Adjusting To The Cultural Shock Of Moving Abroad

Whether you're going to move abroad for a fixedare almost the same for these particular
amount of time for school education, businesscognates.
issues or simply for a better/new type ofThe first thing that you could do in this case is
lifestyle, you're going to be hit by what mostgrab a list of English – German cognates
people call the "cultural shock". This involves hittingoff the Internet and give them a read-through so
yourself to a new lifestyle, new ways of handlingyou can recognize them in a text or spot them in
issues, sometimes a new type of currency, buta conversation. This will also help in dealing with
most importantly, a new language. Actually, thethe so called "false cognates". False cognates are
biggest shock will be this language barrier,words that look alike and sound alike in both
especially if you're moving to a country where thelanguages, but actually have a different meaning.
mother tongue is no where near your ownFor example: the German word "eventuell" might
language's lexical foundation. For example,seem like the English word "eventually", however
switching from an Anglo-Saxon based language tothe meaning in German is quite the opposite.
a Slavic, or Latin one (or vice versa) can beEventuell means "possibly" or "perhaps". Another
extremely unpleasant, since you won't be able togood example of these false cognates is "brave"
understand any bits of a conversation. What this– "brav". You would thing that the German
article will aim for, is try to give you a few tips"brav" means "brave" in English, however its
and tricks on how to start learning this newcorrect meaning is "well behaved". The German
language faster and how to adjust to the newword for "brave" is "tapfer".
culture through language.As you can see, this is a starting point for your
Let's say your native language is English and youcultural shock adjustment in what regards the
move to Germany (the German language is oflanguage of the foreign country. Of course, the
the same lexical foundation as English). Evenexample above is very particular, but it applies to
though you might not know the slightest thingmany other situations. And since language is such
about the German language when you movean important step in understanding a new culture
there, you will still be able to take out bits andand adjusting to it, it is advised that you start
pieces out of writings, conversations (welllearning it even before you move abroad if
admittedly, maybe less from conversations, atpossible. Even if you don't have time to take
least not until you get used to the local accent,some local courses, the Internet can be a good
talking speed, etc). The reason for this is thatsource to start learning. There are several learning
many words are quite common in both Germanwebsites out there that can help you do so and
and English. Take "house" for example, which issome of them offer quality free online language
translated as "haus". Although the spelling is slightlycourses that can give you a heads up on a
different, the pronunciation and the morphosyntaxlanguage in a matter of days.