How professional is your business writing really?

Have an expert brush up your writing and learn how to write emails, reports, memos and minutes of meetings with confidence in three individual intensive half-day workshops.

Fresh method for Beginners Dutch

 Learning a new language from scratch is always a challenge. But our new communicative courses make it  easy, using the new Contact! series from Intertaal. This fast course is designed for educated expats and covers basics such as shopping and food, but also the origin of Dutch as well as art and culture in the Netherlands. It doesn’t leave out that essential grammar either. It’s really a fresh and stimulating approach. Contact us for more information on 06 156 94629.

‘Dunglish’ pitfalls

Certain Dutch users have a tendency to over-translate Dutch terms causing a literal, sometimes incomprehensible, translation of the Dutch term into English.

Here’s a typical example: The word eventueel in Dutch means potentially (like eventuel in French) and not eventually, which is uiteindelijk in Dutch. This mistake caused a row between the Scottish and Belgian football associations when the Belgian football association invited delegates from various associations over for the “eventual qualification of the Belgian national football team” before the play-offs against Scotland started. While the Scottish federation accused the Belgians of sheer arrogance, the Belgian association had actually meant to hold the drink after a “possible qualification”

Here are a couple to avoid:

  • ‘Do you have good contact with him?’ Makes you think about physical contact! It should be ‘Do you get on well with him’
  • I was with 5 people in the meeting? ’ This sounds as if there were 6 in total. It should be ‘There were 5 of us in the meeting.”
  • ‘Where are you thinking of / Where are you laughing about?’ Should be ‘What are you thinking of/laughing abou? ”
  • ‘I know him for 5 years.’ It should be ‘I have known him for 5 years.’
  • ‘If he would have worked harder, he had succeeded.’ It should be ‘If he had worked harder, he would have succeeded.

Of course translating expressions word for word can cause hysterical results. This video called “The ‘inburgerings’course ” illustrates the point perfectly.

Effective writing workshop

How professional is your business writing really?

Have an expert brush up your writing and learn how to write emails, reports, memos and minutes of meetings with confidence in three half-day workshops. Use more sophisticated vocabulary, be more persuasive and avoid those tricky grammar pitfalls.

  • Pre-course analysis of your own writing
  • What common errors do you make?  Become aware of your own pitfalls.
  • Do you want to sounds more formal or use more jargon, be polite or more casual? Learn to switch between styles with the vocabulary that goes with it.
  • How to approach a longer piece of writing from organization through to the final result.
  • Communicate with a native speaker in their own style. Learn a few phrases to make you sound more approachable.
  • Words to impress. Used carefully they can be very persuasive.

Intensive format. Three workshops of 3 hours. Individual or groups up to a maximum of 4.Phone 06 156 94 629 for futherdetails or mail though contact us.

Contact for Enquiries

Please contact our course coordinator on 06 156 94 629.

Alternatively, you can mail us (contact form).