German is the mother tongue of about a 100 million Europeans and is spoken, according to estimates, by another 80 million people worldwide as a foreign language. It is the second most commonly used scientific language as well as the language of literary mastery and philosophy. Knowledge of German opens up a whole world of opportunities, for jobs in Germany as well as in multinational companies, for specialist vocations like tourism, where German-speaking tourists are the world’s biggest spenders, and for advanced research and studies.

Millions of people around the world are learning German as a foreign language and one of the main centres is the Goethe-Institut, with its headoffice in Munich. The Institute runs 129 centres across 80 countries, besides the 13 centres within Germany. There are nine centres of the Goethe-Institut in South Asia, six across India and one each in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Colombo. From extensive to super-intensive courses, professional courses and distance learning programmes, there are diverse options of learning, improving and continuing with the practice and use of German in everyday life.