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Berufssprachkurs offered by Arbeitsamt any good?
My major concern is that for a 500 hour course they expect only an increase from B1 to B2. That's the equivalent of seven years of British school (in which time I got from NO french to a solid B2, bordering on C1) Which is a bit fast for Cambridge.org estimates (which estimates 750 hours) so I'm assuming I'm good at languages (or it was the vigour of youth). So disregarding that and going off the equivalent averages:
Cambridge.org suggests as a motivated adult with access to good teaching it should only take 180 hours to get to B2 for the average person. 400-500 hours should be enough to make C1 from here. And yet the course thinks we'll only get to B2.
How bad are these courses? Or am I missing something? Has anyone done one of these and can tell me whether it was decent? Which methods are they using and did they work for people?
If I'm committing four hours a day to this I want to actually see progress rather than just draining my batteries for the equivalent of doing a couple of grammar exercises and watching Sendung mit der Maus.
Yeah the speed thing is real, but not for the reasons you think. The B2 telc exam has a very specific format with specific tasks they want you to do, and half the course is just drilling that exact format over and over. You'll spend weeks just practicing the "Beschwerdebrief" structure and the "Gespräch simulieren" patterns. It's not really about learning German, it's about learning the test. If you're already comfortable speaking, you'll find it painfully slow.
The attendance thing is the bigger issue honestly. They check in every single day and if
The 500-hour estimate is actually realistic for these courses, not because the teaching is bad, but because they have to cover a lot of classroom time that isn't pure language instruction. You'll get a lot of "Berufsorientierung" modules where you write fake emails to HR or practice Telefonate, plus the telc exam preparation itself eats up weeks. The tempo is also set by the slowest person in the room, which in a group funded by the Jobcenter tends to be someone who hasn't studied in twenty years.
I did one last year at BSI in Wedding and the actual grammar input was maybe 200 hours of solid learning packed into that 500-hour frame. The rest was roleplays, group work, and waiting for the teacher to help the slow learners. If you're genuinely good at languages you'll be bored, but you'll still pass the B2 telc because the exam itself is pretty formulaic. The real trick is to use the free time during those slow parts to drill your own vocab or read Berliner Zeitung articles on your phone.
Your health concerns are valid though. Four hours a day plus commute is draining, and they take attendance seriously. If you miss more than 10% without a doctor's note they can cut your benefits or demand the money back. You might want to ask if a Teilzeit option exists, some schools offer 20-hour versions of the same course.
look man it's a arbeitsamt course, not the goethe institut. you're paying zero euro for it so yeah it's gonna be a bit of a drag. the real question is do you have a better option right now? if you're sitting at home doing nothing, take it
What is the correct spelling for a street name that appears differently on multiple signs in Charlottenburg?
Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.
if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point
honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.
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