By Delia Dragomir, CEO & Co-Founder Eucom Business Language

I founded Eucom with my husband, Silviu, back in 2002. When I think back on it, we were just a couple of kids, with no experience and no real plan. What we had were courage and stubbornness. Both were paired with a lot of work, sleepless nights, and the willingness to do everything in our company and learn as we go. Now I’m a full-time working mom and I love doing what I do.

If there is something to impart to those who are just starting out or maybe struggling with their own business, is this: nothing is below you. Work hard and learn everything you can, from cleaning the office and doing the taxes to managing your business.

We set up Eucom in order to respond to the needs and challenges of companies that are developing fast and want to integrate into the globalized business environment. All we wanted was to provide foreign language courses in an interactive way, to create a new learning environment, where people can learn and feel good at the same time, and attend the courses with pleasure and be fully involved. It was virtually impossible to find something similar before we started our company.

This brings me to my favourite topic. Why do we need foreign languages? We learn them ​​to increase our self-esteem and to have more self-confidence. We learn them in order to progress, evolve, develop, and gain an understanding of other cultures and customs as a way of becoming the real us. With the help of a foreign language, we can increase our status and access top positions in any company. The positive effects of knowing a foreign language are reflected both in professional life, helping you most of the time in your daily work, and in your personal life.

In this day and age, when the demand for work-from-home jobs has increased tremendously, it is very easy to find a better-paid job working for a company that has headquarters in a different country. But for that, except for the usual qualifications, you need a good grasp of that company’s main language. Even working for a local company, you can get a better position by speaking a foreign language. Also, if you are an entrepreneur, learning English can help you develop your business, find new associates or investors, dive into an international market, or even hire foreigners.

When it comes to our daily lives, we all need English to navigate the Internet and Social Networks and to make online friends with people from other countries. Also, mastering an international language helps us to cope more easily when traveling to another country. This can aid you in booking your own plane tickets, accommodation, and experiences, as well as communicating with locals and diving deeper into a culture you’re not familiar with.

Using our own teaching system, Agile Learning, we combine technology with human interaction. I have always believed that technology can bring us extra points in any field if we know how to use it to our advantage. We launched this program in 2019, and it is an achievement we are very proud of.

Agile Learning is a unique teaching system in Romania that mixes the e-learning platform with human interaction and personalized content. We customize each individual course to meet the needs of the participants and are concerned with understanding the objectives and the requirements that exist as good as possible right from the start. That means that we check on the participants’ language level, their desires, and the environment they work in, so that, through our courses, we offer them exactly what they need to develop personally and professionally. Starting from here, we build the most suitable program and focus on their feedback.

Of course, the pandemic affected us as well, but it also gave us a great opportunity to use our teaching system, which goes perfectly with the "new normal" of doing everything from home. We've been holding online classes since before 2020 through this program and the great thing is, the learners are not doing this by themselves. Studies show us that e-learning does not work very well, yet people are interested in platforms, and combining that with constant interaction with a trainer with an emphasis on the speaking part is an ideal way to learn a foreign language. It also gives you flexibility when it comes to studying because you can do it in smaller 'bits', with exercises that you can do quickly and from anywhere.

Talking about flexibility, if you think you’re too old to start learning a new language, think again. It is true that a child assimilates a foreign language much faster than an adult, but the main culprit is not what you think it is. The issue is actually time, or more accurately, the lack of it. An adult is busy, has a job, children, and a lot of commitments, and it's harder to squeeze some time for study into this busy schedule. But once you decide to make time for a foreign language, it's important to stay motivated, so you absolutely have to develop discipline. Stick to it and hold yourself accountable not only in class but also when you practice by yourself.

Another trick when learning a new language is to completely immerse yourself in it. You have to talk to others in this language (or even to yourself or a pet), listen to it (podcasts, radio, audiobooks), read it (books, articles), and of course, write in it. By making it a fun activity in your spare time when you watch a movie or read a book, you’re just going to reinforce a great habit, and it will not feel like work. And don’t forget: learning is a journey, not a destination. Never compare your progress to others, compare it only to yourself. Are you better than you were the previous year? That is the real progress you should celebrate.

It took a lot of work, a lot of mistakes, and a lot of trials to be who I am today. I must admit, at first it was very difficult, and I had to make many decisions that I never dreamed I would make. But, you know what they say, good things happen to those who wait. So never stop dreaming and most certainly don’t stop working. That way, you will undeniably achieve all of your goals!