How Language Makes You Local – The Benefits Of Language Lessons When Moving Abroad
This article is brought to you by our friends at BiCortex Languages and BiCortex Translations.
Moving to a new country comes with many challenges, one of which starts with a capital L: LANGUAGE.
Fortunately, this challenge can be surmounted with another “L” word: Lessons! While some expats may be tempted to take the easy route and stick within the confines of an expat “bubble”, we encourage you to do the hard work of language learning.
Why Start with Language
One of the most important reasons people take language lessons when they move to a new country is to be able to communicate effectively at work in their new country. While many expats will speak English at work most of the time, it will still be helpful to learn to communicate in the host country language over lunch or during coffee breaks.
While there are many ways to start learning a language (apps like Duolingo or Babbel, flashcards, YouTube videos, etc.), you’ll most likely need formal lessons with business vocabulary and phrases to make you sound polished and enable you to operate at more than a functional level. For example, you can contact seasoned experts like BiCortex Languages, which employs native language teachers and offers business language teachers to focus on specific topics, such as industry jargon, finances, negotiations, and presentations.
Employer-Provided Language Support
More often than not, especially if you are moving abroad specifically for work, your new employer would be happy to pay for your language lessons. It’s frequently included in their Global Mobility Guidelines. If you’re unsure about this, you can always ask your contact in People and Culture / Global Mobility Manager. (Ideally, they would also pay for regular language lessons for your family.)
If you are moving abroad with other colleagues, it’s also often possible to do group lessons, which is a great way to practice what you’re learning with others at your level.
Now that we’ve identified the “why” and the “how,” here are five specific reasons why language lessons are crucial to adapting to your new home country, getting to know the locals, and integrating into society successfully so that you feel like a local, yourself!
1 – Simplify Daily Tasks
Besides having to adapt to working in a new country, one also has to adjust to daily life activities. Simple tasks like grocery shopping, reading traffic signs, or communicating with the person cutting your hair in your new country might prove challenging and stressful if you don’t speak, read, or understand the local language. However, language lessons can effectively help you simplify these tasks by improving your verbal communication skills.
While everyone moving to a new country can appreciate occasional miscommunications and often laugh about it, developing vocabulary and basic conversational abilities in the local language can make the difference between ending up with orange hair instead of red when you go to the hairdresser!
Being able to read road signs and street names might be the difference between reaching your destination efficiently and taking a long detour. Many experienced language teachers adapt their methodology to the students’ needs. For example, if you want to learn a specific vocabulary, like foods or ingredients, to help you navigate shopping in a grocery store, a language teacher can help you.
Similarly, if you want to focus on common traffic terminology to help you read road signs and navigate your way around town, then language lessons are your answer. Quite soon, you will be able to read the food labels in grocery stores, know precisely where you’re traveling to on the road or in the subway, and tell your hairdresser exactly which haircut you want. You’ll be like a local – someone who knows their way around town!
2 – Enable Socialization and Integration
Moving to a new country means leaving behind your support network, including family, friends, and work colleagues. Losing your support network is often the most challenging part of moving to a new country because you miss your family and friends, and they are no longer just a short drive away. You can’t just quickly make plans to see each other or meet up at a coffee shop a few minutes from your house. While managing admin tasks, focusing on work, and trying to navigate daily responsibilities are extremely important, socialization must not be neglected. You must develop a new support network for successful integration into the community in your new country.
Making acquaintances and developing relationships to foster friendships is the first step in building a new support network. However, meeting new people might prove difficult if you speak a different language than they do. Even introducing yourself might seem daunting because you’re unsure if you’re saying it right, let alone trying to strike up a conversation and make a new friend!
3 – Increase Your Communication Confidence
Taking language lessons to improve your conversational ability will enable you to start building your new support network. Being able to talk to someone at work, in a store at the mall, as you pass them on the street, or wherever you meet someone in your daily life, will enable you to start making friends and integrate into your new community. After a few lessons, you will have a few key phrases in your pocket and enough confidence to invite friends to your new home to share a meal and talk to each other comfortably, just like other locals do!
4 – Get the Cultural Cues
Language, culture, heritage, and traditions are intricately intertwined. Language lessons will only teach you new vocabulary and grammar, and equip you with new sentences. However, this cannot be further from the truth. Language is much more than that. Because distinct cultures have spoken specific languages for centuries, language and culture have developed in parallel over time, and both can only be understood by learning the other.
“Language lessons are where culture and language meet, local dialects take center stage, and age-old cultural traditions reveal themselves. “
Language lessons are where culture and language intersect, local dialects take center stage, and age-old cultural traditions are revealed. Many examples, such as dialect and local language nuances, can demonstrate the relationship between language and culture.
Taking language lessons from a native language teacher in your new home country (or before you move, meaning you would take online lessons) will enable you to learn words and phrases that mean something different than their dictionary definition. You will be able to understand the local language nuances, taking shape in variations of word choice, expressions, and speakers’ demeanor.
5 – Understand and Speak the Dialect
Language lessons will also help you understand dialects. The differences between the dialects often stem from history, traditions, culture, and origin. For example, there is a difference between Egyptian Arabic and Gulf Arabic, as well as between European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese. Between Standard Afrikaans and Cape Afrikaans, High German and Swiss German, you can request a language teacher who can speak and teach a specific dialect, which will help you integrate into society and feel more like a local.
The Benefits of Language Learning are Endless
In summary, whether you take language lessons to communicate more effectively at work, to help you navigate tasks in daily life, to develop a new support network by making new friends, or to help you understand local language nuances and dialects, the benefits of language lessons are endless. In each of these cases, language lessons will help you feel more like a local, making the process of moving abroad (and the many difficulties that come with it) much easier to manage.
Your daily life will be much easier, with fewer language-related work challenges, fewer hair-dressing catastrophe risks, a new group of friends with whom to enjoy your hobbies, and the ability to communicate like a local!
Even so, you do not have to do it alone! There are numerous resources available for expats and immigrants that can be life-changing, making a move abroad significantly easier.
Language programs like the ones offered by BiCortex are there to support you and help you find the right language teacher. And then experts like Angie Weinberger at Global People Transitions can support you in your expat experience and career journey. The key is to take advantage of resources and reach out when you need help!
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