Gap year survival: learn the lingo!
Monday, 24th August 2009
Why learning some of a language can make the world of difference on your gap year.
Flights, travel insurance, mosquito net, rehydration salts...heading off on a gap year requires a degree of planning and foresight to keep you safe, happy and healthy during your trip. Yet learning the language is often last on the list, if at all, and it is this that can get you out of many a sticky situation to say nothing of enhancing your general experience and enabling you get ‘under the skin’ of a place.
Post-summer is a popular time for college and university students to head off round the world before embarking on the next step of their education or career. It’s also a time when career breakers desert their desks for a few months and go in search of adventure in foreign climes. Whatever your age, education or experience, learning some of the language before you arrive at your chosen destination can make the world of difference to your gap year. Here’s why…
- Safety: Being aware of what is going on around you can help you avoid potentially dangerous situations before they even happen. In the unfortunate situation where you are involved in an incident, understanding what is being said and being able to respond, even in a few basic words and phrases, can often help find you the quickest route out.
- Health: At some point along the way every gap year traveller experiences some sort of health worry. From travellers’ diarrhoea to a more serious tropical disease, a trip to the pharmacy - or worse, hospital - may be on the cards. Knowing how to explain what is wrong to a doctor or pharmacist can get you on the road to recovery much quicker than sign language.
- Interaction with the locals: There is no doubt that knowledge of the language will open you up to experiences and people that you would never encounter otherwise. Whether you’re talking to the local fruit seller, taxi driver or man in the street, you will become more than a tourist by speaking to them in their own language. In turn you will learn more about them and gain a much richer cultural experience.
- Acceptance: ’If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart’. Little more needs to be added to this observation by Nelson Mandela; talking to the locals in their own language will go a long way towards endearing you to them and in turn opening them up to you.
- Personal achievement: For most people, a gap year is more than an extended holiday. Seeking experiences and challenges, and helping others, are just some of the reasons cited as motivation, and whilst doing these things, whether it’s a volunteer programme or TEFL course, knowledge of the language will be invaluable. In itself, learning and then being able to speak a language provides instant reward: you’ll feel the indescribable buzz of being understood and as a bonus an enormous confidence boost too. It is an achievement and skill that can stay with you for life.
- Career prospects: It is a well-known fact that employers are more likely to pick candidates who have used their gap year ‘usefully’. If you have gained a language skill whilst away, you will have an instant advantage. Obviously this is especially useful if you are seeking a career using languages, but even if you are not, the fact that you learnt a language whilst away demonstrates initiative and creativity.
So, how can you learn a language before or during your gap year?
- Evening Language Course: If you have time, take an evening language course for 5 or 10 weeks before you leave. This will teach you the basics of a language, such as how to introduce yourself, order food, book transport, ask for a hotel room, etc. You will also meet like-minded people, and the social and teaching environment will motivate you in the learning process. Cactus Language runs group evening language courses across the UK, US and Canada on start dates throughout the year.
- Self-Study Software: there are a huge variety of CDs, books, podcasts and online learning on the market, in almost any language. Dedicate a certain amount of time each day / week to your studies and you’ll feel a lot more confident as you step on the plane.
- Private Lessons: If time is short, and/or you want to boost your self-study or evening course, a few private lessons with a native teacher will pay their way in no time. Cactus Language Training provides tailor-made language training in your home or work place, anywhere in the UK or worldwide.
- Language Course Abroad: There can be no doubting the value of taking a language course in the country where it’s spoken. Cactus Language offers language courses in over 150 destinations worldwide, which can be combined with accommodation and any number of popular activities ranging from salsa and tango to surfing and cookery.
Tags: career break, gap year, cactus language training, language course abroad, bbc, surfing, part-time evening course, languages, italian, food, german, french, spanish, english
Posted by Sarah Gooding under Experience Cultures, Planning for a course,
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