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Learn a language in three months (and get all your lessons for free)

Anyone who says learning a foreign language is easy is pulling your leg. But if you commit to learning every day, find the right combination of teachers (and technology), you can speak a new tongue in just three months.

Published: 6 September 2018 10:05 CEST

Learn a language in three months (and get all your lessons for free)

Photo: Lingoda.

If you’re preparing for life in a new country, have just arrived, or even if you’ve been putting off learning since you got off the plane, here are 10 tips that will build your fluency and confidence in a matter of weeks.

Join the Lingoda Marathon and Learn a Language for Free

1. Learn face-to-face with native speaking teachers: Apps? Online memory games? Let’s be honest, there’s no substitute for face-to-face classes with teachers. Especially native speakers who live and breathe the language. They’re also the people who will inspire and motivate you. Are they easy to find? Sure, once you’ve arrived in your new home country. But what if you want to learn with a fluent speaker before you pack…?

2. …Join an online learning classroom. If you’re familiar with video conferencing, or even just Skype or FaceTime, you’ll have a good idea of what it’s like to learn online, face-to-face with a language teacher. Companies that offer this service typically use a platform specially designed for the teacher to chat face-to-face with students, and present learning materials. The best also offer private or small group classes (3-4 students).

3. Choose a school with a flexible schedule. To learn a language in three months, you’ll need to take a class pretty much every day. Not easy when you’ve just arrived in a new country and you need to find an apartment, track down a doctor and register with the town hall (among a million other things). Online learning gives you the opportunity to book classes any time day or night, including evenings and weekends. And of course there’s no need to travel to and from a classroom.

From dating, to getting broadband installed, to registering at the town hall: learning a language should prepare you for real life situations. Photo: Lingoda.

4. Shop around to get value for money. Flat deposits, new furniture, removal vehicles: The first weeks in a new country can be expensive. Language learning doesn’t come cheap, but some schools are better value than others. Online language schools, such as Lingoda which offers English, Business English, German, Spanish and French, are often less expensive because they don’t have the bricks and mortar overheads of an offline school.

Join the Lingoda Marathon and Learn a Language for Free

5. Find your motivation! Learning a language in three months is all about discipline and good habits. If you’re an early bird, take your classes before work. Night owls need to find a quiet corner in the flat to take a late night course. Be prepared to make sacrifices. It’s no fun learning with a hangover! That being said, some schools offer their own incentives. Lingoda offers The Lingoda Marathon, a three-month course where participants get all their money back if they complete a class a day for three months (30 classes per month).

6. Find out whether learning materials are included. Make sure, wherever possible, that learning materials are provided by your school and aren’t a hidden extra. Textbooks and other materials are potentially expensive, so always read all the small print. And if you choose an online school, make sure that it offers a standard curriculum for all its classes – rather than leaving it up to the teacher to provide their own lessons.

7. Get a certificate at the end of your course. There’s no point taking a language learning course if you don’t have the evidence to share with your employer or another academic institution. Ask up front if you’ll get the paperwork at the end of the course and find out how to use it when applying for a job or another course.

8. Learn for real life. We all know the drill from school. Learn the name of 20 animals in French. What are the most popular cakes in Germany? Not really useful when you’re stuck trying to register your address at the town hall. Modern language learning courses should teach you to deal with real-life situations. From opening a bank account and getting broadband installed to dating dos and don’ts in your new city.

Join the Lingoda Marathon and Learn a Language for Free

9. Learn for work. Learning a language isn’t just about vocabulary and grammar, it’s about learning how to work smarter – knowing how to appropriately apply for that job you want, how to express understanding to your work colleagues and how to ask for that raise you deserve. The latest classes, including online learning, should teach you all need to flourish in the workplace from applying for a job to running a meeting to organising a business trip.

10. Choose the right level. You wouldn’t start running five miles a day from scratch. The same rule applies to learning a language. Make sure you get a proper assessment of your language skills so that you join a teacher and a class that meets your needs. Most schools use the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, where beginners start at A1 right through to experts (C2).

Follow these tips and you’ll be well on your way to learning a language in three months! Like any new skill, there will be highs and lows, but the upside is huge. There is no greater thrill than when you speak a new language fluently and confidently in real-life, with real people.

If you’d like to learn a language in three months (English, Business English, German, French, Spanish) – and get up to 100 percent of your course fees refunded – check out the Lingoda Language Learning Marathon.

This content was produced by Lingoda.

10 essential tips for avoiding rental scams in Germany

When it comes to settling in Germany, one of the most stressful and difficult tasks you’re likely to face is finding a place to live.

With the country in the grip of an ever-worsening housing shortage, there aren’t enough rental properties to meet the high demand – especially in big cities like Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt – and the flats that are available can often stretch even the most healthy of budgets.

With renters desperate to find affordable homes, crafty scammers have seized the chance to place fake ads on the market, often in dream locations with lower-than-average rents.

While some of these scams may be easy to spot, others can be highly sophisticated, with fraudsters setting up professional-looking websites and even allowing hopeful tenants to view their properties in person.

Recently The Local reported on a Polish couple who lost around €7,000 through a rental scam in Berlin. The scammers had sublet a beautiful Altbau apartment in the popular district of Neukölln and created an advert for it via a fake letting agent website, then arranged for people to use a key box to view the property while the real tenants were away.

Despite checking the contract over with legal experts from their local tenants’ association, nobody saw anything out of the ordinary – that is, until they tried to access the apartment and found a family already living there.

So, how do you protect your hard-earned savings and steer clear of scammers while looking for a new home?

Here are 10 important ways to protect yourself from rental scams.

1. Be alert to suspicious signs

The key to avoiding scammers in Germany is to be fully clued up on the warning signs. Was the listing for the property uploaded in the middle of the night, is the advert thin on details or written in bad German or English, and does the offer feel too good to be true?

Though it would be nice to believe there are still cheap flats to be found, finding an attractive property at an overly reasonable price is usually a red flag.

Hamburg

Modern apartments in Hamburg. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Daniel Bockwoldt

If someone claiming to be a landlord contacts you out of the blue, that’s also your cue to run a mile. With so many people looking for housing, most letting agents and landlords will have more than people looking to rent their properties without needing to get in touch with people themselves. Anyone who does is more than likely to be a scammer.

2. Rule out landlords who say they live abroad

One of the major warning signs to look out for is a landlord who claims to be renting the property from abroad, or who says they are out of the country for other reasons, like a last-minute business trip.

That’s usually a scammer’s way of excusing the fact that they won’t be able to meet you personally or even show you the property before you rent it.

“When the country the landlord lives in appears then I would say there’s a really big chance this is a scam,” said Kuba Rudzinski, one of the victims of the Berlin-Neukölln rental fraud.

Even if the excuse seems plausible, your best bet is to ignore anyone who tries to sell you a story about living abroad and simply move on with your house hunt.

3. Do your research online

Before committing to anything, take time to do some thorough research to scope out the property, landlord and letting agent.

Running the pictures and text used in apartment listings through a search engine like Google will help you quickly identify stock photos and text stolen from other listings. For pictures, this is known as a reverse image search.

A laptop

Photo by 2H Media on Unsplash

It’s also worth checking that any websites you’re sent to are fully functional and not copies of other letting agent sites, and that any email addresses match the website domain.

4. Visit the property and ask around

Never agree to rent a property without seeing it in person first. Arrange a viewing and take the opportunity to ask questions about the property and the neighbourhood.

Kuba also recommends speaking with the neighbours in the building to check if the property is genuinely being rented.

“Go to the place before and ask the neighbours, is this flat really for rent? Because these people generally know,” he said. “You’ll need to convince yourself to do it of course, but just ask in the building, ask on the floor where the flat is.”

5. Don’t transfer the full deposit in advance

Advance payments for anything, whether it’s furniture, a deposit or getting a chance to view the property, should be considered a major red flag.

Under German law, you are usually only expected to pay the deposit by the start of the agreed rental contract – and certainly not several months in advance.

Euro notes lie next to some house keys on a table.

Euro notes lie next to some house keys on a table. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-tmn | Andrea Warnecke

You are also legally entitled to pay your three months’ deposit in three instalments on top of your first three months’ rent after moving in, so definitely be cautious of landlords that place pressure on you to transfer a large lump sum.

If you’re really concerned, look into alternatives for paying your deposit, such as Kautionversicherung (deposit insurance) or a Mietkautionssparbuch, where you open a bank account and pledge the amount to the landlord, rather than transferring the money directly.

6. Insist on meeting the landlord or letting agent in person

If a landlord or letting agent refuses to meet you in person or insists on conducting all communication online, they’re probably not who they say they are.

Insist on meeting face-to-face to verify their identity and ensure they have a legitimate connection to the property.

7. Avoid sending documents straight away

Not all rental scams are about getting money from you directly: many scammers are simply after your personal details for the purposes of identity theft.

Be wary of providing personal documents or sensitive information before you’ve verified the legitimacy of the rental agreement, especially when it comes to things like passport scans or other forms of ID.

8. Seek legal advice from experts

If you’re unsure about any aspect of the rental agreement or if something seems suspicious, seek advice from legal experts or tenants’ associations.

However, be aware that this isn’t always a cast-iron guarantee that a tenancy is legitmate. Over the past few years, fraudsters have become increasingly sophisticated, even down to producing water-tight rental contracts for would-be tenants.

An estate agent hands over keys to an apartment. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-tmn | Christin Klose

According to civil lawyer Emilia Tintelnot, becoming a member of a tenants’ association can be a good way to get affordable legal advice, and it can also be helpful to set up legal insurance to ensure you can access help when you need it without having to pay lawyers’ fees up front.

9. Be wary of stereotypes

Avoid making assumptions based on stereotypes or preconceived notions about someone’s gender or nationality, as this may cause you to overlook things you might otherwise see as warning signs.

In Kuba’s case, the fact that the fraudsters were German made them appear more legitimate in his eyes, as Polish people tend to see Germans as law-abiding and trustworthy.

Be aware that scammers can come from any cultural background and may use a variety of tactics to deceive unsuspecting renters.

10. Keep an extensive paper trail

Document all communication, agreements, and transactions related to the rental process, including phone numbers and any bank details provided.

According to the Berlin police, this type of evidence can be crucial for an investigation if you do suspect a scammer.

While evidence can differ across cases, “pictures, contact details used by the perpetrators, original documents, bank details with payment receipts” are particularly helpful for investigators, and could help the police stop the scammers for good.

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