It’s funny the things that stick in your craw when you learn a new language. For some its pronunciations. For others its words in the new language that sound like swear words in their mother tongue (Irish had some real humdingers!). For me, one of the hardest things to adjust to with German is the use of formal and informal …
You Say Potato, I Say…Zulassungsbescheinigung
We get a lot of comments from people about how lucky we are to live where we do, how exotic our lives must be, and one question we get asked all.the.time: What’s it like living in a foreign country?? Let me tell you a story… Today, I needed to run some errands. I needed a winter coat – like, a …
7 Ways Learning a Language is Like Being the Parent of a Newborn
We are currently in the middle of learning our third language (not counting the snippets of Spanish and American Sign Language we both picked up growing up). As I’m going through this process again, it struck me once again how humbling it is to start learning to communicate from scratch. A friend recently asked me what language learning is like. …
10 People You See Everyday on Public Transport
A huge portion of the world utilizes public transport as their primary mode of transportation. After spending a few months doing just that, I have decided that there are 10 People you will see everyday, without fail, when utilizing public transport. Let me know if you’ve seen them, too. Here we go: 1. The Prideful Regular He knows the system inside …
From Sea to Shining Sea: Tips for Helping Ex-Pats’ American Re-Entry
So you have family or friends living overseas, and they’re coming back to America! Whether they are coming for a short vacation, a few months, or moving back permanently, you’re ecstatic and can’t wait to see them. Right? If they’re anything like me and my family, they can’t wait either! We have been back in the States for almost six …
Two Places at Once
This week’s prompt for the writing flash mob that is Five Minute Friday with LisaJo is: BELONG GO I stare out the airplane window at the beauty before me. Lights sparkle like so many diamonds strewn across black velvet. I realize this is the last time I’ll see this skyline as I land in a plane for a very.long.time. Years. …