prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4870 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish
| Message 1 of 9 22 July 2012 at 2:46pm | IP Logged |
I think that everyone here knows how important is a contact with the living language... That's why it makes me wonder what are the possibilities to work abroad, but not tire oneself out and spend as much time for languages as possible. (Including the idea of voluntary service.)
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eggcluck Senior Member China Joined 4712 days ago 168 posts - 278 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 2 of 9 22 July 2012 at 3:15pm | IP Logged |
Well I am currently in China with plenty of time to study. Let me put it this way.
I have been here for 8 months...it has been a difficult unhappy experience. I have no friends and everywhere I have gone I have only been met with abuse. To say I feel lonely would be an understatement.
Edited by eggcluck on 22 July 2012 at 3:16pm
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newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6390 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map
| Message 3 of 9 22 July 2012 at 5:25pm | IP Logged |
I'm sorry about your experience, eggcluck. Care to expand a little on why you feel this way?
Edited by newyorkeric on 22 July 2012 at 5:26pm
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hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5141 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 4 of 9 22 July 2012 at 6:23pm | IP Logged |
eggcluck wrote:
I have been here for 8 months...it has been a difficult unhappy experience. I have no
friends and everywhere I have gone I have only been met with abuse. To say I feel lonely
would be an understatement. |
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I guess I can understand feeling lonely, but how do you feel abused?
R.
==
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viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4677 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese
| Message 5 of 9 26 July 2012 at 5:58pm | IP Logged |
To the OP: Well, you could teach English in Asia, although from your target languages you seem more focused on Europe. In a country like Thailand, I believe it’s possible for Europeans with a good level of English to get work in schools or universities. At the uni where I used to teach, they hired an Estonian, as well as a Romanian who had spent some time in Canada. Of course, there’s a large element of luck in going to work abroad. Teaching didn’t work out for me in Taiwan, although I really enjoyed studying Chinese there. Perhaps Southeast Asians have a more relaxed approach to life generally. And for someone who’s into languages, Southeast Asia is just fantastic.
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sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5402 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish
| Message 6 of 9 16 August 2012 at 10:43pm | IP Logged |
For work that won't tire you out and leave you time for languagues you could consider a
sort of simple, mind-numbing job. I worked answering phones for a hotel and while there
were certainly busy periods there was a lot of downtime where we could read and browse
the internet. I got so bored I ended up going back to school just becaue I figured I'd
use the downtime for something productive. Other similar jobs such as manning a desk that
doesn't get too busy, security guard, overnight shifts such as night audit at a hotel,
etc would give you a lot of downtime to do other things. Working in a hostel will put you
in contact with a lot of speakers of a lot of different languages. A lot of people get
jobs as nannies and au pairs in order to move to a new country and learn the language if
you're into that (and female as families tend to prefer them). As long as you can legally
enter the country and seek work these can be good jobs to earn some money while exploring
the culture and language.
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baskerville Trilingual Triglot Newbie Singapore scribeorigins.com Joined 4257 days ago 39 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English*, Tagalog* Studies: German*, Japanese Studies: Hungarian
| Message 7 of 9 07 June 2013 at 5:21pm | IP Logged |
sctroyenne wrote:
Working in a hostel will put you
in contact with a lot of speakers of a lot of different languages. |
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Hey, this sounds like a great job. More
nationalities, more practice :)
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vogue Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4265 days ago 109 posts - 181 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian
| Message 8 of 9 19 June 2013 at 4:36pm | IP Logged |
You can try workaway-ing or woof-ing for volunteer options - usually the people you stay will with provide you with
food/housing.
Right now to work on my Italian I'm an au pair, though as Sctroyenne mentioned families tend to prefer young-ish
(18-30) females, as au-pairs are really more of an 'exchange' program than work. Though you do get paid, room
and board is certainly covered, and in some cases additional perks (mine being phone and transport costs covered
as well as getting to use the facilities at the sporting club and getting afternoon gelato sometimes :)) I do have to
speak in English with their child (20 months), but with the parents I can speak Italian, and often when they're tired
they prefer Italian to be spoken.
Edited by vogue on 19 June 2013 at 4:39pm
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