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For those about to travel abroad or living already abroad, if you could please video the areas around you and post here via youtube. This would really be awesome for this thread as we get first hand accounts.
Or, if you find already an existing youtube video that mirrors your sentiments of the area you visited/live in, please post here.
what i hear from retirees in europe and asia is that if you don't speak the native language of that country, life will be difficult unless you are a hermit or rich enough to have a personal servant/guide/translator at all times.
there are many older expats who bought a villa in italy or spain who came right back to the USA for this reason.. for them it's was like a vacation they overstayed.. and if you look at the real estate market in those areas, there are ALOT of listings, primarily by americans who were like, "oops". my mother's friend said in tuscany, you end up not having electricity often at night, the water is well water, they had to use their phone line to access the internet with a dial up 56k modem. it's rural. the brochure says "rustic", but it's damned rural..
How can you live someplace and not learn the language? Are they senile? I spent 2 months in Germany once and picked up enough just talking to people that I could carry on an elementary conversation. Most people only use about 600 words on a daily basis, so it's not like you have to memorize the dictionary. As for grammar, I figure it's their language, let them figure out what I am saying.
^I agree. I have a professor who studied for a PhD in Germany and came back quite conversant in German. The reason it is difficult to speak a foreign language is the absence of someone to engage it with on a daily basis. Once you are already in a foreign non-English speaking land, the only thing stopping you is yourself.
^I agree. I have a professor who studied for a PhD in Germany and came back quite conversant in German. The reason it is difficult to speak a foreign language is the absence of someone to engage it with on a daily basis. Once you are already in a foreign non-English speaking land, the only thing stopping you is yourself.
Yup, totally lost the ability I had achieved in one language because later on I had no one to speak with, and reading wasn't enough.
I speak my present second language at an adequate level for daily life and simple conversations; but when I had a good friend who spoke the language my ability zoomed very quickly back to where it had been once before. But for me second languages are new skills easily lost, I have to keep at it.
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