Blog & News

Our best quality and price guarantee

When buying or booking anything online, we know it’s important to know you are getting the best price and quality available, and that your booking is secure and guaranteed. That’s why the team at eurolanguages.com got together and designed a policy for quality and security, and even added an unbeatable price guarantee, so you can be confident that you’re getting the best deal available anywhere.

Read the full details here.

Two European language learning start ups join forces

Dublin & Madrid, Sept 2009. The team at eurolanguages.com are delighted to announce their partnership with Busuu.com, a leading provider of online language learning communities.

This exciting European partnership seamlessly connects the emerging and exciting area of online language tuition, with an innovative way of booking the more traditional area of offline, school based classroom tuition. In addition to the free online course content offered in several languages, and interactive peer to peer learning through video chat, the 150,000 members of Busuu.com now have the opportunity to search, compare and confirm the best quality language schools throughout Europe, using independent student reviews as a guide.

Commenting on the launch, Peter Hutchinson, co-founder of Eurolanguages.com said “We are delighted that members of busuu.com now have the opportunity to book the best quality offline courses, at the best available prices”, and Bernhard Niesner, co-Founder of busuu.com added “The offer of language courses abroad on our platform perfectly complements the learning needs of our students”.

The partnership has already achieved it’s first success shortly after launch – with several students of busuu.com already booked on courses such as “Surfing & Spanish in Andalusia” and “Wine Tasting & Italian in the Toscana”. This agreement shows the perfect integration of complementary services between two innovative European start-ups within the emerging online language learning industry.

About Eurolanguages.com

Launched in September 2008, Eurolanguages.com (http://www.eurolanguages.com) was developed by two co-founders who recognised how difficult it was to find credible information on the variety of language schools available. Searching on Google wasn’t helpful, and the myriad of school, agency and portal sites often presented conflicting content and pricing. Taking their inspiration from Hostelworld.com, the team at Eurolanguages now have over 85 independently rated and reviewed school partners, teaching 9 languages in 13 countries live and available to book online. In addition to their commitment to quality, Eurolanguages also guarantee the best prices available anywhere.

About busuu.com
busuu.com (http://www.busuu.com) is a free online community for learning languages. Users have access to audio-visual learning material covering more than 150 different day-to-day topics. Additionally, language skills can be directly improved together with native speakers from around the world. Users practice their conversational skills by connecting via an integrated video-chat with other native speakers of the community. Each user is not only “student” of a foreign language but also a “tutor” of his own mother tongue.

The start-up was founded in Madrid at the beginning of 2008 and has currently more than 150,000 users from over 200 different countries.

In the year 2008, busuu.com was accepted as a project for the UNESCO´s International Year of Languages. As part of this commitment, busuu.com launched a campaign to rescue the nearly extinct whistled language Silbo Gomero (http://www.busuu.com/silbo) for which it received a Silver Lion in the International Marketing Festival in Cannes in May 2009.

The name of the site comes from the Busuu language of Cameroon, which according to an ethnological study from the 80s is only spoken by 8 people.

Eurolanguages.com partners with Hostelworld.com

The team at Eurolanguages.com are delighted to announce the launch of our partnership with Hostelworld.com, a leading provider of online reservations to the budget, independent and youth travel market.

Hostelworld.com is the market leading brand for hostel reservations and has processed 15 million bookings since launch. It offers confirmed online reservations for over 20,000 hostels and budget hotels in 170 countries worldwide. The site also offers budget travelers over 2 million user reviews, free podcasts, customized city guides, a travel social network and more.

As part of our partnership, Eurolanguages.com will be enabling Hostelworld customers to search, compare and confirm their place at the best quality and priced language courses across Europe, on the new Travel Store which launched on Hostelworld.com today: http://www.travel-store.hostelworld.com. Peter Hutchinson of Eurolanguages.com commented on the launch “this really is an exciting day for language travel. The partnership with Hostelworld means many more people will find it easier to find a decent language course at a fair price”.

Round the world on a bike for a good cause

We recently spent some time in Turkey, seeing the country and meeting with some schools, and were lucky enough to run into two sets of people who are on amazing adventures.

On a bicyle

We met Stephen Allen at the ferry terminal from Rhodes to Marmaris and immediately noticed that he was alone with a bicycle and a load of gear. After a few minutes of chatting we discovered that he is on a round-the-world trip, cycling, and on his own. He had been on the road for about 8 months at that stage, having started in Colorado, USA, and expects to be “on the road” for another year. One of the motivations behind Stephen’s trip is to show that people with epilepsy can still lead active lifestyles, and as he has epilepsy himself it is the perfect way to lead by example.

You can read more and check out Stephen’s progress on the trip map on his website, www.seizetheworld.com (aptly named!), and find out more about epilepsy and how to support.

On a motorbike

We met Sam and Lou in Cappadocia, an amazingly beautiful part of Turkey. They were on their way through after having started their round-the-world motorbike trip in Dubai and having just come through Iran and Syria. Sam’s KTM Adventure 990 and Lou’s BMW F650 GS Dakar are the perfect bikes for such a trip and they have them well loaded to allow them to travel for as long as they want. As they go they are raising awareness for WWF and will visit some of WWF’s global projects.

Their funky website, www.aroadlesstravelled.net, has information about them and their trip and is well worth a visit.

Love food? Love languages? Foodie linguist heaven

We all love a great holiday. Some like the sun and some like the snow, but we all love to soak up the culture and feast on the local food and wine. The team at Eurolanguages.com has compiled a list of the top 3 European language and cooking courses on offer, to help you brush up on your language skills while learning local cooking techniques and tasting the fantastic local delicacies. All three can be booked online in two simple steps.

Eat, cook and learn French in Montpellier!

Surely there is nothing better than spending a week in the south of France, perfecting your passé compose in the morning, followed by cooking and eating the best French fare in the afternoon? The joys of understanding the full French menu on a sun soaked restaurant terrace await you, while still having time to enjoy the rest and the best that Montpellier has to offer. This course includes 20 French lessons in the morning, and two afternoons of cooking per week – go on, soak up the sun in language and foodie heaven.  1 week costs just €405 - .

Love, live and learn Italian and cooking in Florence!

The romance of Italian food and culture is famous the world over, with many secrets and myths about the best recipes and best ingredients. Italians are very proud of their culture, their language and their food, and take each one very seriously. Why not indulge yourself in the best Italian language and cooking course in one of the more romantic cities of Florence. This course includes 20 Italian language lessons in the morning, and two full afternoons of local cooking from pasta to meats, and breads to desserts. Courses start from €480 for one week.

Soak up southern Spain and its food in Granada!

Experience Granada, the last Muslim Kingdom in Spain, and learn about the Arabic legacy still prevailing in the succulent gastronomy of this beautiful region.  In the capable hands of local chef and expert Javier Vilchez you will learn about the best local food and produce, while perfecting your Spanish language skills, so you can really enjoy every aspect of life in southern Spain. This course includes 20 Spanish lessons in the morning and two 3 hour cooking lessons twice a week in the afternoons.  Prices start from €270 per week.

Even the Guardian knows about us

We were featured in a short piece in the travel section of the Guardian.co.uk. In the article the author also makes a funny comment on how Eurolanguages might have saved the Irish police from getting into an embarrasing situation (well worth a read!!).

“Eurolanguages.com is a very easy to use new site created to help travellers find language schools across the continent.”

See the article here.

A very happy student

This month we sent Gary Quinn, a journalist from The Irish Times to Centro Internacional de Español MELKART in Cádiz, Spain to learn Spanish and Surfing. He told us that he had a wonderful time, and that both his Spanish teacher and his surfing teacher Lima were excellent.

Gary wrote a great article about the expercience in the travel section of The Irish Times that anyone thinking about learning a language should read. You can read the full article here, and here’s a short extract.

“Building a holiday around a language school has a lot of benefits: you can go alone and know that you’ll meet new friends; you get to learn about the city and country that you’re in from the people who live there; and you forsake lounging by the pool for thinking like a local – and, without realising it, have built a siesta into your day and forgotten you ever needed a map to get around.

In short, you become immersed in a culture rather than simply looking at it through a camera lens, and you come away not only proud of yourself for learning a new language but also deeply attached to the place you have been in. Of course, choosing the right school and location matters, and this is where a good organiser such as Eurolanguages.com comes in.”

Eurolanguages now available in Japanese

We’re delighted to announce that we have translated Eurolanguages into Japanese. And to celebrate this, here is one of my personal favourite Japanese animations of all time.

Enjoy!

The original animation can be found here.

Congratulations to Ronny in the marathon

We were very proud to sponsor Ronny in running the Vienna half marathon last weekend. After 21km and 2 hours 9 minutes he crossed the finish line in his super cool t-shirt that we designed for him. Well done!

Watch school videos

When comparing language schools it is important to know what you want and to be able to get a good feel of what it would be like to study at the school. That is why each school is rated and reviewed by previous students that have studied there.

We are now adding videos for each school so that you can get a better picture of what the atmsphere is like at the school and to help you decide on which school to go to. Just look for the School Video button under the school photos on each school’s profile page.

Now that is a bargain - 5% off all courses until April 17th

We are delighted to be able to launch a fantastic offer which is unavailable anywhere else, and means you can actually book your language course for cheaper here than by booking direct with a language school. That’s right, we’re offering you 5% off every course listed on our site until the 17th of April - just have a browse around and you’ll see the fantastic offers… the cheapest place to book a language course online. So why not learn French, Italian, Spanish or German right now…

So Many Activities!

What could be better at this time of year than taking off for a few weeks to the south of Spain and learning how to surf while learning Spanish. Or learn about wine tasting with French in the south of France.

On our activities page you can now browse activities that you can learn with our language courses, such as local cooking and dance, surfing, skiing, culture, wine tasting, art, tennis, golf, horse riding and activities for over 50s.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

This joke is possibly the oldest (and worst) joke you might hear in English speaking countries. The punchline, as you probably already know, is “to get to the other side”. But how would have the some of the most influential people in our history have interpreted this question?

Plato: For the greater good.

Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.

Niccolò Machiavelli: So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken’s dominion maintained.

Hippocrates: Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its pancreas.

Thomas de Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I’ll find out.

Douglas Adams: Forty-two.

Carl Jung: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

Aristotle: To actualize its potential.

Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.

Salvador Dali: The Fish.

Charles Darwin: It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.

Emily Dickinson: Because it could not stop for death.

Epicurus: For fun.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: It didn’t cross the road; it transcended it.

Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain.

Werner Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast.

Pyrrho the Skeptic: What road?

Ronald Reagan: I forget.

Mr. T: If you saw me coming you’d cross the road too!

Molly Yard: It was a hen!

Zeno of Elea: To prove it could never reach the other side.

William Wordsworth: To wander lonely as a cloud.

The Godfather: I didn’t want its mother to see it like that.

John Keats: Philosophy will clip a chicken’s wings.

Othello: Jealousy.

Dr. Johnson: Sir, had you known the Chicken for as long as I have, you would not so readily enquire, but feel rather the Need to resist such a public Display of your own lamentable and incorrigible Ignorance.

Margaret Thatcher: This chicken’s not for turning.

Oscar Wilde: Why, indeed? One’s social engagements whilst in town ought never expose one to such barbarous inconvenience - although, perhaps, if one must cross a road, one may do far worse than to cross it as the chicken in question.

Franz Kafka: Hardly the most urgent enquiry to make of a low-grade insurance clerk who woke up that morning as a hen.

Jonathan Swift: It is, of course, inevitable that such a loathsome, filth-ridden and degraded creature as Man should assume to question the actions of one in all respects his superior.

Macbeth: To have turned back were as tedious as to go o’er.

Freud: An die andere Seite zu kommen. (Much laughter)

Hamlet: That is not the question.

Learn French, Spanish and English with Free Podcasts

There are tons of free language learning resources on the internet, but one of our favourites by far is podcasts. The great thing about them is that you can learn French, Spanish, English or whatever your language of choice is anytime and anywhere with any mp3 player.

One of the best places to find free language podcasts is on iTunes. Just browse to Podcasts -> Education -> Language Courses and you’ll find over 30 languages for free!!

A great way to get started learning a language before you go abroad and do a language course.

Happy learning!

¿Cuántas ciudades hay en el mundo con el nombre Newcastle…?

… pues son 30 y sin embargo, si le preguntas a los habitantes de esta ciudad, te dirán que sólo hay una Newcastle Ciudad de la fiesta

Situada al noroeste de Inglaterra, la ciudad de Newcastle es famosa por muchas razones, pero sobre todo por su marcha nocturna y por el ambiente de fiesta que se respira en cada momento.


Cada mes, miles de estudiantes llegan a la ciudad para disfrutar de su variada lista de cosas por hacer y de la excelente calidad de la enseñanza. Pero el encanto de Newcastle no está sólo en su marcha nocturna, sino también en su gran oferta de actividades culturales. Y, por supuesto, ¿cómo íbamos a olvidarnos de su famoso equipo de fútbol, el Newcastle United? Uno de los más importantes en la lista futbolera!!

La escuela más popular de la ciudad, IH Newcastle pertenece a International House, una red de escuelas de idiomas que opera en todo el mundo y que sólo acepta centros de enseñanza que cumplen con muy buenos niveles de calidad.

Sin embargo, la calidad de la enseñanza no es la única razón por la que los estudiantes vuelven a IH Newcastle, sino también por el buen ambiente que tiene la escuela entre estudiantes y profesores. Son profesionales jóvenes que saben atender las necesidades y situaciones de los alumnos.

Gracias a las actividades culturales y la cantidad de cosas que se pueden hacer, los estudiantes no se sienten que están fuera de sus casas y tienen siempre algo interesante que ver y conocer, lo que les permite llevar más llevadera la vida en otro país.

EuroLanguages.com te da la oportunidad de que puedas vivir una experiencia inolvidable y divertida en esta ciudad y en otras partes de Europa, ya que Eurolanguages.com ofrece a la gente como tú cursos de inglés general o de inglés para los negocios en IH Newcastle y muchas otras escuelas de Europa. EuroLanguages te ofrece la manera más sencilla de encontrar, comparar y reservar cursos de idiomas en Europa. Además asesora a cada estudiante individualmente según sus necesidades. ¿Todavía dudas en vivir una experiencia de este tipo a la vez que aprender un idioma?

¿Aún no sabes qué regalarle a tu amigo, novia o primo por Navidad? Pues anímate y regálale un cheque regalo para un curso de idiomas. Los hay desde 10 euros.

¿!Cómo se dice botellón en inglés!?

¿Sabías que Dublín es una ciudad con una gran tradición de cerveza y donde está ubicada una de las fábricas más prestigiosas del mundo, la fábrica GUINNESS?

Cada mes, miles de chicos como tú viajan para divertirse, y aprender, a esta ciudad.  Porque Dublín no sólo es un lugar para aprender inglés divirtiéndote, sino también una ciudad donde la cultura de su gente, sus calles medievales, su tradicional cerveza y sus conciertos hacen que este lugar se convierta en mágico!! Te apuntarías a esta aventura????

Una de las escuelas más populares de Dublín para aprender y divertirte al mismo tiempo es la ISI Ireland, que está en el centro de Dublín y a la que asisten cada año miles de estudiantes. Aquí aprenderás un inglés excelente gracias a la profesionalidad de los profesores y a los diferentes niveles de cursos que existen.

Pero no sólo será estudiar, las instalaciones de la escuela facilitan a todos sus estudiantes Internet gratis y conexión WiFi. Así podrás relacionarte con todos tus compañeros y quedar para luego iros a recorrer los pubs de la ciudad! Y si la idea te mola, también podrás conocer las instalaciones de la fábrica Guinness.

Eurolanguages es la forma más simple y fácil de encontrar, comparar y confirmar escuelas de idiomas en toda Europa. Además asesora a cada estudiante individualmente según sus necesidades. 
¿Aún no sabes qué regalarle a tu amigo, novia o primo por Navidad? Pues anímate y regálale un cheque regalo a través. Los hay desde 10 y hasta 100 euros.

Language courses on your iPhone

These days lots of websites seem to be creating iPhone specific sites that fit nicely into the small screen and act similarly to an iPhone application. Some are very practical, such as 101 Cookbooks, but some also defeat the purpose of the iPhone browser which is to allow you to view a website as it would appear on any desktop or laptop computer.

We have made some modifications to eurolanguages.com so that now when you view it on your iPhone you can see the entire site, bells and whistles included, exactly as you would on your computer. So you don’t lose any of the functionality and design.

And if you want to learn languages straight from your iPhone then go to iTunes and browse to the Podcasts -> Education -> Language Courses section where you can learn over 30 languages for free!!

And the winner is…

This Thursday we will be attending the Golden Spider Awards, Ireland’s biggest internet and digital media awards ceremony.

Eurolanguages.com has been shortlisted to the top 8 in the Travel & Tourism category, and we’ve already booked our table, reserved our tuxedos and well, we haven’t build a display case just yet. But we are excited about the night and about meeting Des Bishop, and we will let you know how it goes.

500 language courses and counting!

We may not have built the world’s largest ice cream sundae like our pals Ben & Jerry, but we have reached a milestone of having over 500 language courses in 7 different languages on eurolanguages.com!

We especially like interesting language courses that will make for a more exciting experience, and some that we already have include:

• Italian and Skiing (between January and March)
• Spanish and Surfing (year round)
• French and Philosophy (intermediate to advanced)
• English and Horse Riding (in an approved riding centre)
  

If you have any suggestions for courses you would like to see then please leave us a comment below!

Wow - Madrid is very cool…

We’ve just returned from a week in Spain that took in Salamanca and Madrid via the Rueda wine area. Although we were there on official business taking part in the Fedele workshop and meeting some of our fantastic Spanish school partners, we still managed to visit loads of tapas bars and have a really good time.

While we were there we were treated like visiting royalty, with gorgeous meals most nights, and some spectacular tours including a private viewing of the Thyssen museum and Real Madrid’s Bernabeu stadium. We really enjoyed the welcome the local Spanish people gave us too, and particularly the experience and simplicity of a few beers and few tapas watching Real versus Athletico Madrid - what a great time we had…

Shakespearean Insults

Confuse and insult your friends at the same time by saying the word “you” (or thou) followed by any word in the first, then second and then third column.

Column 1            Column 2            Column 3 

artless             base-court          apple-john 
bawdy               bat-fowling         baggage 
beslubbering        beef-witted         barnacle 
bootless            beetle-headed       bladder 
churlish            boil-brained        boar-pig 
cockered            clapper-clawed      bugbear 
clouted             clay-brained        bum-bailey 
craven              common-kissing      canker-blossom 
currish             crook-pated         clack-dish 
dankish             dismal-dreaming     clotpole 
dissembling         dizzy-eyed          coxcomb 
droning             doghearted          codpiece 
errant              dread-bolted        death-token 
fawning             earth-vexing        dewberry 
fobbing             elf-skinned         flap-dragon 
froward             fat-kidneyed        flax-wench 
frothy              fen-sucked          flirt-gill 
gleeking            flap-mouthed        foot-licker 
goatish             fly-bitten          fustilarian 
gorbellied          folly-fallen        giglet 
impertinent         fool-born           gudgeon 
infectious          full-gorged         haggard 
jarring             guts-griping        harpy 
loggerheaded        half-faced          hedge-pig 
lumpish             hasty-witted        horn-beast 
mammering           hedge-born          hugger-mugger 
mangled             hell-hated          joithead 
mewling             idle-headed         lewdster 
paunchy             ill-breeding        lout
pribbling           ill-nurtured        maggot-pie 
puking              knotty-pated        malt-worm 
puny                milk-livered        mammet 
qualling            motley-minded       measle
rank                onion-eyed          minnow 
reeky               plume-plucked       miscreant   
roguish             pottle-deep         moldwarp         
ruttish             pox-marked          mumble-news 
saucy               reeling-ripe        nut-hook 
spleeny             rough-hewn          pigeon-egg
spongy              rude-growing        pignut
surly               rump-fed            puttock 
tottering           shard-borne         pumpion 
unmuzzled           sheep-biting        ratsbane 
vain                spur-galled         scut 
venomed             swag-bellied        skainsmate 
villainous          tardy-gaited        strumpet 
warped              tickle-brained      varlet 
wayward             toad-spotted        vassal 
weedy               unchin-snouted      whey-face 
yeasty              weather-bitten      wagtail

Yay, Mashable.com loves us!

We just got reviewed by a well respected site called Mashable.com that reviews “everything that’s new on the web”. Naturally we were a bit nervous and excited to hear their reaction, but boy did they like us. They said learning how to use eurolanguages.com took “absolutely no time” and was “intuitive from the get go”, and that the information we supply is “highly useful”. This is fantastic news, and a good sign we’re on the right track. Hopefully more to come....

Italian & Skiing? Yes please…

As we move later into Autumn, and the days are getting colder, I’m starting to dream of my next holiday. However, instead of a beach break or a New York shopping trip, I’m thinking of doing something a little more exciting this year. I always wanted to try skiing but have been either too lazy or too scared to get it sorted. Now, thanks our friends at the L’Italiano Porticando school In Torino, I think I’ve found the perfect opportunity. What better way than to combine it with a 1 week Italian course in the spring? It’s such good value too, check it out. 

Inspiring teachers

“It is not enough to question authority… you got to speak with it, too!” - Taylor Mali

Slam poetry is a high energy, immediately accessible type of poetry that can really get a message across.  Taylor Mali is an inspiring poet who passionately speaks the truth about what it means to be a teacher. 

In this video he reminds us of the responsibility and influence of teachers, and their importance in the education and growth of our society.

Spanish & Surfing anyone?

I’ve always wanted to learn Spanish, and frankly I need to, so what better way than taking the Spanish & Surfing course at the Galfir school on Tenerife!. Although, I’ve always fancied myself against the bulls in Pamplona, so I might check out the Pamplona Learning Institute along the way. 

The times they are a changin’

It’s a pretty tall order but we’re giving it a go. No, we’re not trying to beat the the one handed Rubik’s cube world record.

We’re trying to change the way people choose and buy language course places. In doing so, we’re trying to make it simpler and fairer for everyone concerned. So, if you want to learn English, Spanish or any of the European languages we hope we’ll be the number one place you’ll turn. We still have a few bits and bobs to fix, but we hope we’ll be ready by April. Fingers crossed. 

Website Launch Coming Soon

The development of the website has been considerably stepped up with new features being added all the time.  School searches are still in beta stage but we expect this to last only until August.