Lead Meetings in German

"I tried a bunch of things. Rosetta Stone, intensive courses, group lessons, language magazines, even self-directed study. I was prepared to invest time and effort into learning the language but it wasn’t until I met Dilyana that I realised what a personalised approach offers. My time is so much more effectively spent with her than with anything else I’ve tried.

 

To be honest, Dilyana was allocated to me by my company when I moved to Germany. We just got lucky.

 

It first started when Dilyana showed me that I did actually know parts of the language, I just didn’t know how they fitted with each other. It was like I had a messy Lego set of disconnected knowledge in my brain and someone came and clicked all the half built pieces together. We started face to face and since I left Europe, we continue over Skype, which has a number of advantages such as flexibility and having no travel time.

 

I lived in Germany for two years and have since left, but I meet with my German colleagues many times a week and travel back regularly. Now, nobody speaks to me in English anymore. For someone from an English speaking country, when everyone in the German office speaks English beautifully, the business language is English and I no longer live there, it is such a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. I lead meetings with Germany and Switzerland in German and more than anything else – I am now funny in German. I really am; I was even given a certificate from a friend of mine in the office because she noticed and knew it was the goal I most wanted to achieve."