people on here and some of my more accepting ex-pat colleagues and got to know my Swiss colleagues better than my English/US colleagues.

The first thing I did was just learn a few phrases then ask my Swiss colleagues to let me try them out with them, get them to speak slowly back to you and run through some other key phrases/questions that will get you by. Get them to come out to a shop with you over lunchtime and stand next to you whilst you order something. You will feel daft at first, but there's nothing more rewarding than when you're in a shop asking for something and they come back with exactly what you asked for. I've found Swiss people MUCH more receptive to you if you try (even if it's bad) to speak some German. If you're not good at langauges, it's very daunting, some of the German words are incomprehensible to begin with, but keep at it and things start to click pretty quickly.

It's so easy to simply "stick around" with your English speaking colleagues and friends, and there's nothing wrong with that, but, you'll pick very little up and get to know even less about this fantastic place you're now living in.

15
when I first came I chose private lessons in the place closest to my work. It cost 110 CHF per hour which I find a huge amount of money but I figured it would be worth it. When I arrived the informed me that the sell these lessons in blocks of 10 - which meant that I owed them 1100 CHF, all I had done was sent an email!

I didn't care for the teaching style or the materials so I didn't renew after this initial welcome to Switzerland experience. I have since done a one year course of 2 hours per week and a LOT of my own work, I am now able to communicate quite well, here are the resources I have used, some are free some are low cost

All the best!

Here is the translation dictionary that I use, you can get a toolbar in your browser and when you highlight a word you click a link to go straight to the translation, make a user account and you can save words to your vocabulary list

www.dict.cc

If you need to know how to conjugate a verb then go to the next link

http://www.verbix.com/languages/german.shtml

Type in the infinitive and your off

http://www.canoo.net/

Very good resource - does too many things for me to explain

Podcasts

www.slowgerman.com

www.geo.de (seacrch for podcasts)

They are free - the first one is good for beginners.

Reading

www.spiegel.de

A bit advanced but easier than speigel magazine which I also recommend when you progress

www.geo.de

Also not really ideal for beginners - but the stuff they write about is really interesting so keep it for when you progress

www.bkyi.com

Flashcard software - you can get free stuff which is good for beginners or buy it if you want to make your own, I make my own and find it really helpful

I can't remember the text to speech software that I use at the moment, I have it at home. It isn't free but for the package and two native German voices I paid about CFH 100 - well worth it for what I have been able to do. You can make mp3s and have them playing on your ipod while you work. This takes care of all memory work which doesn't have any logic.

I really recommend this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Frequency-Di...2307674&sr=8-1

It is not really cheap but again well worth it - instead of learning random stuff you can learn the words that are used the most.