Albert-Ludwigs-Universtät Freiburg

I had studied a lot of German before I went to Freiburg, but I am a perseverant person and from the beginning I wanted to improve my language skills. The problem is that Freiburg has too many foreign students and if you want to achieve a very good knowledge, German can only be learned if you are in contact with native speakers, not with foreign students. The summer before the college course began I went to Goethe Institut and after that I joined a group of German students. If you get on well with some Germans, you can improve your skills very quickly. As well, there are many bars which are often visited by local citizens.

As a very touristy town, the Freiburgers tend to be a bit hasty in speaking english, even if their standard is not as good as your german. Once people realise however, that you are here for a while, they are very helpful, and either slow down their speech, or simply rephrase the sentence, instead of taking you for a tourist.

Once I had studied German in Brazil, it was not a problem to communicate in every day life in and outside the university. I had some problems with the English language instruction at the beginning because my English was kind of rusty, but after the first semester I could manage all situations with ease.

So many people speak english very well and are eager to practice it, so I didn't find so many oppurtunities to imrove my communication skills. I feel like i should have got a lot more out of living there for one year.

At first I was very intimidated. I had studied German for three years before going to study, so I knew German. But,there is nothing like living a language. As the time went on I became more and more fluent.

i already had several experience in Germany, longest was 2 months. studying in Germany was kind of a challenge but at the end if you have german friends you can speak a lot everytime