Terms and Conditions

1. Who may book

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account or to book. A parent or guardian may book a course for a child in their own name; they are then our contracting party and responsible for the child’s participation.

The information you give us — your name and email address in particular — must be correct and kept up to date. Your account is personal: keep your password to yourself, and tell us straight away if you think someone else has used it.

2. What we offer

Courses: live German lessons in small groups, held online. Every course has a set level, a set number of sessions, fixed dates and times — always shown with their time zone — and a fixed price, all shown on the course page before you book.

Speaking clubs (memberships): live speaking sessions in small groups, billed monthly — for example one or two sessions a week — as described on the plans page. What a plan includes, such as the number of sessions per month, is what that page states when you subscribe.

Entry Call + Diagnosis: a paid 25-minute one-to-one call to assess your German and recommend the right programme. You choose the day that suits when you book; we confirm the exact time by email.

Sessions take place on Zoom. The joining link appears in your student portal or, for the Entry Call, in the email confirming its time. You need a stable internet connection, a current browser or the video service’s app, and a microphone; a camera is recommended.

3. How a booking is made

The course and plan pages are not binding offers; they invite you to book. By completing payment you make a binding offer for the place or membership shown. The contract is concluded when your payment succeeds and we confirm it: we send the confirmation, with your schedule, by email.

A place is yours only once your payment has succeeded. If the last place on a course is taken while your payment is still being processed, we refund you in full, automatically, and you owe us nothing.

The contract language is English or German, whichever you use on the site. You receive the details of your contract in your confirmation email, and you can see your bookings in the student portal.

4. Prices and payment

Prices are shown in euros and are final prices: they include value-added tax where it applies. Whether VAT is charged, and at what rate, is stated on your invoice.

If you pay with a card in another currency, your bank may charge a conversion fee; we have no influence on it.

You pay by card, or by another method offered at checkout, through our payment provider Stripe. A course and an Entry Call are paid once, in full, when you book. A membership is paid in advance for each billing period and renews automatically until you cancel it.

You receive an invoice by email for every payment.

5. Your right of withdrawal (for consumers)

If you book as a consumer, you have the right to withdraw from this contract within 14 days without giving any reason. This is the right the consumer laws of the United Kingdom (the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013) and of the European Union give you, and we give it to consumers wherever they live. The withdrawal period is 14 days from the day the contract is concluded.

To exercise your right of withdrawal, you must inform us (Use Your German, see our Legal notice; email: contact@useyourgerman.com) of your decision to withdraw from this contract by an unequivocal statement, for example an email. You may use the model withdrawal form below, but you do not have to. To meet the withdrawal deadline, it is sufficient to send your statement before the withdrawal period has expired.

Effects of withdrawal: if you withdraw from this contract, we will reimburse all payments received from you without undue delay and in any event no later than 14 days from the day on which we are informed of your decision. We use the same means of payment you used for the original transaction, unless you have expressly agreed otherwise; in any event, you will not incur any fees as a result of the reimbursement.

If you requested that the service begin during the withdrawal period — for example because your course starts within 14 days — you shall pay us an amount proportionate to what has been provided until you have communicated your withdrawal, in comparison with the full coverage of the contract.

Your right of withdrawal expires early if we have provided the service in full and you expressly agreed, before we began, that we start within the withdrawal period, acknowledging that you lose your right of withdrawal once the contract has been fully performed.

Model withdrawal form — if you want to withdraw from the contract, complete and return this form: To Use Your German, contact@useyourgerman.com. I/We (*) hereby give notice that I/We (*) withdraw from my/our (*) contract for the provision of the following service (*): … — Ordered on (*): … — Name of consumer(s): … — Address of consumer(s): … — Signature of consumer(s) (only if this form is sent on paper) — Date: … (*) Delete as appropriate.

6. Cancelling a course or an Entry Call — our additional promise

In addition to your legal right of withdrawal, you can cancel a course booking at any time before the course’s first session and receive a full refund — even after the 14 days have passed. Write to contact@useyourgerman.com.

Once the first session has taken place, the course fee is no longer refundable, except where your right of withdrawal (section 5) applies or where we cancel or change the course (section 8).

Sessions you miss can be neither refunded nor carried over to another course.

The Entry Call works the same way: you can cancel it at any time before it takes place and receive a full refund.

7. Memberships: term and cancellation

A membership runs for the billing period shown when you subscribe and renews automatically for the same period. You can cancel it at any time, effective at the end of the current billing period, by writing to contact@useyourgerman.com, or in your student portal once that option is available there. Payments for the current period are not refunded, unless your right of withdrawal applies.

We will tell you about a price change for your membership by email at least 30 days before it takes effect; you can cancel before it applies.

We may end a membership at the end of a billing period with at least 30 days’ notice by email, and immediately for an important reason, such as serious or repeated breaches of these terms.

8. Changes and cancellations on our side

We may move a session for an important reason, such as the teacher’s illness or a technical failure. We tell you as early as we can and offer a replacement date.

If we cannot hold a course at all, or cannot replace a cancelled session, we refund the course fee in full, or the share for the sessions that did not take place.

9. Taking part

Please be on time, treat the teacher and other students with respect, and keep joining links to yourself: a place is for one person.

Participants may not record, photograph or stream sessions without the consent of everyone taking part.

We may exclude a student from a course without refund for serious or repeated disruption, after a warning where one is reasonable.

10. Course materials

The materials we provide are protected by copyright. You may use them for your own learning; you may not share, sell or publish them.

11. Liability

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else the law does not allow us to limit or exclude — including your statutory rights as a consumer, wherever you live.

Otherwise, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking these terms or failing to use reasonable care and skill. We are not responsible for loss or damage that is not foreseeable: it is foreseeable if it is obvious that it will happen, or if both we and you knew it might happen when the contract was made. Our services are for private use; if you book for a business, we are not liable for loss of profit, business or opportunity.

We aim to keep the website and the student portal available at all times, but brief interruptions for maintenance or for technical reasons cannot be ruled out.

12. Your account

You can ask us to close your account at any time by writing to contact@useyourgerman.com. Closing your account does not cancel a running membership; please cancel it as well.

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your personal data.

13. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms for the future. The version in force when you booked applies to that booking. For running memberships, we tell you about changes by email at least 30 days before they take effect; if you do not accept them, you can cancel before they apply.

14. Applicable law and disputes

These terms and all contracts under them are governed by the law of England and Wales. If you are a consumer, this choice of law does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory rules of the country where you habitually reside: if you live in Germany or elsewhere in the European Union, for example, you keep the protection of its consumer law.

You can bring legal proceedings about these terms in the courts of England and Wales, or in the courts of the country where you live where its law allows you to. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you can also bring them in the Scottish or Northern Irish courts.

We are neither obliged nor willing to take part in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board. If something is wrong, please write to us first — most things are solved quickly.

If a provision of these terms is invalid, the other provisions remain in force.