Berlin Book Nook Language Tutors (a.k.a. Syntactium) grew out of The Berlin Book Nook, a second-hand English-language bookshop in Berlin, Germany, known for the quality of its collection and cosiness of its atmosphere. But enough about books.
A few years ago, Alexander Hamilton, the shop’s founder and owner, and a linguist by profession and inclination, started offering one-to-one German lessons at the book shop. Alexander grew up speaking English, Russian and French, studied Russian, Czech and Slovak at Oxford University, where he earnt a degree in Modern Languages, and spent many years working in the translation business, having set up his own agency in 2006. He has amassed decades of practical, academic, and professional experience with language and languages.
An enthusiastic language learner himself, Alexander also spent years developing his own language-learning techniques, and his eventual plunge into teaching gave him the opportunity to try these out on others. The number of students grew quickly, mostly by word of mouth. Feedback was very positive, with some students saying that they had learnt more in just a couple lessons with him than they had in months of German classes.
Syntactium is the name given to the website (much shorter than Berlin Book Nook Language Tutors!), but also reflects the importance to language learning of syntax - how sentences are formed.