Language:
What a topic this is, for years when ever I have heard of people emigrating I have always heard the phrase, "6 months to a year you'll have the language no problem". This seems to be a very widely held belief based on essentially nothing as far as I can tell but one that was said to me by pretty much everyone before I emigrated.
Well the 6 month mark is officially here and its safe to say I am not conversing happily as predicted (albeit the prediction of everyone who has never spent more than two weeks in a foreign speaking country). I will try my best to explain the level I have reached although as I stated months ago this can be very difficult. I have definitely been improving constantly, lets start with that. I learn new words regularly and have even started making my way through a learning Norwegian book. However Progress is still with out doubt much slower than I would like
The one thing that I really like is that very often now people say things to me in Norwegian and I know exactly what they are saying, I am usually just talking about fairly simple statements and questions but still this is very helpful. I follow more and more conversations and I have spent time with people where we have communicated many times without them every having to speak English. That being said I still do not understand quite a lot of the time as well and am still regularly frustrated and confused, especially when dealing with strangers. One example was when someone came and dropped the weekly fruit basket at work yesterday, assuming I was Norwegian she tried talking to me, I got the first couple of sentences and managed some semi awkward laughs and "ja ja"'s (this is my response to 90% of statements made by strangers I encounter) but then I got completely lost and so I very awkwardly walked away still chuckling slightly and saying "ja ja". This is by no means the first time this has happened!
The problem in these situations is telling someone who is just trying to make a polite passing comment or a bit of small talk in the street or at a shop or something that you didn't understand as you are English is an embarrassing and tedious situation for everyone. The thing is I have discovered that many more people than I had initially thought do not really like talking English, they understand perfectly well but will avoid actually talking it at all costs. This I completely understand as it is the same for me in Norwegian at present. Even though I often understand it still takes too long to properly construct a decent Norwegian response and I still feel very very stupid in terms of my pronunciation so if ever Im talking to people who know me I talk in English basically all the time.
Anyway my point is imagine this situation, someone very innocently says some comment about the weather or that the shirt Ive just bought is very popular etc. . . if i fully understand I confidently respond with appropriate laughs, yes's/no's, interested noises and sounds of agreement. However if I don't, I can either gamble on some of the above, or go sorry I didnt get that I'm English. At which point they may either laugh and simply say it again in English, OR panic, look a little worried, spend a second translating it and very uncomfortably saying it in English. At which point we both feel very stupid and lose all confidence in our bilingual abilities. In short, its just not worth it. So I gamble, 80% of the time it all comes off fine and we get on with our lives. Occasionally I look stupid and they give me a confused look but by the time its all slotted into place, we have all once again moved on with our lives. Simple!
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