Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (UNIVERSITY OF LEUVEN)

During my year in Leuven I improve my english since I did not know, before my stay, law technical english. I already adance english since before I had have some experiences abroad (USA 3 months, New Zealand 3 months and England 3 months). I also learnd some french even thouhgt it was not the local languaje.

In terms of languages, the academic side involved english-taught courses. Having a bilingual diploma I am completely fluent in English, hence having no difficulties academically. Dutch, the language spoken in Leuven was unknown to me before going to Belgium. Since my stay wasn't for too long I didn't get involved in Dutch courses. In terms of French, spoken in Brussels and widely throughout part of Belgium, I had everyday knowledge that was further developed.

everyone spoke english, but not at ease. I could easily comunicate, but not improve my english. I tried to learn flemmish, but had to quit the classes because of my final project. I understand a little but speak almost nothing of flemmish/dutch.

Leuven is in Flanders, so they speake Dutch and (at least to latin language speakers) was a very difficult thing to learn. But that is no problem because everybody speaks English and so it's very easy to make a conversation with anybody

As the language of instruction was English, I did not have problems in class. Communication was not a problem in the host country, since people generally understood English if there was something I could not communicate in Dutch.

We had a term-long mandatory course in Elementary Dutch twice a week with a couple of cultural trips to different cities, where we were forced to use Dutch. Since we were living in the Flemish culture, it was much easier to get used to hearing the language and to practicing it. On the other hand, you would be perfectly fine with English since the majority of the population speaks it fluently.