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At Language Institute TaalTaal, we believe that you will get the most out of your language course if we don't just work on building the knowledge, but also help you practice your new skills, retain what you've learned and refine all aspects so that you'll ultimately get mistaken for a native speaker.

That is quite a challenge, but one we can take on together! For this purpose, the department TaalTaal Advanced Applied Linguistics (T.A.A.L.) has been launched. This research department has as its mission the development of novel courses and initiatives to give you the opportunity to achieve those goals.

Current Projects

The latest project of T.A.A.L. is the course Smooth Dutch, which addresses some subtle but high-frequency issues of Dutch grammar, such as articles (the infamous 'de' and 'het').

The emphasis of this course is on those elements that come naturally for native speakers, but for which almost no actual rules exist. A different approach is necessary to get one's Dutch to sound "real" because ironically (or tragically), it's exactly these minor errors that will keep one's Dutch sounding "foreign".

At the start of 2014, the project All-You-Can-Talk was started. Aimed at giving students the opportunity to speak in an informal yet structured setting, it is the perfect supplement to a regular course. In regular classes, students are always told to try to speak the language outside of class, but unfortunately most rarely get the opportunity. It is a practical gap for which TaalTaal has a solution in store. It is currently available for Dutch, English and Spanish. It will give you that extra edge.

And that, the extra edge, is exactly the whole purpose of the department TaalTaal Advanced Applied Linguistics: developing courses that address all the subtle nuances that do not get a lot of attention during regular classes since they are not absolutely necessary for one's theoretical understanding of a language. Yet, for you, a person who won't be satisfied with anything less than a natural command of the language, it is highly desirable.

The Team

T.A.A.L. works with a team of driven researchers to generate processes, exercises and guidelines based on the most recent insights from both our own teachers and the broader academic world. With expertise across the spectrum, TaalTaal as an institute can craft a complete and unique course program. TaalTaal is able and willing to go that extra mile for its students.