Of the things I have done of a tourist nature since I arrived in Berlin I think the Berliner Fernsehturm has been my favourite.

Among other things you can see the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate the Olympic Stadium, the Museum Island and the Potsdamer Platz. All of which can be seen from the tower’s 360 degree view. But for me the best thing to see was the difference in architecture from the buildings in the East and the West.

Tickets are about 10 euro each. There is also a somewhat expensive restaurant you can dine at.

Berlin has no shortages of bars and clubs as my Deutsch Akadamie colleagues and I found out in recent weeks gone by. You are spoilt for choice in a city full of quirky bars and insane clubs. Every different area of Berlin has something on offer most notably Prenzlauer Berg, Mitte, Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg. The latter being my favourite. This differs immensely from my hometown of Dublin where most of the night scene is based in the city centre. Another vast difference I have noticed is the opening hours of bars. They essentially close at whenever time they want to (which is rarely before 5am).

Here is a picture of my Deutsch Akadamie friends and I outside a bar in Kreuzberg.

These are my favourite exercises that we do in Deutsch Akadamie. After completing a section or covering a specific series of grammar or vocabulary my teacher Annette gets us to write out different dialogues between two or three people utilising the new German skills that we have been taught. This practice is really an efficient tool for instilling a practice to memory. I find it to be at its most effective when we are studying the position of German verbs in different sentences. In this instance German is particularly different to English.

…and practice makes perfect.

So I wanted to summarise the first 3 weeks of my 2A course at Deutsch Akadamie. I have certainly learnt alot of German in this short time but what has surprised me the most was the breadth of the topics in which we covered. The 3 weeks have really helped me expand my vocabulary base. I now have a more fluid grasp of the Grammar. In particular my knowledge of Akkusativ, Dativ and Nominativ has come on heaps and bounds. My teacher Annette and the course book helped me understand how the different forms function.

We have also completed a wide range of listening excerices which have helped me develop an ear for the German language