From our blog
News, developments and articles from Regina Coeli
Once upon a time, ‘er’ was a little word...
Anyone who learns Dutch as a foreign language gets to take on the fun challenge presented by the simple combination of two letters: the word 'er'. ‘Er’ seems to be an insignificant word which doesn’t mean much of anything, yet it is used all over the place in Dutch and you cannot just omit it.
The language of Dutch weather
One of the hottest topics in the Netherlands is the weather. That’s not surprising of course, since it changes quite a lot. If you’re learning Dutch—no matter how early in the process you may be—it’s best to learn how to chat about the weather. It’s always a good way to strike up a conversation with someone.
‘To be able to manage, it’s useful to speak Russian’
Paul van Deuren took a Russian course at Regina Coeli about a year and a half ago. Because of COVID-19, he spent less time in Russia than he would have liked. But, now that the Russian lockdown is over, he’s working at the McDermott office in Moscow again. We reflect with him on learning the Russian language.
Business Spanish for beginners
Have you ever looked into Spanish courses for beginners? Apparently, if you want to learn the language, you can’t get around learning the names of fruits and vegetables, colours and all kinds of sports. But what if you mainly need the language to speak with Spanish-speaking suppliers or customers? Then it’s a bit handier to be able to present your product and write a decent email than to be able to name every fruit and vegetable in the produce section of the supermarket.
Take a journey by reading a book
When you were in school, you probably frequently heard that reading books was good for your language development. No matter how much education has changed, schools still really promote reading, so an idea that has survived all these years must have some merit to it, you might say. In fact, reading books helps you develop your language skills even when you learn a foreign language as an adult.
Cross language learning off your bucket list!
Learning a language is on a lot of people’s bucket lists. Which is logical, because how nice would it be to be able to effortlessly talk with others when you’re in Spain? Or to be able to ask the chef for their recipe in fluent Italian? But how useful is it to put learning a language on the list of things you want to do ‘one day’? It’s not something you just go and do in one go. Besides that, the sooner you learn a language, the longer you can enjoy it. Or are you content to wait until you retire to learn a language that you like the sound of or that would give your CV a big boost?