From Oklahoma to New York
Thursday, 26th March 2009
Learning a foreign language (English in my case), was a basic in order to improve not just the chances of finding a good job, but also the chance to open myself new countries and cultures all over the world.
One of the best and fastest ways to learn a language is definitely being immersed in the culture of the language that you want to learn; this was the main reason why I changed my Spanish speaking environment for the American Midwest. Moving to Oklahoma was a great way to keep developing my English skills, especially in speaking and listening, helping me to recognize the different accents of the regions also to learn more about informal ways of speaking that sometimes have nothing to do with what you learnt at high school.
Being in Oklahoma was a great chance to learn about the more traditional America, and also a gave me the possibility to move around the country. After staying there over a year, I moved to New York in order to expand my knowledge of the different ways of life that you can find over here. And you don’t get the chance to live in NY every day. And after being over here one month I can say that New York is nothing like the other places in America where I have been, including Midwest (Oklahoma, Dallas, Houston…), the South (New Orleans, Lafayette…) and the West coast (L.A., San Diego, Santa Monica…).
It is really difficult to find a word which can describe the way that makes this massive, cosmopolitan and fast city different from the other American big cities I have been to, but if I have to find one word, and sorry for being, maybe, ethnocentric, it would be that New York is “Europeanish”. Of course, obviously this city its his own “flavor” but the way that it was made and the way that people live over here remind me totally of old Europe. Hoses are next to each other, you can move everywhere without a car. Nothing to do with the spread of other cities where I have been where it is just impossible, you can even find yourself wondering how you are going to get to the Supermarket to buy food when you have no car and the public transport is just deficient.
New Yorkers all around America are famous for being impolite, of course, that is not true at all, it is possible that to the more “friendly people” of the “hearth of America” a New Yorker would seem rude but for a New Yorker (and even for me) maybe the others just seem “over polite” (no, you don’t need to ask if you actually do not care how someone who you don’t know their day is). In my opinion New Yorkers are polite, each time that I got lost here, and believe me, it has been more than a couple of times, they have been nice and totally pleased to help me to find my way. Someone told me that this is the only thing that they are pleased to help you with, but well, it is enough for me.
Finally since New York is so cosmopolitan I have the chance to learn another foreign language in New York, there are plenty of opportunities to learn French, Spanish (even the signs are bilingual) and you always have the opportunity to listen and, if you know them, speak those languages just in the street.
More about language courses in New York
Tags: english, spanish, french, culture, learning, languages, language, language course, new york
Posted by David Mas under Experience Cultures,
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