The time when I start to write about actualy studying here is coming. But firstly I decided to write about the most important thing which enables me to do so - English language.
Lots of people worries before going on Erasmus or even applying, that their English is not good enough to be able to study abroad. It can be true, but I think to study abroad is definately possible if you understand English in some way. The talking will hopefully come.
First days in Belfast where pretty funny. I was happy to have the girl who spent here last semester with me. The accent of locals is really strong and I feel like every person has his own. So I don't know if there is some possibility to get use to the Belfast accent. At university people talk in much more understandable way though. And talking with international students is much more funny and confused, but in a way it is much easier to understand too. Most of the international students who are here since September say that they can really tell the difference and improvement in their language skills. Talking with non-native speakers has it's disadvantages too. Everybody uses some words which has the closest meaning to what we want to say and not everytime it's working as we hope. Very funny is when we transform words from our own languages so that they sound somehow englishish. But the only person, who sees any meaning in the new word is you. Sometimes you don't realize it and still repeat the nonsense getting more and more desperate, trying to figure out why nobody understands you. Also when you figure out meaning of some fake word with somebody, you start to use it even though it's not sure if the word really exists. And you start to create completely new language, not usable with other English speaking people.
I started to attend the chamber choir and go every week to the stand up comedy club because I wanted to be more in contact with local people and local language. The stand up comedy is still very difficult for me, in choir is a very lovely girl which I talk to. She is the fastest speaker on the planet Earth = sign of a true Northern Ireland inhabitant. At the lectures I struggle the most so far. Often a discussion is required or I have a question but it is much harder to say what you want if you need to be very precise and use specific words and terminology. One of the main (dis)advantages is that here everybody is native speaker from shop assistants to all of my classmates and teachers. So the only person who doesn't understand everything in lectures and who struggle to express herself is me. I still have feeling that the teacher is never replying to what I ask and I don't know if it's the teachers here or me, giving them not understandable questions. So I came up with a law of conservation of energy. Don't worry, I won't try to drag you into physics here, but I really think that my amount of energy usable on English communication is constant. The more of effort I need to put into understanding and translating for me, the less of the energy remains for translation back to English and speaking. I believe that's why the discussions at lectures are hell for me :D. And I am still not in the phase when I could think in English. Sometimes it hapens, but with minor stuff like counting and everyday problems. And I don't think much (in words) overall.
When I decided to write my blog in English, I think it was a good decision. Firstly because I now write a bit quicker and secondly because it is perfect way how to really get used to the british keyboard. But in the same way as when I speak I do lots of mistakes. I lack the ability to use articles, sometimes I forget English really needs a subject in every sentence and that czech syntax doesn't work here. I use only past, present simple and continuous and future tense. It's a special event when I use the tense in shape have + seen, been or some other 3rd form of a verb. I don't have to mention spelling mistakes, missing "there" (is) and so on. I am a bit afraid how my essays and courseworks will go because of these errors. Also I write the minimum words possible to say an idea, because it's exhausting to keep in mind meaningful long sentence. So when I write something to school I'm done with 2 sentences where they require 3 paragraphs.
The best is that even though my English is really not perfect, I am able to do all the needed activities here, I am able to solve basic problems, when I don't know something, I am able to ask. Sometimes I even can have more philosophical talk :-P. And if you think about it, it make some sense. You are probably learning English for very long time. I started to learn at age of 9 so now it's 13 years. Scary. But maybe like me you don't have much places where to actually use the language. English is now everywhere. You can watch series, you can play computer games. I couldn't study and do the necessary readings at my faculty without English. Anyway, when I started to use it on daily bases, it is pretty much different than just reading. And because this post is getting horribly long, I will finish with saying what was actually my motivation to write about this topic. So thank you, mom, dad, sis, international friends who were patient with my bad speaking, thank you my teachers from elementary school to university for all the time and effort you've spent educating me. Because I am here and it's working quite well :).
Motto of the day: Do you understand English fairly? Don't worry and give it a try! Go study abroad!
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