Ireland II

My choice for my host university was definitely influenced by the language spoken in that country. I chose a university in Ireland because I wanted to improve my level of English. In order to combine my learning of English with my main subject „architecture“.

When I arrived in Dublin and checked in at my student residence, I did not understand much of what the man was saying but after a few minutes I started to adapt to his accent and from there on I communicate with him. So, at first, I struggled a bit with the Irish accent but during the first two weeks I met a lot of International Student with whom I practiced my English and then it started to get better. I also spoke to everybody in English, also to my German friends. I already felt quite comfortable speaking English. Luckily, I have two Irish flatmates who I can ask whenever I feel insecure about something concerning the language. I'm not ashamed to ask because most people here already appreciate that I speak a foreign language. I remember the first Irish word I learned was „craic“. One of my flatmates asked me „What's the craic?“ which means „how are you?“.

Another huge plus was that I was the only Erasmus student in my architecture studio who spoke German. That forced me to speak English all the time at University and it also helped me to get integrated in to my class. My class really made an effort and invited me to every social event they had planned. At these social events, it is so much easier to communicate because I didn’t think about my English skills. Generally, I think the everyday language spoken is the most challenging. First because everyone speaks with a slightly different accent and some of them are harder to understand than others. Second the phrases that the people use differ somehow from how you would express yourself in German. If you translate directly from German, it doesn’t sound authentically English even if it’s grammatically correct. Furthermore, what I find most difficult is to engage in a conversation between a large number of native speakers because you have to be very quick. In each of these three situations I guess there isn’t much else to do than to practice. You don’t need to be afraid, you have to put yourself out there and engage in the conversation, that is the only way you can improve.  I think I got along quite well with my English and I noticed that some of my French and  Italian friends had also troubles speaking English. I guess my English isn’t that bad after all. But there were still some situations in which I realized that English is still far away from being a native language to me. For example, when there was a misunderstanding in one of my societies or when I did not agree with a referee’s decision. I always tried to explain myself but realized that it’s very hard to argue with someone in English. Sometimes I got a bit angry, partly because I felt misunderstood and partly, I was angry at myself because I couldn’t explain what I wanted. But in the end, I guess that’s normal and I was happy that I apparently felt comfortable enough speaking English to start an argument.

Altogether, I feel quite comfortable communicating in English. I guess the most differences and therefore difficulties I face currently lies in the cultural aspects of the language. I think a lot of people are not aware of the fact that cultural habits and values make up a large part of languages. Not only does culture influence how we phrase and interpret things, it also influences the deeper structure of the language such as vocabulary and grammar. That is something that I will bear in mind in the future.

Natalie Lampert