[the-dream]

I have never seen this topic discussed here before but I’m sure that it is a dilemma that a lot of forum members have faced.

After living and traveling abroad for an extended period of time, I recently returned home to realise that although I had developed in other ways, my wit, charm and conversational skills had somewhat declined.

This is due to spending so long speaking English to people who don’t speak English as their first language. Consciously and subconsciously, I dumbed down my English to make it more basic so that I wouldn’t be misunderstood and after doing that for long enough, that “2nd language” English became my regular English.

How can one avoid this whilst living abroad or traveling for extended periods of time?

Ideally, how can one not only maintain their current social skills but build on them whilst living abroad?

Have you guys experienced a similar thing?

[the-dream]

The obvious answer would be to learn and speak the language of whatever country you are in.

However, I’m not sure that it would be a total solution.

Many of us are a digital nomad who travels from place to place. English is the global language that we converse in and we don’t have a home base with one specific other language that you could learn.

Personally, my base abroad was the Philippines. In the Philippines, making an effort to learn the local language (Tagalog) probably wasn’t the obvious fix for a few reasons that I will list below. I imagine most other travelers/expats could come up with a similar list for their base country.

- Most of my social circle were not Filipinos but also not native English speakers. They were Europeans, South Americans etc with a sprinkle of Filipinos and native English speakers. Our common language was and always would be “2nd language English”. These people also didn’t speak the local language and had no intention of learning it.

-Filipinos speak very good English. I would need to study Tagalog for years for my Tagalog to be anywhere near as good as their English and for it to be worthwhile for them to talk to me in Tagalog instead. “Very good” does not equal totally fluent and able to understand metaphors, figures of speech and eloquent words. If their English was only basic, I’d have to make a big mental effort to dumb down my English so it would be easy to switch between basic and well spoken but when their English level is quite good, I am only making minor subconscious tweaks that you I don’t really realise but make a big difference overall.

- There are so many languages in the Philippines. Even if I were to learn Tagalog, I’d still be speaking in a second language to the majority of the country. The people that it would be most useful to be able to communicate with by learning their language would have been my local girlfriend’s family and friends. Their language was not Tagalog, the language of the city that I was staying in, so even speaking Tagalog to them wouldn’t have been that much more useful than English.

Other possible solutions I can think of that are not particularly appealing for it somewhat defeats the point of being abroad:

- Hanging out with more native English speakers
- Watching native English TV
- Doing speeches or podcasts or something along those lines

[Borges]

Literature.

English is not my first language, but because of work, I often go long stretches communicating almost exclusively in English. I find this has a detrimental effect on my domain of my first language. Obviously I never lose it, but when I go back to it I'm not my usual self.

Reading good books helps tremendously. Literature is high level language authored by great masters and preserved in written form. It helps with vocabulary, grammar, metaphors, everything. It doesn't necessarily help with social skills, but it is useful in conversation. I keep my native language alive in my head by reading good novels.

[JimBobsCooters]

I've only really found three ways to do this that work reliably.

1. Stay in regular contact with friends and family back home - This one's pretty obvious, keeps you talking and generally the banter will stay which keeps the wit sharp, I have a core group of friends that I try and make sure I call and talk to at least 3 a week, if you've got a strong social circle you'll probably have a couple of others that call you meaning that you talk in English with good casualness most days in the week. Added bonus of staying connected with your good friends, I actually talk to a few of my friends more often now outside the country than I used to when living a few km apart!

2. Reading - It's not as good as talking but reading a lot will keep the vocabulary sharp and conversational skills developed. Not as good as talking obviously but it's better than nothing.

3. Hang out with English speakers abroad - Obvious again really, find something you enjoy doing that is available wherever you happen to be and be involved with it. I personally try and find English speakers who play golf and join them for a round or two, most countries will have a well developed golf network you can tap into, generally if you find members at better courses you can even end up getting guest discounts but honestly for me that's a secondary bonus to just getting out there and cutting the shit with guys. Most of the guys will be up for some good banter. I also enjoy going to a sports bar to watch my preferred sports, this works best if your sports are the American/Australian sports that attract almost entirely English speaking followers, soccer while even more popular obviously isn't nearly as English based in its fandom. Even finding a local pub or an Irish pub (there's at least 3 in every city) where the clientele are English speaking.

Obviously depending where you are expat networks can be a strong source of English speakers, places like Moscow, Bangkok, Rio and other major haunts all have massive expat networks to tap into.

Honestly though, I still feel a bit slow when I go home, I think it's unavoidable, especially when dealing with women, really time in the game is how you develop and time out of the game holds you back, when you are gaming in a foreign language or broken English you do lose some finesse and touch. You also have a massive crutch that gets pulled on you, always found you get a second chance and sometimes a third chance when you do mess up and say the wrong thing with non-native speakers because you can just explain it in a better way or even put it down to misunderstanding, obviously when back home speaking to native speakers you lose this crutch that you might not even realise you're using and every mistake gets punished to its maximum.

[BangBoy123]

Good subject, I have been thinking along similar lines.

I have been living in Ukraine for a number of years, and Ukrainians are neither witty nor particularly charming.

Also I have been concerned that i've been turning into a cold emotionless bastard(the sterotypes are largely correct)

I hope to have children at some point in the not too distant future once I have found someone to breed with. I don't want the kids growing up with no sense of humour, not smiling, not using tissues, and not saying please and thank you.

It's good to spend time with foreigners, ideally from your country, so you can have some banter over a cup of coffee/beer.

I refuse to watch TV to keep my connected to my country, as I just get angry with the globalist/feminist agenda that is ingrained in almost everything you watch. I will sometimes download a TV series or Film though.

The key in my opinion is to take regular trips outside of the country, it keeps things fresh and you're not too distanced from the outside world

[Winston Wolfe]

I speak two languages fluently and I too have noticed that my conversational skills in my native language get rusty after not using it for long stretches of time. I start forgetting words (only remembering them in English) etc.

The solution for me has been to simply keep having regular conversations in both languages. I regularly call up friends and we talk for an hour, I do this for both languages. This usually does the trick.

Reading a lot works well too.