Hi everyone! This is Andy, a Spanish student living in Berlin, Germany.
Until I was 20 years old, I lived in Madrid but decided to move to Germany because I wanted to finish my Bachelor (Telecommunications Engineering) in the TU Berlin. For various reasons, I never got to finish the course, but for the past two years I’ve been studying marketing and digital media, also in Berlin.
For me, coming to Berlin was a big step, although it wasn’t that difficult since I had already lived in Canada (Vancouver and Victoria), when I was 16 and 17. I already knew how it feels to live abroad and that helped me face this new step in my life.
Obviously one of the most difficult things about moving to Germany is learning the language. I took classes in Spain, so I knew the basics. But you can never imagine the real depth and reach of a language until you arrive in the country. In my case, I had to learn quite fast since I needed to apply to university. I took three months of intensive German lessons and then I took the C2-level-exam. I passed it and I got into university!
Mastering the genders in German
If you’re wondering what the most difficult part was, I can say, without doubt, that it involves learning the genders of each word (there are three in German: feminine, masculine, neutral) and learning how to decline each word depending on the case of the sentence (there’s accusative, dative, nominative and genitive). Once you master this, your life gets easier!
One of my favorite things about living in Berlin is my independence. I’ve grown so much personally, I’ve learned to do things I never knew I was capable of. Above all, I’ve learned to truly value myself and my own company. Sounds weird but it’s true. Who better than you to value and love yourself the way you deserve?
Also living in Berlin has helped me expand my reach in the YouTube world and try to help people in similar situations. All the gratitude and all the people that reach or get closer to their dreams thanks to one of my videos is what motivates me the most.
Overcoming stereotypes
Another thing I’ve learnt is that all these stereotypes about Germans couldn’t be any less true. “Germans are cold people”. But like in every single country, they’re more or less open people. Generally, Germans are no way as cold as people think. You can’t compare them to a Latino but still they’re no ice-cubes.
“German technology is the best in the world” – that may be true but the transportation in Berlin needs improving! Who would think a country like this is not prepared for rainy or snowy days? On those days, the transportation in Berlin slows down a lot and some trains won’t even run! Amazing, I know.
Anyway, talking about independence, it can be positive but also negative… I consider myself to be a “people person” and being far from every single member of my family is very hard to me. But, you know, no pain no gain!
And you just have to push through, because the advantages of learning German are infinite. Not a lot of native Spanish people can speak German at a good level and being “one of the few” opens a lot of doors, professionally speaking.
Learn German with Lingoda
I haven’t even finished my bachelor degree and I’ve already got a few good job offers just for being able to speak different languages. What’s more, you never learn a language in full – and so learning new things everyday keeps my head active and helps me learn other things more easily.
Talking about opportunities, one of them has been collaborating with the amazing Lingoda team, who are great! Everything started with a simple review video of their online classes and our “Youtube friendship” is about to celebrate its first birthday! Ever since then, I’ve been able to witness their amazing work ethic and their unlimited ideas.
German: Opening doors to new opportunities
Honestly, I think this is incredible and a lot of my subscribers have already taken advantage of this opportunity, they’ve improved their German level during three months and got their money back!
You only need some motivation and perseverance to improve your knowledge of a language completely! So, if you’re reading this, I encourage you to take part because learning and speaking German will open so many doors in your professional life.
You’ll only need one hour a day, whenever you want, from wherever you are world (with an Internet connection) and you get to study with the help of native-level teachers. So as a Spaniard in Berlin who’s already gone through the learning German-stage, I can only encourage you to take advantage of this and get closer to your dream. I wish you all the best and remember: you can accomplish everything!
