Customer case: "Speaking French helps me find new projects!

Jef is Product Manager at Brussels Airport Company and owner of the company DREX. He wanted to improve his French to communicate more fluently with his colleagues, both formally about their projects and informally about daily life. Jef had a good basic knowledge of French, but mainly lacked vocabulary and mastery of more complex structures to express himself fluently in professional context.

During the last class, Jef answered (in French, of course!) some questions about his experiences during the training.

What difficulty did you come to Landa with?

"The most difficult thing for me was the conditional tense (conditionnel) in French. I use that a lot in English, e.g. "if we would have done this, then we could have done this," and for my work I have to be able to express myself in French in that way as well. In addition, my vocabulary before the training was not very extensive."

In what area did the language training help you the most? What was the greatest added value? You already mentioned the conditionnel and an expansion of vocabulary. Are there other things?

"We didn't always do exercises, we also just had conversations and that also helped a lot to learn to express myself in everyday life, to have small talk with colleagues during the break."

Great. And remember after 10 hours of French lessons you asked me, "is it normal that I feel my French is not as good now as it was before I started the lessons?"

"Yes, absolutely!"

How has that evolved?

"That's better now. It was a lot in the beginning because there are so many rules in French. As that we made more exercises, I could also apply the rules better during the conversations and I wasn't in my head so much. I also realized then that it is not possible and necessary to master all the rules perfectly, but may be pragmatic during a conversation at work."

Indeed, during classes you were so focused on grammar rules in the beginning that you lost yourself a bit in conversations, because at a certain point you were more concerned with form than content. How do you feel now when you speak French at work?

"I feel more confident, I think also because I told my colleagues that I want to learn French and that they can correct me. And they respect this a lot. This helps! And I wouldn't have dared to say this without the lessons."

What did you think of the length of the training? You took 30 hours: two times 60 minutes a week?

"I think two hours a week is the minimum for me. When we had weeks with 1 hour, I noticed it was harder to make progress. I also didn't always manage to practice much in addition to the lessons. The result would have been even better if I had been able to do this."

To whom do you recommend this type of class? 

"To people like me. I work with Dutch and French speakers in Brussels, and speaking French helps tremendously to find new projects. I wanted to take classes at Landa because it's through Teams. Classes in the evening take too much time for me. The online classes are ideal because I schedule them when it's convenient for me."

Thanks for the fun collaboration, Jef!