German Language Class

This week I started taking intensive German language classes. They are held 5 days a week for 3 hours a day, plus 1-2 hours of homework each night.

I am really enjoying them! My class turned out to consist of 7 female students and a female teacher. All of us are in our 20's or early 30's except one who is older with grown children. We come from America, Australia, England, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Ukraine. We speak English, Spanish, and some language I can't remember the name of but it's not Russian or Ukranian.

What is interesting about the students in my class (the 4 I have been able to converse with in English) is that we have all come here because of our boyfriends or husbands. Three of the other women married Swiss men and have moved here to live with them. Look at all these serious long-distance relationships coming to an end!

The Australian woman is in a long-distance relationship with her Swiss boyfriend. So they fly Sydney-Zürich in order to spend time together. She has been given a 6-month leave by her company (PriceWaterhouseCoopers) to come here and learn German. She said she was offered a job by PWC in Zürich, but was denied a visa because Switzerland did not consider her university degree from Australia to be a real degree. So even if you have a job waiting for you in Zürich and an employer vouching for you, if you don't have a uni degree or an EU passport, DENIED. She eventually was able to get a visa with the condition that she spend at least 20 hours per week learning German as her company is sending her here for that purpose. If she had just married her boyfriend, she would have gotten a visa much easier!

So I'm enjoying all of the like-minded company that this class provides me with. It's a lot of work but it's really nice to finally be able to understand small bits of conversation and to be able to put together small sentences already.

Of course we take a test every Friday and the following Monday the classes are shifted around so you are with people on the same level as you. So I doubt I will see all of these women again after this week but you never know. In general, I've noticed there are many more women in the language school (we all have coffee together, all the classes, at 10AM every day) than men. I wonder why that is?