Throw yourself out of your comfort zone
April 24, 2015
It was quite a daunting thought at the start of my year abroad that I was left totally responsible for my language learning for a full academic year. No assessments or weekly oral classes to check my progress. This is my sole chance to immerse myself in the local language and become as confident as …
Confidence is key!
My time in France so far has been a fantastic experience which has given me an invaluable opportunity to expose myself to everyday spoken French. However, when it comes to the immediate fluency that we all hope for, perhaps this is a little bit of an unrealistic goal for within the first few months. I …
Has your French actually improved?
One of the questions friends and family often ask regarding my year abroad is: “Has your French actually improved?” Ever since starting to learn the language back in secondary school, I have never been the strongest when it comes to speaking and listening in French. Even at uni, I struggled in oral classes and thought …
It’s up to you how much German you speak
Having arrived in Germany, I thought that I would be speaking German 100% of the time, however that turned out not to be the case. Being new in this country I think it’s only human nature to mainly communicate with people from your own culture or with people that are in the same position as …
Every day I seem to be learning something new
Perhaps the biggest fear of my year abroad was considering that I would actually have to speak Spanish. What if I don’t understand them? Or what if they don’t understand me? What if I don’t know enough vocab? I need to calm down, were my thoughts on my first day. After conversing a few words …
My daily life runs completely ‘auf Deutsch’
In terms of the development of my language I was starting to get a little worried at work because a lot of people were trying to practice their English with me, and also I was introduced at first as not being able to speak German much at all. I think there was a little bit …
What have I let myself in for?
April 23, 2015
Packing up your bags and moving abroad for a year to a foreign country is an extremely exhilarating prospect which I had been looking forward to since the beginning of my university life. Yet when my flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina was being called to board, I seriously questioned myself why I had been so …
I experienced a ‘tricolore’ cocktail of emotions
Upon arrival in France I experienced a ‘tricolore’ cocktail of emotions. First was excitement; this was it, the start of my long-anticipated year abroad, the goal which got me through all those tedious hours of revising for second year exams. Then I felt daunted and overwhelmed by the realisation that the exotic dream of spending …
I’m the first in my family to live abroad
Although I have lived in England for 13 years, I come from a Ukrainian family, and as we don’t have a similar programme in Ukraine, I’m the first in my family to go live abroad. During the summer, everyone kept asking me if I was worried about living abroad, away from my family for such …
Greetings from the Basque Country
¡Saludos del País Vasco! Or should that be “Agurrak Euskal Herritik”? Either way, I mean to say “Greetings from the Basque Country”, as I am spending roughly nine months in San Sebastián, a beautiful city in the northern Basque region of Spain. I´ve been here since the end of August and so far it’s all …
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