Teach English in Daijiaba Zhen - Hanzhong Shi

My experience with foreign languages is fairly extensive along with many different cultures and traditions. After leaving the UK twenty-two years ago. Firstly I travelled around Western Europe and found that most country’s had a good knowledge of the English language Like Holland, German, Belgium, Switzerland So it was fairly easy to communicate .I found the French did not like speaking English it was not that they could not speak English. It was more like they did not want to speak English. So there was a need to learn French very quickly. Which I found fairly easy. But in the south of France many people spoke English and made life a lot easier. Then moving onwards to Spain (south of Spain) Very few people spoke English. So there was a real need to learn another language very quickly as no one in the area I was living spoke any English. Buying breakfast at first was difficult learning important parts of the language like names of food and general please and thank you helped a lot. But within a few months I had a small vocabulary, which made things a lot easier. I found the Spanish language quit easy to learn and had a lot of fun learning it with new friends. Then I moved on to Portugal where no one at the time spoke any English but the Spanish I had learnt got me by. Then moved across Europe to Italy. And found again no one speaking English so yet again I needed to learn another language so I can buy things and at least be able to communicate with people. Travelling through a country alone not knowing the language can get very lonely. Italian was quit difficult for me to learn. Getting the sound of the language correct for me was not easy at all. But I persevered and learnt yet again enough to get me by. Next I moved through Europe and did not find any real problems with language until I got to Romania (Eastern Europe). Where it seemed to be very much like Italian but with some English words being used for different objects. For example the word envelope, which in English is the package, you place a letter or a parcel in. In Romania Envelope was the tire for a car or lorry. There were many words like this within the Romanian language. Which made learning the language and using the language a lot of personnel fun. From Romania I travelled down Eastern Europe Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece Turkey and many more countries. Then decided to leave Europe and go to Africa. My Destination was Egypt and a place called Dahab. A small town in the south of the South Sinia Desert. Where there was no real need to learn Arabic but just out of respect for the people I lived with (bedouin tribe called Mazzina) I learnt the language and stayed there for a few years. Very easy language to learn for an English person as there are many words that sound the same as English words and mean the same thing. So learning Arabic was quit easy. After learning how to make the sounds needed to produce the words. As Arabic word sounds come from the throat more than the mouth. There are many different types of Arabic language. The Arabic I learnt from the Bedouin was Islamic. Not Egyptian Arabic as when I spoke to Egyptians they did not understand me which at first I found very strange as this was the first country I had ever been to that spoke two different languages and with two very different cultures. Even though Both Languages were Arabic. Then after a few years I decided to move on once again. This time it was to Russia. This was a real shock when I landed in Moscow there absolutely no English anywhere not even on signs at the airport. Immediately I had huge problems communicating. Even from the time I landed I could not communicate with any one. No one spoke English only Russian Finding somewhere to live was difficult. I was desperate to learn the language. But I found Russian to be the easiest language to learn. Once you learn the alphabet. It’s very easy to speak and read. After three months I was very nearly fluent in Russian. And received a lot of respect from Russian people. Because I spoke their language. I made lots of friends and life became comfortable very quickly. Once again after a few years I moved on to Cambodia and stayed there for a while and found I learnt very little Khmer (Cambodian Language). I don’t know why I did not learn it. But for some reason it did not interest me. But now I’m living in Vietnam. Where I will be for the foreseeable future. As I am married to a Beautiful caring Vietnamese woman. I am finding Vietnamese the most difficult language to learn. To sum up my experience with foreign languages I find if I immerse myself in a country where there is no English being spoken. I very quickly learn.