My England Travel Guide
Language Learning

Starting a New Life Abroad with the Language Basics

As more people than ever are taking the plunge and moving abroad to start a new life it is clear that there are new questions being brought up by the recent increase in the world’s migrant population.

Among all the practical and emotional factors to be taken into account there is one aspect of moving to a foreign country which simply cannot be ignored; the language. If you are moving to somewhere with a language you don’t already speak then it is probably one of your main concerns.

The words we use every day form part of a life skill which we take for granted but which is absolutely essential for us to carry out our lives normally. Once you leave the comfort zone of the country where you speak like everyone else then you have a degree of protection stripped away from you and you discover just how important communication skills are in everyday life.

Even tasks as seemingly simple as buying something from a shop or asking for directions take on a completely different complexion when you realise that you don’t know how to do it. It is a humbling experience to have to live through hand gestures and fragments of grammatically incorrect speech.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that starting a new life in a foreign country is impossible. Throughout the history of the world it is not just adventurers and learned scholars who have taken the decision to go and live elsewhere. Normal people like you and me have gone abroad to live, through choice or through necessity, and slowly but surely picked up the necessary grammatical rules and vocabulary in order to live their life to the full.

The best approach to this subject is almost certainly to get a good grounding before leaving home and then build on it once you are immersed in the language and culture of your new home. It is virtually impossible to perfect your knowledge of a new tongue until you are in a situation where you need to speak it every day.

Anyone considering moving to Italy, for example, could get the basics with the top Italian lessons London teachers give and then travel to Italy with confidence. Thos people who come to the UK and Ireland to live often decide that to learn English Dublin, Edinburgh, Cardiff or Belfast are great places to do it if they prefer to leave London as a special place to visit rather than to live in.

England Travel and UK Nationality Information on this page is from my Stay in England UK from 2002 till 2009.