Visiting and living in countries where your languages are spoken

[Rem]

As part of my University degree I have the opportunity to study abroad in Germany and China. On the one hand this is obviously an excellent chance to immerse myself in the languages and the cultures. On the other hand; I don’t travel! I haven’t been out of the country for years (visited France as a kid).

I knew from the start that this was part and parcel of my course and there’s a big part of me that’s genuinely looking forward to it, but I can’t help but feel a little...apprehensive... In the beginning I could fool myself into believing that it was a long time off and that I had plenty of time to start thinking about it and getting ready. Now it’s just over a year away. NEXT YEAR I will be going abroad! And I don’t feel anywhere near prepared.

My Uni will probably focus on preparing us more for our time abroad during this coming year, but I’m interested in hearing from others as well. How would you prepare for your first time visit to a foreign country?

And for those of you who have more travelling experience/have already spent time in countries where your target languages were spoken...

How did you prepare?
Where there any particular challenges you encountered/things that took you off guard?
How ready did you feel before you went?
Any tips?

I'm definitely looking forward to going, but it's so close now.

[issemiyaki]

My goodness, if I could do it all over again, I would do so many things differently. I would embrace everything with newfound vigor, I would force myself to open my mind, I would savor the differences instead of complain about them, I would let it all wash over me with open arms.

I would say learn as much authentic German and Chinese as possible before your trip. Take this time to practice your listening skills so that you're not constantly saying "could you repeat that?" or "What was that?" If you can get off the plane swinging, the rest of your time in Germany and China will be more fruitful. You'll have a richer experience.

Also, try to live with students, if at all possible. I'm not so sure living with a "family," is all that ideal. You never know, the mom might work, and the only child they have is some 13 year-old who's not interested in talking to you. You never know. Living with native university students, however, can be ideal. So, I would STRONGLY recommend splitting a house with native speakers. You're more likely to have more in common with them, anyway. Spend as much time with them as possible.

I was lucky when I lived in Colombia, in that I shared a house with other university students. There was a male chaperon who managed the house, did repairs, etc., and a woman who made us our meals. I experienced everything in that house. I fell in love, fell out of love, got in arguments with some of the people, slammed doors, had my bike stolen, and yes, sadly there was even death. The guy who did the repairs lost his young son (he was like 4 or 5 - I think he chocked on something). But I even went to the cemetery with him. So, yes, I even mourned with these people. When I left Colombia, I cried as the plane took off. Despite the fights, the lovers, the unrequited love, Bogotá will forever occupy a very special place in my heart. When you live these experiences the language can't help but sink in.

In Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica ... at least when I was there ... people were scared to death of speaking English. So they were all to happy to avoid English. Probably not the case in Germany. Here's a trick that WORKS LIKE A CHARM FOR ME. Ask them complicated questions, really quickly, with POOR pronunciation. The more convoluted the question, the better. Any question that has a lot of complex and concrete details is bound to throw them for a loop. Before you know it, they will start to feel self-conscious and automatically switch back to their native language. A lot of people can go for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, but 30 minutes, an hour, forget it. Also, life is sometimes a two-way street. If you let some guy practice a few lines of English with you, it's not going to kill you. He could become a good friend, and before you know it, you won't be able to stop him from speaking to you in German or Chinese. Sometimes, a little "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" goes a long way.

Just my two cents. Go forth and conquer ... you have nothing to be afraid of. The world is waiting for you.

[arthaey]

A little about me, for context: in high school, I spent 3 weeks in Spain with my Spanish class and 1 week in Barcelona with my non-Spanish-speaking mother; I took my very A1 Germat to Zurich for a week working at my company's office and a week in Munich with my husband; I spent a 10-day vacation in Costa Rica with my husband; and I have made 4 trips to Mexico: 3 weeks by myself in college, 1 week in with husband, 1 month camping up and down Baja California with my husband, parents, and father-in-law, and now 1 year(!!) by myself.

So I have "some" experience traveling. On to your questions!

there’s a big part of me that’s genuinely looking forward to it

Good! If no part of you were looking forward to this adventure, things would be much more difficult. When the other parts of you try to take over, remind yourself that this part also exists.

NEXT YEAR I will be going abroad! And I don’t feel anywhere near prepared.

I "only" spent 1 year planning for my own year abroad in Mexico. It was plenty of time, and I'm doing everything 100% on my own, without anything like a university to help out with any logistics. So I wouldn't freak out too much about having a year to prepare!

That said, don't do nothing between now and your travel date.

How did you prepare?

I had the luxury of doing 2 "reconnaissance" trips to Mexico before taking the plunge. And while it was a great opportunity, I don't think it was necessary; these trips definitely double-counted as simple vacations with my husband.

Assuming you can't do a short vacation to Germany and/or China beforehand, here's what I would recommend:

TripAdvisor forums
Check out the TripAdvisor forums for Germany and China. They are active forums with a good mix of independent travelers and resort-goers, so you can get a variety of perspectives. Search for anything in particular that concerns you, then subscribe to the forums and just lurk. Get a feel for what sorts of complains/concerns/warnings/advice people share repeatedly. You will know a lot about what to expect (and what to do as a tourist!) by the time you've lurked for a year.

Guidebooks
Find a good guidebook for each country. You don't want the typical tourist type of guidebook that lists which restaurants and hotels to go to. You want one that's aimed at independent travelers and/or ex-pats intending to move there long-term. For Mexico, I found The People's Guide to Mexico, which is this awesome rambling "guide" that half cultural differences to understand and half his rambling recollections of decades traveling in the country. It was invaluable for getting a "feel" for the place and not worrying too much about the unknown. I would be shocked if similar books didn't exist for Germany and China.

News
Subscribe to a couple news feeds (websites, Twitter, magazines, YouTube, whatever) from each country. (You can double-up on your language practice here, as a bonus!) Like with the TripAdvisor forums, just lurk for a year. Get a sense of what's going on, what the local concerns are, what's blown out of proportion internationally and what's downplayed. If there are any truly worrying trends or regions, you'll hear about them. And I bet you'll find that it's the same sort of mundane stuff that happens back home, really. Or at least that most things aren't going to affect you, personally.

Where there any particular challenges you encountered/things that took you off guard?

After my forums, guidebooks, and news sites, I wasn't too surprised by anything. Some subtle cultural things, sure, but nothing to worry about when preparing for your trip!

How ready did you feel before you went?

Mostly excited and a little bit of "I can't believe I'm actually doing this, what if the naysayers are right??" Now, I'm 110% glad I did it.

Any tips?

Don't worry and learn to love the travel! It can be crazy but it's also awesome.

Also: TAKE PHOTOS. And write down about your experiences. Future-you of decades from now will thank you.

Edit: If you want specific advice on packing light, I can detail that too. I lived out of a 10kg backpack for 4 months (until I settled down in an apartment in Mexico City for the remainder of the year).

[AlexTG]

Make sure you get lots of audio input for the dialect of the specific region you travel to before leaving. You don't want to get off a plane in Munich and only have experience with standard German!

[kimchizzle]

I'll give you a little advice and an anecdote from my time studying abroad in France. No matter how much you prepare, you'll never be prepared enough. It is better to think of this as a positive actually than a negative though. For once you realize you no preparation will ever be enough, you don't have to be so stressed and it can be a load off your shoulders. Just do normal preparations, but don't go overboard about it where it really stresses you out.

Before I went to study abroad in France, I had two and a half years of college level French, but only one of those years did the teachers teach in French. I really love French so I would "study" outside of the class often. I didn't really consider it studying though because it was fun for me and I wanted to learn as much as possible. I felt like I had a good grasp of the vocabulary and grammar I had learned, but I felt my listening and speaking was behind at the time, but not terribly so. The summer before heading to France, I was listening to lots of French music and watching a French educational series and trying to understand movies, which I couldn't understand at all at the time cause the words seemed too fast still. I even was studying grammar for fun. I felt like my listening had improved a bit, but still not as good as I wanted. Also during this time, I was stressing trying to find a cheap flight, how to navigate the city I would be living in to get to the hostel for my first night, etc. My passport and visa didn't arrive back from the French consulate until 5 days before my flight was going to leave.

When I arrived in France, I realized my luggage didn't arrive. This was my first real test of my French cause the baggage claim attendant seemed to not understand English well surprisingly. I quickly realized I had never learned the word for luggage in French, la valise, so I had to speak in broken French. Luckily, a former student from my university had given me an address for the dorms, so I wrote it down for the claims guy. I was really overcomplicating everything and stressing out so much. My next challenge was simply getting a ticket from Paris airport to Rennes. I struggled through that simple task. I was realizing my speaking was quite bad. In Rennes, I soon found myself to be lost. My directions I had made didn't add up. I try asking people where the hostel is, but most people ignore me. I end up asking a guy at a kebab stand how to get there and he tells me. Unfortunately I didn't understand him, but I pretended I did, walked around a bit and asked him again. He was patient and trying to help me out, he could understand me, but I couldn't understand him. I again left pretending I understood, walked around and on my way back, he pointed to a bus, and told me it goes to the hostel.

The girl at the hostel spoke good English, so I checked in easily. I remember that night at the hostel feeling so alone, I was in a brand new country, most of my clothes were missing, I couldn't communicate well with many people. I wrote on facebook how frustrated and sad I was, and one of my friends wrote the best thing to me at the time. He simply told me, "it's only your first night, things will get a lot better. Don't think of giving up on your first night."

The next day, a teacher from my school in France picked me up at the hostel as arranged and introduced me to some other foreign exchange students and took me to my dorm room. I suddenly had people I could talk to who were in the same situation as me and to hang out with.

I ended up placing into French courses for B1 level students due to my decent writing and reading comprehension on the placement test. The students were required to only use French in the classroom at all times. So my listening and speaking improved rapidly. It still ended up taking a few weeks to be able to understand native speakers well, a while longer to understand children or phone conversations. After making friends with French students, my listening and speaking improved even more. After 10 months of studies in France, I was in courses for B2 level students and my French was somewhere around a B2-C1 level. My listening and speaking had caught up to my reading and writing as well by living in France.

All in all, my study abroad in France was one of the best times of my life, even though all my preparations had failed. The experience well made up for it. I don't think study abroad is something anyone can totally prepare for, it's best to just prepare but not stress and just ride the wave where it takes you.

[aabram]

I only had my highschool theoretical knowledge of English when I went to US for four months. Alone. This was back in 91 or so, so there was no public internet to speak of and calls home were crazy expensive. There was no Duolingo or YouTube or anything and VHS movies were usually dubbed all over in Russian so I had no chance to familiarize myself with how americans actually speak.

Well, first weeks were interesting to say the least. Although I had aced my hisghscool exam I still didn't know the words for common household stuff -- napkin or pitcher, for example. That produced some embarrassing/hilarious moments. Like me thinking Suzanne Vega had had hit song called "Tom's Dinner". That gave people some serius laughs but hey, the word diner was not in my vocabulary so naturally I replaced it in my mind with the word I knew. And that was just one episode. But what a learning experience it was! And it turned out okay. Better than I could've imagined. I made lots of friends, learned more than three years of schooling combined and had an experience that changed me to the core.

Boy, those were the times... What fun. Wish I could relive it again. Oh well.

Dude, if you're still like 20 year old or something, go full throttle! Immerse yourself! You have smartphone with dictionary, NtRHTLAL community for support and whole internet for help. Really, there is nothing that life abroad could throw at you that you couldn't handle.

[Rem]

Thanks for the responses everyone.

This post ended up longer than I intended but there was so much that I wanted to respond to.

I am not sure why you need to be so nervous, it is not like there is a political instability or anything.

Oh I’m not worried about anything like that, I’m just nervous because...

1. I don’t travel. So right from the start I’m nervous purely because it’s out of my comfort zone.

2. I have never flown anywhere...ever...so just the method of getting there is going to be a new experience for me.

3. I’m also worried that my language abilities will not be up to the situations that I’ll find myself in. Which is ridiculous I suppose as people can (and do) travel without even speaking/understanding a word of the local language.

4. I’m just a nervous person by nature, although this seems to be becoming less true over time. Studying languages seems to be helping me to get out of my shell more. I guess it’s difficult to be shy when you’re studying something like foreign languages that almost forces you to have interactions with others.

The truth is; I just over think things. I’ll probably be fine when I get there, but until then... *bites nails*

I would say learn as much authentic German and Chinese as possible before your trip. Take this time to practice your listening skills so that you're not constantly saying "could you repeat that?" or "What was that?" If you can get off the plane swinging, the rest of your time in Germany and China will be more fruitful. You'll have a richer experience.

Make sure you get lots of audio input for the dialect of the specific region you travel to before leaving. You don't want to get off a plane in Munich and only have experience with standard German!

This is one of my worries; that people will be talking to me in German or Mandarin and I’ll just be stood there with a ‘deer in the headlights’ look on my face having no idea what’s going on.

I’ve started listening to podcasts and TV shows in the hopes that, even if I don’t understand everything that’s said (which I usually don’t), then at least I’ll get more accustomed to the sounds and actually hearing the language. I know that I have to start moving away from textbook audios with their lovely, safe and slow, clear pronunciation.

Assuming you can't do a short vacation to Germany and/or China beforehand, here's what I would recommend:

Thank you for the recommendations arthaey.

Also: TAKE PHOTOS. And write down about your experiences. Future-you of decades from now will thank you.

Hmm...I’ve never really been one to take photos, but maybe being somewhere new will give me a reason to change that.

That sounds like a bit of a nightmare first day. I’m glad everything worked out for you in the end though.

I definitely wouldn’t be able to cope with something like lost luggage on a linguistic level at the moment even with broken language or Tarzan speak. I’d have to hope someone there spoke enough English to help me. I have a year to improve though, so it’s not a lost cause yet.

Well, first weeks were interesting to say the least. Although I had aced my hisghscool exam I still didn't know the words for common household stuff -- napkin or pitcher, for example. That produced some embarrassing/hilarious moments.

I'm missing a lot of basic vocabulary at the moment. I guess there's always the fear that I'll make a silly mistake and everyone will laugh at me, but I know I need to get past that if I'm going to make the most of my time away.

Dude, if you're still like 20 year old or something, go full throttle! Immerse yourself! You have smartphone with dictionary, NtRHTLAL community for support and whole internet for help. Really, there is nothing that life abroad could throw at you that you couldn't handle.

I'm a mature student so a little ways past 20 (although apparently I don’t look it), but I think that's still good advice. Nerves aside I intend to make the most of my year abroad.

[aabram]

This is one of my worries; that people will be talking to me in German or Mandarin and I’ll just be stood there with a ‘deer in the headlights’ look on my face having no idea what’s going on.

Ahh, but as a foreigner you get free pass on that one. I've found that if I exaggerate my accent to make it very obvious that I'm not local, people will automatically slow down for me. Besides, nobody knows you and many people will never see you again in their lives and will forget that slow-ish foreigner by that very afternoon so no biggie. Just smile and ask them to say again. 请再说一遍!

[zenmonkey]

So now you will BE a traveller.

It' a new experience, for sure.
But however much you prepare, language wise it is always a space where you will be huh? What? Wait? Doesn't matter. Enjoy.

If you don't understand, people get it - they see foreigners all the time, usually. And a lot of people will speak to you in English.
Especially in Germany, where many people studied it.

I'm on the other side of the spectrum, I was born abroad (France) and have moved from the age of one to a new country regularly - Mexico, US, France, China, Germany - and I travelled for my work. So I guess I'm more used to it.

Just have fun. Take it in. No one is judging you of anything significant.

One suggestion: Read up on your destination - decide what you want to see and give yourself a day off in each week to catch up, relax or do nothing. Travel is tiring and requires processing!

[garyb]

You have an opportunity that I'm sure many of us would love to have! I can understand the anxiety though. As others have said, it's good to prepare as much as you can but you'll never feel 100% ready, and that's just part of the experience.