Learning a language...
ist nicht leicht – non è facile – ni lahko.
I'm Marina Toto, a Croatian tutor based in Kastav, a medieval hilltop town near Rijeka, with an MA in Sociology. Alongside teaching, I bring 15 years of project management experience, including 8 years in tech project management — in Berlin, in both English and German — handling custom technical work for enterprise clients. I know what it's like to build a career and a life in a language that isn't your own, not just order coffee in it.
That's also how I teach: less time on grammar you'll never use, more on knowing what actually matters day to day — reading a lease, small talk with neighbours, holding your own in a work meeting, raising a bilingual kid. I draw on TESOL methodology, but the real curriculum comes from having lived it myself: the frustration, the mistakes, the slow breakthroughs.
I speak six languages — Croatian (native), English (C2) and German (C1, telc-certified), plus Slovenian, Italian and Spanish. Slovenian came with my university years in Slovenia, Italian with an Erasmus stay in Italy, and Spanish with regular trips to Spain — when you live in Berlin, you have to go south for some sun every now and then ☀️. Most of them I learned as an adult. I've sat through countless courses, good and not so good, and spent even more hours studying on my own. I have a real affinity for languages, and all that experience taught me how a language is actually learned: what helps, what holds you back, and what you can safely skip. That's how I know what matters and what doesn't. And German? That one definitely didn't come easy 🫠.
Whether you're a complete beginner, preparing for an exam, moving to a new country, or raising a bilingual child, every lesson is 1-on-1 — no big groups, no generic lesson plans. Just us, your goals, and a plan that works.
More about my professional background on LinkedIn →