Spending eight weeks in Adelaide has given Soeren Schlosser the best business training he could have wished for.

The 23-year-old arrived in the South Australian capital in January 2003 as part of his International Management course at Hamburg’s Euro Business College. With just six months left to complete his degree, Soeren has seen and learned a lot over the past three years about how Europeans do business.

When Soeren arrived in Australia to take up a work placement organised by the SA Adelaide Language Centre he expected things to be very different — but was surprised to discover they were not.

“The software, how you speak with people, how you cooperate, how you work with them ­ they are absolutely similar to Germany,” he said.

“Maybe it’s because culturally our countries are not too different, we are very similar ­ it’s very interesting.”

Like many Germans, Soeren had not heard much about Adelaide before he arrived. He did not know that South Australia has had the highest proportion of German migrants of any Australian state and that they helped establish the local wine industry over 150 years ago.

“I heard that there was a city called Adelaide but I knew no more — just the name,” he said.

As part of Soeren’s degree he must complete two “practical trainings” ­ one in Germany and one in a foreign company.

“I looked around in Germany for some possibilities to get overseas and then I found the agency in Germany and they supported me and helped me and said: ‘There is maybe a company in Australia in Adelaide,’ and I thought, ‘Why not?’,” he said.

“Everything has gone very well, there have been no problems ­ the organization has been just perfect, the family I’m staying with is good and the Language Centre is there to help me.”

During his eight weeks on the job he worked on a new database and on generating more members for the company.

“The things I am doing are very similar to what companies do in Germany, there’s not much difference,” he said.

“Answering the phone for the company in the first week was a little bit hard, asking people ‘Excuse me could you repeat that?’ but after a while it became quite easy as I became more confident.” velit.