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comment by cauliflower
cauliflower  ·  3987 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Do you think you could live in a Foreign country?

The idea is appealing and it's definitely something that is romanticized. I'd like to think that I would enjoy it and relish in the opportunity. Unfortunately, if I were to be completely realistic, I would lose my mind. My anxiety would keep me nearly incapable of going to a store. If it was a country that spoke a language other than English, I would sit in front of a mirror, scared to go outside, because I would be too worried about messing up the language and getting myself into trouble somehow, or even just embarrassing myself. I'd probably end up sitting in a small room, too stubborn to admit it was a bad idea and too nervous to do much of anything.

Of course, that would be if I were to go alone. With my partner, I'd survive. She'd enjoy every single second, I would be so worried about breaking any cultural norms that she'd just have to laugh at me. I assume at some point, I would get used to it and maybe even comfortable.





humanodon  ·  3987 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Haha, my solution to this was to pretend I had a sore throat and point at things I wanted.

ButterflyEffect  ·  3987 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I was hoping to get a reply as to why somebody wouldn't be comfortable doing so! That's a very real possibility depending on your ability and experience with a given language.

But the beautiful part about going to store or what have you is that in normal conversation native speakers don't worry about following all of the grammatical conventions that are hammered into you when you learn the language. It's usually about flow and what's most comfortable, at least for Western languages.

cauliflower  ·  3987 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah, I have really bad anxiety. I have trouble going to stores down the street from me, I imagine it would be ten times worse in a foreign country.