The Netherlands—a hotspot for learning German

An American who comes to learn Italian in Vught, a Spaniard who stays with Regina Coeli in the Netherlands for a week to learn better English or a German who drives to the Netherlands on Sunday evening to learn French with “the Nuns”. These are just a few examples that show that international students at Language Institute Regina Coeli are no exception.

In any given week this summer, almost half of the students learning German were not Dutch and had seemingly no connection whatsoever to the Netherlands. So how did they end up at Regina Coeli for their foreign language training?

Extremely impressed about the results

‘It’s indeed a bit unusual to go to the Netherlands to learn German,’ says Rocco Penna, an Italian who works as a key account manager at Microsoft in Zurich, Switzerland. ‘A friend from London once learned Dutch at Regina Coeli. I was extremely impressed when I heard him speaking Dutch. Now that I wanted to improve my German writing skills, I decided to go to the same institute, even though it is in the Netherlands.’

It's the best thing you could wish for

Another German student in the same week was Swiss Greta Scacchi. She lives and works in Italy and came to Vught with the challenge of transforming the Swiss German she grew up speaking into ‘Hochdeutsch’. She chose Regina Coeli because of her previous experience with us—she had also once spent ten days learning Dutch at our institute because she was studying in Antwerp. ‘At that time it was a gift from my parents for my 21st birthday. This German course is another gift, and I can say it’s the best thing you could wish for.’

Forget all knowledge of other languages

Greta took a two-week course in which she learned German all over again. ‘My trainers asked me to forget all my knowledge of both Swiss German and Dutch for a moment. Speaking more than one language can make language learning easier, but because these languages are so similar, you can end up mixing them up a bit.’ So, for ten days, Greta spoke only German. ‘I’m very satisfied with the outcome.’

Rocco Penna’s learning goal was completely different to Greta’s. He already spoke German well and wanted to spend a week at Regina Coeli concentrating on improving his writing skills. ‘I have to write a lot of reports and such for customers. They must, of course, be completely correct. It used to take me a lot of time to write a piece in German,’ he told us during his training week.

Mens sana in corpore sano

‘My writing skills have improved tremendously in just a short time. I really like the method—having a number of language trainers who take you a bit further each time so your brain can easily absorb the material. Besides that, everything at the institute is very well arranged. The facilities are excellent and the backdrop adds to the experience as well. I went running one morning and ended up entirely surrounded by nature. I also took their yoga lessons, which are superb. You completely get it: mens sana in corpore sano.’