Hello, my name is Andrea. I’m a native German speaker and experienced conversation coach for German as a foreign language. I live in Berlin.
After studying linguistics, I worked in a political foundation for 18 years. In 2014, I started teaching German to refugees and since 2016, I’ve been working as conversation coach with smarterGerman. Getting in touch with so many people from lots of different backgrounds has been a very enriching experience.
My philosophy about learning and training German is to give you confidence in what you already know. We will create a trusting and creative atmosphere that totally allows us to make mistakes. Because mistakes are our friends, without them we wouldn’t learn a thing.
As your conversation coach, I am not going to teach you, I won’t even correct your mistakes. What I’m going to do is help you detect and correct them yourself.
The most important thing about learning a new language is to be curious about the culture of those who speak it.
Whatever your goals are, whether you want to interact with Germans during your holidays or if you need a certified Goethe-Institute exam, during my training we will not get frustrated by long and über-complicated grammatical structures if you aren’t familiar with them. We will work through any grammar questions you have, but they will be embedded in conversations. You will see: from the very beginning German is a beautiful little plant which will happily grow into a mighty oak, if you water it a little bit.
If I was able to pique your interest, feel free to say hello and I will gladly answer any further questions you may have.