#4 Language Difficulties

Czech Alphabet

        When I decided to journey across the ocean and study in a different country I had no clue what to expect.  I did not know how the living situations would be, the living style, the transportation, but most importantly the communication.  I consider myself a friendly person and love meeting and communicating with others, so the difference in languages made me nervous.  While living in America, communication had always been easy for me.  Majority of the people that surrounded me had always spoken the same language as me so I grew up having an English language comfort zone.  After landing in Switzerland, my English language comfort zone was broken.  We arrived and all I saw were signs that I could not understand and bunch of sounds that I could not comprehend.  I felt like a lost puppy. 

        The first few days in the Czech Republic we did a lot of exploring.  Along with the exploring we did a lot of wondering and questioning, “What does this sign mean?” “I wish I could read the tram schedule,” “What does this menu say?” etc.  Right from the start we were thrown into a whole different culture that we did not understand.  Every place we walked into, we struggled to communicate with the locals and natives.  People do not realize the importance of communication or how much we take it for granted until we place ourselves in a whole new surrounding. 

Everyday Czech Phrases

        Two days ago, we began our first lessons in Czech language.  I have always heard that the older you get the harder it is to learn a second language.  I never really knew what that phrase meant, but now I do.  When attempting to learn a new language, it is so easy to just think of how to pronounce a certain letter they way you learned at a young age rather than in the new way you are learning.  Each language was so many different little rules that you have to learn; even certain letters having more than one sound.  Learning a new language will be extremely difficult but it will be worth the extra studying to be able to communicate with others from all around the world more efficiently.