20 - The language issue

Given that I’m living abroad, in a Country which is totally different from mine, whether for the different language or for the completely different style of live and habits, sometimes I think and I even reckon  how good I am (or we are, if it’s been talking about foreigners in general) at living/surviving without doing what I’m able to do (being an engineer), leaving my close friends and my family in Italy and, particularly, speaking in English.

I’m going to explain better the concept. If you’re traveling somewhere as a tourist, no matter if you speak English or not, you need to enjoy your holiday in your lush accommodation, spending most of the day laying on a sheltered beach, walking up the hillside along the famous track which has been organized expressly for tourists. The main achievement that you are pursuing is a holiday that makes you healthier, richer (culturally talking) and rejuvenated.

On the other side, if you live abroad and your main goal consists in settling down in the Country where you’ve landed on, the concern is much more different and elaborated. Far more, because you need to acquire the capacity to speak properly the new language you’re facing on and becoming understandable as much as you can with the people you meet along your “journey”.

Obviously, as far as I know, this sounds easier to say than to do.

Firstly, you should (and probably you need) to understand and plunge in a new, different culture for a better comprehension of why the people act as they act, so in a different way compared to yours.

The second point you need to be aware of is the fact that it might be possible that you’re going to change, partially or completely, your habits and your ideas about how to approach the life. Let me clearer. When you are living in your own Country you perfectly know what  you can expected from the other people when you talk with them, hang out and work with them. Because willy-nilly there’s a basic code in a population’s genetic which is common, in my opinion, for all the people who live in the same Nation and who were born in it. But if you leave your own Country, off to another one, you should expect that this “code” will be different, not necessary better or worse, just different. And if you want to live there, you must get it, even if you have to sacrifice some ideas or concepts which you were sure about.

Thirdly, and I’d like to bring out an example to support the next statement, you must be proud of what you’re doing and be confident in how you’re doing it. Because sooner or later you’ll come across difficulties that even knowing that you were going to face on, you’ll find impossible to overcome. But you don’t have, for any reason, give up, yet you must knuckle it down.

For instance, a few days ago I was loafing in the town where I’m living and some thoughts (that can be related to the path of learning English in the first months I was here) came in my mind. And I burst into laughing remembering when they taught me the difference pronunciation between “leaving” and “living”. Two different worlds separated by different meanings but so similar in the sound for a non-native speaker as I am.

And what about “beach” and “bitch”? In my opinion it’s really funny listen to people who tried to explain to me how much different are these two worlds in the meaning and in the sound and the effort they put to tell me that. Funnier was the reaction when they understood that I couldn’t actually get the difference! Nevertheless now that I got it, it still difficult for me understand why a native speaker can’t understand when it’s been asked “Where is she LIVING?”, pronouncing it as “leaving”. Come on! Why you can’t figure out that I wanted to use “living”, even if I said “leaving”, by the contest?!

Then I know that is another challenge to face, because when they can’t understand you, even though they could, it means that still you’re not good enough to manage this new language. But, as I said, never give up: as you learn, from the scratch, how to say “hello” or “goodbye”, one day, you’ll be able to work out how to speak, listen and interact properly. AS far as I concern, that day is still far, but with perserverance, willing of learn and optimism, I will do it.