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As heliodor mentions below, language schools will sort you out. In Brazil I walked in and made gestures that I wanted to learn Portuguese (they refused to spea
by aidos 12y ago
As heliodor mentions below, language schools will sort you out.
In Brazil I walked in and made gestures that I wanted to learn Portuguese (they refused to speak English, even though some of them could, a little). The conversation went on like that and eventually one of the staff took me on a bus to where I would stay with a family. I ended up with a relatively wealthy family, others at the same school were in totally different environments.
One thing I hadn't accounted for was the paranoia of that situation.
My host family were really nice, but early on we had a discussion about how much people earned in the UK (with the aide of a translation dictionary). The next night I heard them arguing, I could tell it was about money, I was fairly sure it was about me. I recorded a little snippet of it and when I played it for a friend later when I got back to the UK he said they were talking about footballer's salaries :)
At the time it made me really self-conscious. It's tough when you're all alone and you don't have anyone to talk to in your native tongue. Leaves you entirely alone with your thoughts.
- jeremyis 12y agoThanks for the great reply. I want to end my trip by spending 3 months in Spain learning Spanish. I'm thinking of Valencia because I think it'll be fairly warm there even during winter months, it's somewhat central, I hear it's fun, and everyone speaks Spanish... Barcelona would be a really fun city to live in also but I think it'd be better to be surrounded 100% by the language I am learning instead of Catalan :-) Before now, I've only heard of living with a foreign family as a thing younger students do. I'm approaching 30... would it be weird to do at this age or is it normal?
- aidos 12y agoCool! Totally normal. My wife and I were 28 last time we did it. The language school would put you somewhere appropriate I would have thought. Last time we were with a lovely lady in her 60s.
- jeremyis 12y agoAwesome - thanks!
- jacalata 12y agoI'm 30 and I'll be doing this in a couple weeks, set up through a language school to stay with an old couple in Santiago.
- olifante 12y agoIf you're escaping Catalan, you might want to know that many people in Valencia speak Valencian, a variant of Catalan. It's not as common as in Barcelona, though.
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