Je ne comprends pas? If you didn’t understand that sentence, you now know what it’s like to live with language barriers…
Moving to another country will present you with countless opportunities as well as constant limitations. On the one hand, you get the chance to meet so many new, fabulous people from different cultures. On the other hand, you might find it hard to fit in and live like a local. One barricade that stands to keep you from reaching your full potential while living as an expat is the problem of language barriers. These language blockages might be as minor as not understanding the newest slang. It could be as small as not grasping an unfamiliar dialect in your target language. On the other hand, it could be as bad as not being able to comprehend a lick of what is being said to you. These language barriers can affect anything from your career to your relationships. Therefore, it’s important to come up with constructive methods for overcoming these language barriers. So, what are the best ways to deal with language barriers? First off, let’s see why they’re a problem for some people more than others.
Factors that affect language barriers
The country you’ve moved to
I’m from a little island called the United Kingdom. Therefore, I speak English. Two years ago, I decided to pop off to Korea – a country where they speak Korean. Let me be the first to tell you that English and Korean are nothing alike. Apart from some loose loan words, there are no similarities between the two languages. The word order is different, the conjugations are unfamiliar and the pronunciation is unknown. Learning Korean felt like a lot more of a challenge than picking up French or German. This was largaely down to me hearing these languages more often at school. But why am I ranting about this? Language barriers can be largely affected by where you’ve moved from and where you’re moving to.
Similarly, having grown up in the UK where languages are taught very poorly at school, my knowledge of how to learn a language was severely lacking before I moved to Korea, making it even harder to cross those language barriers while living abroad. Perhaps the knowledge of your own limitations as well as being aware of what languages you’ll find easier to grasp will impact where in the world you decide to move to. Although I’d tell you to throw caution to the wind and go where your heart takes you. After all, I’m confident that you’ll learn enough language to see you through.
Where you live in your new country
Upon becoming an expat, your plan could be to live in a bustling metropolis where hundreds of cultures integrate. Or you could be placed in a tiny rural village where you won’t find another soul who speaks your language. Depending on where you live in your new country, you could have a very different experience with language barriers. While living in Korea, I’ve noticed a large disparity between the amount of English I’ll encounter in my smaller city compared to one of the large urban areas like Seoul or Busan. In these bigger cities, I’ll often find shop or cafe employees approaching me in English first. Plus, there more businesses that offer English services.
This is both a great and a big problem. Living in a larger city or an area that is a popular spot for expats will help to break down language barriers as you’ll find more people who speak your language. On the other hand, you’ll have less chance to test your newly acquired language skills. After all, it’s too easy to resort back to your mother tongue. My city forced me to learn Korean or be stranded, and so I picked up some helpful phrases very quickly. Think carefully about whether you can commit to learning a language or would prefer the ease and convenience of living in a metropolitan area before moving to a new country.
Your language ability
As already mentioned, the UK education system kind of failed to teach me the best methods for acquiring a language. I was taught to pass an exam and not much more. It wasn’t until I became an expat that I realised my shoddy teaching, combined with my innate ineptness with languages, was going to make my language-learning journey more challenging. My reading and listening skills could get me by for a while, but my speaking ability was cursed with poor pronunciation and panic-stricken fumbles. Even today, I know that my ability to learn a language is quite low. I’m always slightly envious of people who seem to grasp a new language within days. That’s just not me. And it might not be you either.
It’s good to be honest with yourself and question whether you have any experience learning a language prior to your move to a new country. It’s also good to think about whether you find sitting down and studying a new language easy or difficult. These frank questions will help to reveal whether you’ll have more or less difficulty learning a new language. Then you can consider whether language barriers will be a big obstacle in your life abroad.
The impact of language barriers
Social life
It’s a no-brainer that your social life will be somewhat impacted by language barriers while living abroad. Hopefully, you’ll have some confidants back at home who you still communicate with, and you might be lucky enough to have made friends with some other amazing expats in your time abroad. But befriending locals might be a bit more of an uphill battle. It can be awkward to strike up conversations if you can’t speak the same language and the nuances that turn acquaintances into besties, like humour, might seem out of your reach. It’s difficult to sustain a friendship on convos about the weather and your favourite foods forever.
Thankfully, many countries have opportunities like language learning groups, especially if you’re in a larger city. This is a great way to meet locals who also aspire to break down language barriers. I was also fortunate enough to meet a lot of people through mutual friends, which bolstered my social life. However, I found the conversation would always default back to English. There are many great ways to meet friends abroad but language barriers sure as hell do pose a problem, especially when you’re just starting out in a new country and don’t understand either the language or the culture.
Work life
If you can’t speak the same language as your colleagues, your lunch breaks and trips to the water cooler are going to be pretty boring. If you can’t understand your boss, well, that could be a blessing or a curse depending on who you ask. You spend a lot of time at work, so not being able to communicate with your fellow workers can be uncomfortable and disheartening. Language barriers in the office environment can stand in your way at every corner. You might not understand an assignment but also find it difficult to ask for advice. Or you might be told about a vital meeting, deadline or change to the schedule at the last moment because you couldn’t read the bulletin board in the morning. And worst of all, you might miss out on all the hot work gossip!
You could find yourself in a situation where you’re having to rely on one colleague to communicate through or you’re having to pull out your translator app every two seconds to feel heard. There are enough barriers in the hierarchical working world that language barriers shouldn’t be another one.
Love life
Ooh la la. So you’re in a new country and you want to dip your toe into the dating scene. Maybe you’ve met a few suitors at bars or you’ve been flicking through your dating app. You might be looking for someone tall, with a great sense of humour and incredibly rich. But scratch all those requirements. There’s an equally important need. Your potential match should, ideally, be able to communicate with you. This is where language barriers can greatly impede your search for love. Romantic relationships are a place where good communication is vital and if language barriers stand in the way of this, it can spell the end of the relationship before it’s truly begun.
It’s difficult to identify if you’re on the same page if the conversation is hampered by constant misunderstandings. Therefore, language barriers have a great effect on your love life while living abroad. Of course, this isn’t always the case and dating can be a great way to learn the language, but not being able to communicate effectively can severely hamper making meaningful romantic connections while away.
Dealing with language barriers
Language learning
I don’t feel like I have to spell this one out, but one of the best ways to overcome a language barrier is by learning the language that is doing the barricading. As I’ve mentioned, you might have little experience trying to grasp a foreign language and you’re ability to remember new words and phrases might be shoddy (me too – look at my struggles here). However, even a few simple sentences can go a long way while living abroad. At least get down the basics: ‘Hello’, ‘Thank you’, ‘Can I have an iced coffee to-go, please?’ Knowing how to complete simple tasks like ordering at a restaurant or asking for a bus time can really save you in some sticky situations.
If you find yourself enjoying the language-learning experience you can keep up the practice and surpass some of those language barriers for good. Maybe, you’ll even try your hand at a formal language test (like the TOPIK test in South Korea – check this post out). You’ve journeyed to a new country to live and experience the culture; one of the best ways of understanding the people around you is by learning their language. So give it a shot and don’t get frustrated.
Community of expats
Sometimes a problem shared is a problem halved. Surrounding yourself with a group of expats who experience the same kind of language barriers that you do can be really helpful (look at websites like InterNations to find expats in your area). Sometimes it’s nice to be able to vent endlessly in a language that requires no extra brain power, which is where a community of expats around you can really help. Having this close-knit group of friends might not remove the language barriers you experience in your day-to-day life but it can certainly make you forget about any struggles you face for a little while.
Not to mention, other expats can offer helpful advice and suggestions for overcoming the language barriers in front of you. For example, a helpful expat friend might have a recommendation for a dentist or doctor who speaks your language or they could provide some language-learning techniques. Once again, this doesn’t tear down the language barriers fully but it can circumvent them. Plus, it’s just nice to have a tight group of friends while you’re living abroad.
Overcoming fear
I, like so many people, have a perpetual fear of making mistakes. Nowhere is this more profound than when I’m trying to speak another language. I find myself second-guessing my pronunciation or stumbling over vocabulary that I’m sure I know. This lack of confidence has really stood in the way of me getting over the language barriers in front of me. It’s like I now face two obstructions: not understanding the target language and not trusting myself to speak the target language. But fake it until you make it.
Overcoming the fear of making mistakes and the panic that your body goes into when someone starts chatting to you in a foreign language can really help to minimise those language barriers. Before long they won’t look like barriers at all but more like short hurdles that you can fly over with some grit. Reframe how you approach language learning and throw out the word ‘language barrier’ altogether. We’re all just trying to communicate as best we can, so don’t be so hard on yourself.
Language barriers are a hurdle, not a barrier
The amount of times I’ve wished to wake up being able to speak Korean fluently is wild. It would make my life so much easier if I could magically understand a different language without any real work. Especially considering that I live outside a big metropolitan area and my language acquisition skills are non-existent. My social and work life as well as my relationships would be so much more simple. But alas…if I didn’t overcome my fear and openly embrace the language-learning experience I would miss out on completely understanding the culture I’ve decided to live in. So from now on, I’ll stop looking at the language barriers in front of me like impenetrable iron walls and instead start seeing them as hills to be gently crossed over. And if you’re going through the same struggle, you might find it worthwhile to do the same. As long as you have a great group of friends around you, you’ll definitely be able to keep me on the positive path to language acquisition.
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