German for You Intermediate: Business Language and More

Welcome to my German Business Language Course!

We will start off with a test that covers all the important topics as well as vocabulary in the course. You can take the test beforehand to see where you stand, and then again at the end of the course. You will be surprised at how much you have improved!

We will look at the way people address each other in a formal context, at commonly used vocaulary and also more specific alternatives, phrases and expressions. You will be able to apply these in various situations, correctly and in an adequate context. Plenty of example are given in this course, always with an English translation, so you can see the most natural way to say those things in German.

I also included the grammatical structures that are predominantly and/or used for specific purposes in a formal context. Depending on your level, it might be either a revision or at least include some familiar components, or it might be quite a bit more than you have studied before. I also added lectures with in-depth explanations, examples and exercises for the structure and function for these four grammar points specifically (those lectures are in German with English text).

For each lecture, there is a downloadable pdf-version of the lecture presentation slides. You can access it by clicking on the ‘Resources’ button of each lecture on the right side of the video player in the chapter/lecture overview.

Of course, E-mail writing, presenting and talking on the phone are also topics that are included.

Apart from specific areas of language acquisition, I will also give you some additional information to enable you to keep on studying after having completed this course.

Formal German is not only used at work but also when we make appointments, talk to service providers of all kinds, when we communicate with doctors, landlords/landladies, building managers, school/university staff and so on.

Formal German and business language is different from everyday language. How German business language is different from general German is one thing you will learn in this course. This knowledge is essential for your language acquisition because you need to know on which areas of the language you have to concentrate.

Generally, on a solid A2 level this course should be manageable and in parts challenging, on level B1 it will definitely fill some gaps and include new material, and on B2 it should still contain plenty of new terms and phrases, though the structure and some vocabulary will be more for polishing up your knowledge. (With the exception of the grammar lectures, the explanations are in English because it is aimed at a range of levels, including the ones that are usually not as far in understanding spoken language well enough to follow explanations in German.)