The Idiots’ Guide to the Emigrants (EN - Part 3 / Language Issue)
After so many questions, one of the most important things, if you really want to become an Emigrant, is the preparation. Preparation to what? Well, to Many Many things! (sometimes too many things…). First of all the Language!
You will never become mother tongue in a week, a month or a year, but you have to start from somewhere, don’t you? There are some things you can do to make it easier. First of all take out of the shelves your old grammar: a good look at it again won’t do nothing but good things! Study, but meanwhile you have to get in touch with the live language: read a good book, switch you DVD language and try to find someone to talk with.
This “Idiot’s Guide” is based on my personal experiences, therefore having moved in England my examples refers to the English language.
- Read and Listen: When I planned to move to London, I bought all the Harry Potter’s book in English. There is more than one reason for this choice. The author (JK Rowling) wrote the first book with a very simple language, increasing the level of difficulty every book. This will help your english passing from one book to another. Of course the books itself are really good (IMHO). Another really good thing is to try to find the audiobooks of those book you are reading: reading and listening together, even if it can be quite tricky in the beginning, is a really good thing to do! Not only you will get used to a good pronunciation (audiobooks are usually well read) but you will also gain practice on listening without looking at someone!
- Listen: Another good point is watching the DVD in the language you will have to use: initially it will be very frustrating, be warned, but there are things that must be done. Listen, also the radio, is a good exercise to practice one of the most important part in your new location: the communication!
We have covered two of the four part of the communication, maybe the easier… and now? well the latest two components are the most important for a good interaction: Speaking and Writing. The first thing to understand is that being able to express yourself is one of the most important part in every field. Who thinks that the “Development Geeks” does not need a lot of it… well they are wrong. Development, like any other thing, is based on communication. We are quite advantaged, because all the technical words we use daily are english, but expressing ideas (the base of a teamwork) cannot be done easily with only few, badly pronounced words.
- Speaking: Here we are in one of the hardest task. Speaking is easy, you can talk to yourself in another language (am I the only one who talk to himself?)… but that is cheating! You have to face someone. Internet helps those who have a good spirit and wants to try. Skype, other messengers can grant you the capability to find someone on the other part of the planet to have a chat. Do it! Do you have any colleague to talk to (in English)? Do It! Sometimes you will feel stupid talking in English where everyone else do not. You will be stared at like a zombie, or worst. But DO IT!
- Writing: Speaking you can do as I do: I cheat! I speak quite well, correcting me quite often and trying to chose the easiest words available. If I am not able to say a specific thing in a certain way… well I try another one. You can do it. I have thrown myself in a working environment less than five days after my arrival here. It can be tricky, but not hard as sending an email without grammar mistakes. I have started this blog writing both in Italian and English; the result haven’t been always good. The first posts in English were CRAP (I was use to say I was writing in INGLISH, the way you pronounce “English” in Italian). But I went on. and on. and on. I wrote in a language I wasn’t able to, but I never stopped, because the more you write, the more you get better.
Practice Makes Perfect!
Once a client, asked about how did she evaluate me, told to a colleague of mine (between other things): “I can understand everything he writes me. Maybe sometimes he uses ‘funny’ words, but I can clearly understand every message.”
English is a strange language, especially for the Italians. You can speak with a terrible accent, you can fail the “s” (as I always do), and you can mispell a lot of words, but the important thing is not the shell, the important thing is the ghost. You have to be able to make the communication understandable, and as long you are able to make the others understand the content of your messages (not email messages, folks, the message you are trying to pass to someone else) it is good! It doesn’t count how perfect your grammar is, the thing that count is how much you are able to let your ideas reach the others!
Of course this doesn’t gives you the green light to speak (and write) as a Klingon.
Practice, because you will need to be able to interact with the new world, the sooner you will be able to do it in a proper way, the better will be!
Good Luck!
PS: I don’t think to be the best person to give you grammar advices, but if you wanna chat… well ask me for my skype contact!
No Comments Yet