Check out this video that explains everything in this post, with airport footage from an actual trip I made with 40kg:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IScYc9altnU

Ah, no-frills airlines. How we both love and hate you at the same time!

Since quite a lot of us are on a budget nowadays, we try to find ways to pay less as often as possible, and low cost carriers (like Ryanair, Easyjet etc. in Europe) are a great way to do this if you are travelling. They remove all unnecessary luxuries and simply get you to your destination. If you travel just with hand luggage and buy your ticket at the right time, they are by far the cheapest way to travel, and seats can be gotten for just a couple of Euro sometimes.

However, there are those of us that simply can’t travel only with the 10kg hand luggage limit. I don’t have a base anywhere in the world, so I travel with my entire “house” once every 3 or so months. I think I am doing pretty well to have everything important I own in the world weighing only 40kg. When I go on non-low-cost carriers (across oceans for example), it usually means I only have to put a few kilograms in my pockets. But in Europe, flying with them is almost always way too expensive.

So, over the years I’ve learned some travel hacks to allow me to bring way more than the limit with me without paying overweight luggage fees. Best part is -- I’m technically not breaking a single rule!

Every rule has a loophole!

The rule with Ryanair for example is 10kg hand luggage and 15kg check-in. As it is, you pay for check-in separately so that will immediately bump up the price of your ticket. So if you are travelling with 20kg or so, you can actually use the hacks discussed here while travelling just with hand luggage and avoid all extra charges. On the trip shown in the above video, I did pay extra to bring check-in luggage (€15 on Ryanair) as well as other random Ryanair extras like credit-card fees etc., but I didn’t pay anything else after that.

So how did I do it? As explained in the video, I stuck to their rules precisely: 10kg hand luggage and 15kg check-in. The remaining 15kg did not go into these bags so I did not break any rules. If it didn’t go in the bags, where’s the only place you can put it? On your person.

You see it all the time; people squeeze that extra little bit into their pockets, or overweight passengers are generally not charged extra. This is a loophole that I take advantage of and put all excess items on me. I made a video about it 2 years ago that got quite a lot of views on Youtube, and if you have combat trousers and lots of pockets, you’d be surprised how much you can squeeze in! But it doesn’t explain my main hack that helps me bring way more with me: my jacket.

The ridiculously large jacket-pocket hack

Even if I’m travelling in August in 42ºC weather, I will put on this jacket. It’s an ugly old unfashionable jacket, but I bring it everywhere with me. It wasn’t particularly special when I got it, but by partially destroying it I have made it suddenly very useful: If you have a double-layered jacket, then tear a pocket open and simply stuff all your things inside! This way your entire jacket suddenly becomes one pick pocket that you can keep filling up! The only limit is the space that can fit in there (quite a lot usually) and the strength of the jacket to support it.

This jacket simply counts as weight on your person so you can be pretty flexible with how much you can stuff in!

It isn’t uncomfortable because you only wear it when passing through checks. It only takes a second to take it off when passing through security and they simply don’t care when they see stuff in it in the x-ray. As long as you have no liquids or weapons they’ll let you pass. Around the terminal, I just put the jacket into a strong plastic bag. With Rynair you have to get checked when getting on the flight too, so I just put the jacket on again for that couple of minutes and then take it off and stuff it overhead with my check-in bag.

Even if it’s really hot and uncomfortable, you only actually wear it for a couple of minutes. For most of the journey to/from airport and on the flight, the jacket is actually in a separate bag.

I also included everyone’s favourite hack from the first video in this new one. How to bring a large towel (or similar). In this case you have to ask yourself what would superman do? I wear my towel as a cape and put my jacket over it so people simply don’t see it. You would be surprised how much you can fit on you when you think about it!

One other useful hack is to bring an empty bottle, since you can’t bring water through security. They always let you pass with an empty bottle (no liquids), and you can fill it up at fountains inside the terminal. This saves heaps of money that you would otherwise spend on buying airport water.

Don’t forget to be nice!

I think the main reason that this has worked for me dozens of times without me being taken aside and asked to pay extra is because I am always nice to workers at the airport. There might be some small-print somewhere that says I can’t do this, but it’s never applied because (no matter how exhausted or annoyed with travel I might be) I always smile and try to go the extra mile to make those working at the airport feel like I appreciate what they are doing.

This time in Paris was the only time that they ever commented on my jacket at security. The security guard just thought it was strange, but didn’t imply that I couldn’t do it. To get attention away from the jacket, when she actually said (in French) “You have a LOT in your jacket pocket! And your laptop is huge!” I immediately jumped on the laptop comment and told her more about it and that for the same price as an Apple laptop I got a much more powerful PC laptop, but installed Ubuntu instead of Windows on it to avoid crashes and viruses. “What’s Ubuntu?” I was asked -- I actually spent the next 5 minutes talking to the security guard (as she was checking other passengers) giving my Linux pitch and she requested that I write down the address for her to download Ubuntu! The jacket issue was forgotten entirely.

I always try to get to the check-in early and change my customer-is-always-right attitude to relate to airport staff as much as I can, and they always give me some leeway, even if I am over the actual check-in luggage limit by a several kilograms. A bit of Irish charm has gotten me quite far! With no-frills airlines, flexibility on check-in limits is way less likely so the actual hacks mentioned here do make a big difference

I always try to chat to those at the airport like this. They are human too, and if you think outside of the system and focus on the human-aspect (something I said a lot in my language hacking guide) then they’ll appreciate it and make an exception “just for you”.

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Has anyone else tried these travel hacks? Do you have other ones that I didn’t mention here or in the video? Make sure to leave a comment to share it with us And share this post & video with your friends on facebook if any of them are travelling this summer!
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If you ask someone the question “Are you closed minded?” the answer will almost certainly be a no. I don’t think anyone in the world sees themselves as closed minded. They are always sceptical or simply convinced that the other guy is wrong.

The description closed minded is one we tend to reserve for someone else. I’m tempted to mention some people I think personify this description perfectly, but using a blog as a platform to be negative about things one doesn’t like has already been done to death.

Of course, I like to put a positive spin on things, so I’m going to give you an example by exposing my own realisation that despite being exposed to so many people and cultures, I have been carrying a closed-mindedness about something important that I have finally been able to let go of: my bad blood with the Parisians.

9 months in Paris

Back in 2005, I was ready to take on French for the first time, so since I prefer cities it just seemed logical to move to Paris to do this.

I had only been on the road for a year and a half back then so I was still quite bright eyed and had dreams of meeting my own Amélie Poulain, running into amazing new people every day in la ville lumière, and speaking flawless French in a short matter of months.

To say that I was disappointed wouldn’t do what I felt justice – despite trying hard to get along, I found the Parisians arrogant, unfriendly, rude and plain old mean. I really dislike promoting stereotypes (the hundreds or thousands of times I’ve heard “You’re Irish and you don’t drink??” has never seemed to lessen how annoying it is), and I really tried to see their good side, but after 9 months, I had given up.

It’s the only place I’ve ever lived in, where my attempts to speak the language were met with disgusted grimaces and where I never received any form of encouragement from locals. I would dream of the day when a Parisian would call my French pas mal.

Despite all that, I stayed committed for the entire 9 months and did finally start speaking French. Things improved hugely when I moved down south to Toulouse (so I actually liked the French in general quite a lot), and some time later to Quebec, but in the earlier stages it was one of the hardest languages I’ve learned – not because of grammar, exceptions or any of that (which all languages have), but simply because the Parisians were extremely unhelpful and discouraging.

My newfound devotion to not speaking English had backfired (luckily that’s the only place it’s ever happened) because it basically meant that I had little options to socialise at all; there were plenty of English speakers around, but I was committed to speaking French no matter what. (Of course, there were actually plenty of options right under my nose; I should have just hung out with other learners, but I was still a long way off improving my learning and socialising methods back then). Since I hadn’t really figured out yet how to practise a language away from its home country, I was also quickly losing my Spanish and Italian.

After work, I tended to just retreat back home and watch TV or study, which wasn’t helping much. My long-term goal to be a polyglot was seeming more and more impossible and the experience was a lonely and frustrating time for me. Paris is not a time I look back on nostalgically.

5 years of stubbornness

And this is where the closed-mindedness comes in. I had 9 months of “proof” in terms of my memories, that Paris was hell on earth and Parisians were the devil’s minions. And I was not shy to tell anyone who would (or wouldn’t) care to hear it.

Of course, people would argue. Plenty of people love Paris and would tell me how nice Parisians were. This made no difference to my convictions.

I could argue away their case with any twists of logic I could find. If it was a pretty girl, then a sexist comment about how that’s why she was treated nice would come up. If it was someone on a language programme, then it was because the Parisians were paid to be nice to them and endure their French. And of course if someone was there as a tourist or for a few months mostly speaking English, then it’s because they simply weren’t immersed enough to see the real truth.

I would dismiss the counter-proofs as irrelevant and embrace anyone else with a similar opinion to be flawnted as my comrade against evil. It’s something I’ve seen time and again from narrow minded people, but I was blind how to how I was doing the very same myself.

This opinion may have continued with me if it wasn’t for this blog and a general quest to try to rid my life of unnecessary negativity.

Being public about these missions and suggesting unconventional language hacks has lead to disagreements and arguments with people. I was initially surprised about this, but I should have expected it; if you challenge anyone’s long held beliefs that they have never questioned before, you are going to hear all about it.

When someone has such a long-term investment of years in a belief (languages take decades to learn, only the rich can travel, luck governs all, or in my case Parisians are aresholes), then they will passionately defend that belief, no matter what the benefits to being a little open minded may be.

Starting with a clean slate and opening your mind

Since my French has gradually and continually improved despite not being in France/Quebec any more, especially through hosting Couchsurfers, I’ve had the pleasure to meet some really nice Parisians. I had continued to mark them as the exceptions, since as travellers they were “bound to be” more open minded.

But in Bangkok, I realised that I had been carrying this weight for too long. It was time to get over myself and have an open mind about my opinion even if I “knew” it was true. I resolved to spend 3 days in Paris with the mission to leave with a positive impression of Parisians.

I actually succeeded within hours.

All it took was to really try and to challenge my own opinions and expectations. In those first 9 months I was waiting for them to prove themselves to me, and I never really analysed why they were treating me like that. “They’re shitheads” is an easy dismissive response of course, but it’s simply not true. Let me tell you the experience that changed it for me:

I had just arrived from a 13 hour flight from Bangkok at 6am with no sleep. Usually I tend to sleep at Couchsurfers’ houses, but I wanted to my own space this time and to just chill out by myself for a few days before going home. So I had booked the absolute cheapest hotel I could find (€35/night for an unimpressive roof over your head; far from the luxury I was getting in Thailand), but I was pleased to see when reserving that it also came with in-room wifi.

So when I got there, I really just wanted to check my e-mails and then collapse. After checking in, I asked for the wifi password and the receptionist said that the wifi is down, has been for weeks and won’t be repaired until the end of the month. I needed to check work e-mails, I didn’t need this problem in my exhausted state; I said that it’s false advertising and he shrugged and said (in French) that frankly, it wasn’t his problem.

Then it happened – I realised at that very second how I was reacting over my entire 9 month period. I was constantly fighting with Parisians and judging them by my standards of how people should act. In Ireland or other countries, a hotel (even a cheap hotel) receptionist just wouldn’t say that. “The customer is always right”, and if something isn’t perfect then it’s the business’s problem to solve it.

Look at it from their perspective

But I wasn’t in Ireland or Brazil or Thailand anymore. Also, hanging out with French people way more outside of France (ironically) than in it, meant that I had gained that glimpse into the culture that I hadn’t in those 9 months.

Although I still have lots to learn about French culture, the way I see it (sorry for more stereotypes!), the worker is given more respect in France than in some other countries, which alternatively focus more on the customer. Workers in France have quite a lot of rights and laws favour them more. Whether this is good or bad is irrelevant because that’s the way it is. Judging the Parisians by my rules meant that they were going to bite back. I was doing this with workers and with potential friends.

We love blaming our problems on others. The fact that I had experienced an isolated 9 months wasn’t their fault, as I had maintained; it was mine for dismissing the “negative” aspects I didn’t like. I should have been learning from these differences, but I was too stubborn to acknowledge such a possibility.

So this time I took a different appraoch. Even though I was tired and actually did need to check e-mails, I simply changed the subject and tried to relate to the receptionist. I told him about when I worked as a youth hostel receptionist in Rome and how I hated it when I got blamed for things that were out of my control, so I understand there’s nothing he can do. I tried to get on his side and said that he probably gets a lot of arrogant and angry foreign guests at the hotel blaming him for things that aren’t his fault.

He suddenly became way more friendly and we chatted for a few minutes. Using a few other tricks that I’ve learned from more exposure to the French, you know what? I actually got a wifi password! Ridiculous, but there was a “staff only version” that he gave me for being nice. No amount of complaining or threatening to talk to the manager etc. would ever have gotten me that. That’s just not how things work there.

After a rest, I went out and had a pleasant conversation with pretty much everyone I met for the rest of my stay, both worker and random young person. Changing my filter from just seeing the negative to starting to see the positive, actually gave me a positive experience in the end. If only I had realised this sooner, I wouldn’t have been carrying around this unnecessary baggage for so long.

On my last morning, I was getting breakfast before going to the airport and chatting to the guy at the boulangerie. Just before I left he actually congratulated me on my level of French; I’m already confident about my level of French and in other parts of France and in Montréal I had been complimented before, but this was coming from a Parisian. That’s well beyond the pas mal that I had always dreamed of, and all it took was to see things from the other person’s perspective.

So, what are you closed minded about?

The whole point of sharing this story is to try to get people to step outside themself and see if any negative feelings you have towards something or someone could be resolved by simply trying to see the other point of view? Seriously, think about it for a minute. What do you really hate, or passionately disagree with? We don’t have to abandon everything we know to be true, but some “truths” do us more harm than good. Even basic things can be challenged if you really ponder over them.

It seems so obvious, but even the most intelligent people can’t see past their own egos and admit when they’ve made a mistake. Is saving face really more important than making peace? I genuinely thought that I would never make peace with Parisians, but being open minded about being closed minded has almost instantaneously neutralised a major negative aspect of my life.

If you’ve had a similar experience with Parisians, or if you changed your mind about something after years of maintaining what you knew then share it with us in the comments
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Travel update – no language tips in this (long) post

My experience in Thailand has ended and I’m already back in Europe (in Paris for the weekend, Ireland for the next 3 weeks and then starting the next 3-month mission). I’ve learned quite a lot in terms of general life lessons, as well as for learning languages of course, but first I’ll give a travel summary to continue from my first impressions.

Ko Phi Phi – my favourite island

Just after my last travel update (in Phuket), I made my way to Ko Phi Phi (pronounced gaw pee-pee; yes, romanisation in Thai is very misleading). I stayed for about a week, and it was by far the best week of my entire Thailand experience!

Phi Phi is a magnet for young (mostly beautiful young Swedish) party seekers, and those with dreams of finding their Beach. In fact, the Leonardi DiCaprio movie The Beach was filmed in an adjacent island.

However, coming here to find an unspoilt paradise would leave you disappointed; the island is extremely touristy and chaotic, and quite expensive for Thailand. Although I was immediately struck by how clear the water was when getting off the ferry, I wouldn’t call what I had seen to be the most beautiful destination.

I actually did want to just party for a week and I got that and more! Open-access areas on the beach have music and a sandy dancefloor, and there are amazing fire shows; a fire skip-rope, fire limbo and fire juggling. Anyone can participate, and most do! I’d love to say how brave I was, but to be honest I only did the fire limbo when it was at the highest level and skipped the rope when the flames were least strong. Quite a few people got burnt!

What made this destination such a great party for me was how friendly the other tourists were there. It’s amazing, but even the attitude of other travellers changes between the islands (see below). I had absolutely no problem making some cool new friends; for weeks afterwards I would be elsewhere in Thailand and would be recognised by someone I had met in Phi Phi (although, I have ways of making myself easily recognisable that those who’ve been out with me know about!)

Parties (and seeing so many beautiful Swedish girls) aside, the main reason this island gave me the highest quality experience for this trip was actually because of people I had met online and ended up spending most of my time with there – fellow bloggers and “tweeps” Dan Andrews, Tom, Sean Ogle and his friend Ryan, as well as Baker and his family. They hugely enriched my entire Thailand experience; I had some amazing conversations, learned a lot from them, and finally got to hang out with some other “location independent” workers, which is something we all had in common. Most people I tend to hang out with in my travels usually wouldn’t even know what twitter is, let alone be as active online as my Phi Phi friends are.

I made sure that we worked together on my video and I was video interviewed by both Sean and Baker (I’ll link to those videos when they become available). Sean wrote an interesting post about how Phi Phi is where the productive go to die (i.e. getting any work done there is quite hard!) and I’ve been lucky to have been able to spend more time with him in Bangkok in my final weeks. I’ll otherwise be keeping in touch with that group until we meet again!

The inexperienced tourist

After Phi Phi, things kind of went downhill for the rest of my Thailand travels before I decided to settle in Bangkok. As initially stated, I was trying out being an English speaking tourist while in Thailand.

There are advantages to that style of travel, and it may be preferable for some people, but it really is not for me. Don’t get me wrong, I can be viewed as just as much of a tourist even when living in a city for several months and speaking its language, but pure-English-speaking tourism is not something I’ve ever experienced outside of countries that don’t have English as an official language. For my own curiosity and for the purposes of giving a rounded view on this blog (as I’ll be writing here for quite a while!), I really wanted to experience the other point-of-view.

This meant that learning Thai was purposely given the backseat and very little time commitment (once again, I had already said I’d be doing this when announcing the mission; some people seem to have misunderstood that I was aiming for fluency in Thai). I don’t regret this decision as I had wanted a new experience; even if it was bound to lead to some disappointment. I also think that a break from intensive language immersion and allowing myself to get to know so many English speaking travellers has been nice, especially since I will be speaking almost no English for the entire rest of the year starting in a few weeks time.

I have genuinely learned some important things from this experience.

Full Moon bucket-drinking session?

I went to Samui and based myself there for about a week surrounding the Full Moon party; one of the most famous parties in the world and on so many people’s lists of things to do before they die. To be totally honest, I was quite disappointed.

It didn’t seem to have anything special in it, and I wonder if people enjoy it so much simply because of the number of buckets of alcohol (yes, alcohol is served in buckets in Thailand) that they’ve consumed. As a non-drinker I have a different perspective on such things, and I never shut up about how amazing Burning Man or the Brazilian Carnival or other large festivals or events are, even though there is clearly a lot of drinking going on in such events too.

But the Full Moon party was just some beach party that happened to have a lot of people. The day I was there had the brightest moon of the year (due to its elliptical orbit), but you would barely have noticed it because of all of the lights coming from the bars and nightclubs. I hate to sound like a nostalgic traditionalist (I like my cities and development more than anyone), but I imagine that it would have been an extremely different and very special event in its early years.

For example, this time last year I was on a secluded beach in India with no artificial lights during a full moon and it was one of the most breathtakingly beautiful sights that I have ever seen in my life. The whole beach was spectacularly lit up in an eery black-and-white way from the light of the moon and seeing my shadow cast in such contrast with no sun or artificial lights was something I had never experienced before. The potential to enjoy yourself with friends in such a set-up is amazing. The Phangan-based party could be just as well called the monthly beach drinking session in my opinion.

Also, unlike in Phi Phi, a lot of the tourists at the FMP are on an extremely brief (between one weekend and one week, for example) trip to Thailand specifically for the party. It was quite hard for me to make friends with those crowds and the people I already knew at the party were extremely difficult to find in the chaos. I think if you are a big drinker or go with a group of people, you would enjoy yourself much more than I did, but you could have a beach party anywhere; to me, the FMP was pure quantity rather than quality.

After that I had caught a bug and was bedridden for several days in Ao nang. Hopping between major tourist destinations was getting old and I had put almost no work at all into learning Thai, so it was time to go north. I spent a few days in Chiang Mai and found the pace of the city and university population to be a reminder of things I liked in other cities that I’ve lived in (Valencia/Salamanca in Spain and Toulouse in France for example).

However northern Thai is extremely different (as far as I could gather, a much greater dialect difference than what I’ve come across in European language dialects), so the little I had learned from the reading part of the experiment would have been rendered almost useless, and any formal indications (in books etc.) on speaking Thai would have been focused on Bangkok’s dialect. So I decided to go back there for my final weeks.

Bangkok

It’s ironic that I came back to Bangkok for its own version of Thai because I ended up just spending most of my time indoors and didn’t even begin speaking or practising it until my final weekend. Once again, looking at my finances grimly reminded me that I needed to do another 3-week stint of double-time work 7 days a week. Such a work commitment has actually prematurely ended one of my previous missions, but luckily what I was aiming for in Thai was much simpler and I’m happy with what I achieved in the very little time that I put into it.

As you can imagine, I am getting quite sick of being locked in my room for such long stretches every few months. Despite enjoying my work, that experience is still quite stressful and extremely antisocial. I’ll be discussing an idea with you soon to hopefully get me out of that pattern.

There was one extra thing to make my Bangkok experience even less authentic! As I wanted to find an apartment as soon as possible (I had been living in hotels for my entire stay up to then; interestingly, that didn’t contribute to financial problems since it’s so cheap in Thailand), I chose the first place I saw that was modern, efficient for working in, right by a skytrain stop and near lots of restaurants. The flat itself was perfect for my purposes but what I didn’t notice when taking it was that it was a 2 minute walk from… (those who know Bangkok, get ready to do a facepalm) Nana plaza . One of the world’s most famous red-light districts.

So every time I went out just for a bite to eat, I’d get pestured by dozens of (both female and she-male) prostitutes. Seeing how many men were in Thailand for sex tourism was infuriating, and getting grabbed and propositioned when walking down the street was something that I just had to learn to ignore. Not quite the impression of Thailand I was hoping to leave with!! This is of course, entirely my own fault for not being better organised; I apologise to all Thais and to locals living here; I will come back another time to get a real perspective on Thai culture, I promise!! I will definitely not be claiming that I “know Thailand” after this superficial experience.

In the few breaks that I did take from work, I got to spend more time with some more location independent workers. Bloggers seem to like doing video interviews, since I had been invited for several other ones, including with Cody McKibben and David Walsh (that I’ll also include in a video summary post), both amazing individuals that I’ve learned so much from in our brief chats!

Bangkok seems to be some kind of centre of gravity for so many interesting people, and despite my own lack of congruence with the English-speaking travellers’ world, I got to appreciate a whole new different type of culture through them. English speaking expats in themselves have something special that they share, which can’t easily be associated with the country that they come from. There’s an anglophone culture in Bangkok that simply can’t be overlooked, and I can understand why so many people are flocking here to experience it.

So having said all of that, this 2-month stay in Thailand has been an eye-opening and extremely different experience for me. I’ve had my ups and downs, and I have learned way more than I was expecting to, and am still processing and reflecting on my short but intense visit there.

Most important of all, I did genuinely make some excellent friends. On my last full day, I went (artificial) wakeboarding with the guys and had a great time with them. I will miss them a lot, but I’m still a nomad at heart, so it was time to move on. It feels good to be back in Europe where things make a little bit more sense to me

———–

In the next post, I’ll summarise the language part of my Thai mission, especially detailing mistakes that I’ve made, and my overall impressions of “dipping my toes” in my first Asian language.

Once I have done that, I would like to spend the next few weeks talking about something that a lot of my readers have shown an interest in, before I begin my first intensive language mission of 2010. I will be in Ireland for St. Patrick’s day for the first time in years, and the lead up to this is what is known as seachtain na Gaeilge – over a week to celebrate the Irish language and culture. To attempt to contribute to this, I would like to share ways of learning more about the Irish language (and culture) through this blog (between some posts with more general language and other tips), as well as making one or more videos about the topic.

Hopefully you’ll enjoy that!! In the meantime, if you have any thoughts on what I’ve written here, feel free to leave a comment. Please note that this post is just me thinking aloud about my Thai experience, so try not to take offense at anything I’ve said here as it’s just my opinion, nothing more.
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When considering where to move to in a country, there seems to be this general consensus that you’ll have a greater feeling of immersion, both cultural and linguistic, if you choose a small town / village over a major city.

I disagree.

If you happen to like villages for their serenity, pace of life etc., then by all means it’s the place for you! But if you think your experience will be any more authentic than someone in a major city, or if you think this will provide you with a superior way of linguistic immersion for speaking the language, you’re kidding yourself.

Finding culture in city life

I happen to prefer cities; I simply get bored in villages and small towns, even if they are amazingly beautiful “hidden away” beach paradises. I like activities and things to do, and personally travel specifically to meet as many interesting people as possible, so I am not so much concerned about sites or seeing as many places as possible in a country, and I especially have no interest in proving myself as a true traveller by getting “off the beaten track”. This isn’t better, it’s just my own personal style.

One thing that especially interests me is the modern culture of a country. In villages, they may still follow old traditions, be very religious/spiritual, and more “true” to how most people lived centuries ago even in cities, but there is a certain uniqueness to how countries adapt to globalisation and technology that I find really interesting (more specific language-related examples in later posts).

So to me, there is definitely lots of culture to be found in city life; on metros, in shopping malls, in tucked away side-streets, and even on the Internet (for pages relevant to the city, or social networking). It’s a different culture to that of villages, but it’s no less authentic or unique.

Even villages have their commonalities internationally; not as much through international communication as in cities, but due to traits that us humans tend to share when we have a particular lifestyle. Time I’ve spent in small towns on different sides of the planet have shown me that we really aren’t all that different.

But I have to admit that I like my nightclubs, lots of varied food options as a vegetarian, international communities like Couchsurfing, cinemas, other foreigners so I can practise other languages, and all the other things that you can find pretty much in any major city. As a long-term traveller, these things make me feel at “home” and give me some sense of consistency in an otherwise constantly changing world! So I like the balance between the familiar and the new.

Using villages for language immersion

One thing I always seem to hear from others before starting my language missions is that I’m making a mistake in choosing a major city to do it in. It’s obvious that in villages there may be more motivations to speak the local language due to less likeliness of meeting locals with any English, other foreigners etc., but I feel this approach of being forced to speak the language has some major drawbacks.

The only time I’ve used a village for linguistic immersion was Glencolmkille to improve my Irish. Every other language mission has mostly involved me living in major cities; Prague for Czech, Rio for Portuguese, Rome for Italian, and a big bunch of other major cities over the last 7 years (with just brief visits to villages).

You can absolutely get the same level of immersion in both a major city and in a village, but there is a big difference in how you will go about this, and to be frank, the reasons that villages force you to speak more may not benefit you as much in the long run. In a city you can make a conscious decision to avoid English-speaking expats, surround yourself with local friends, convince locals to help you, and struggle with separating the English-speaking world from the local-language one by making a conscious decision to stop speaking in English.

These commitments require a lot of self-determination and resolve and if you are successful, then you will be able to even continue speaking and improving that language when you are not even in that country, thanks to getting over this psychological barrier that villages rarely present. Or if you move to another city in the same country, you will have a very similar success rate.

City-life makes you more committed in the long-run

Learning in a village may end up making you need that lack of English to be able to confidently speak the language. I’ve seen it time and again; even if someone has an intermediate level of the language thanks to their village stay, once they meet someone with good English, they’ll get intimidated and give up because they are not used to trying. Or once they move back home, they will be too intimidated to practise with any natives they come across there, who will very likely speak English.

In a village you simply don’t have the choice. If you use the village as a tool to reach a good spoken level of the language, you may very well do that. But you may not have reached the level of confidence of being able to speak the language when you finally move back to city-life.

On top of this, villages don’t always guarantee you that pressure. You just need one friend to speak English with you there to destroy the entire concept of full immersion, making a village equally useful and useless as a city.

A lot of people can rightly call me very stubborn when it comes to speaking foreign languages; in most cases I will win over and get to practise, since I have ways of convincing locals to help me.

I especially find that there is regularly a mini-battle between me and (for example) some proud Français over who gets to practise the other person’s language. If I was Mr. Nice-guy then I’d always give in, and my French would definitely not be anywhere near as good as it is now. However, I have hugely improved my French living outside of France thanks to my stubbornness and determination to practise it every chance I get.

I learned most of this stubbornness from my difficult stay in Paris; I may complain about that city a lot, but it has overall had a very positive affect on my ability to improve my languages, which a pleasant stay in a village in the south wouldn’t have given me. If I had learned French in a village then I wouldn’t have had to fight the battle against those who wanted to use me to practise their English. I wouldn’t have had advertisements in English to ignore, or the challenge of convincing someone exhausted from meeting yet another foreigner who wants to practise their language. I also wouldn’t have tried specifically to make local friends, since in a village it happens anyway.

All of this is extra work, but I’d argue that it’s part of the natural process of immersion and maintaining your level of a language. A village shields you from this work and this can come back to bite you in the arse later.

People in villages are generally really nice and more than happy to speak to you in their language. Some people in cities (of course, it depends hugely on the culture; Brazilians for example have never stopped me from speaking Portuguese!) may not be so helpful. Sorry guys, but that’s the way the world works. You can’t hide in a village forever!

In my opinion, learning this skill of convincing someone to speak to you in their language is among the most important skills you can acquire if you don’t plan on forgetting the language after a brief stay in the country. Learning languages isn’t all grammar and vocabulary; sometimes you need to become a stronger person and more confident in your own abilities.

Then again, most people aren’t up for the challenge of city life

Of course, a lot of people come to foreign cities and cave under the pressure of other expats and English-enthusiastic locals and end up speaking very little of the local language. Too many people in fact – I’ve seen it dozens of times and I’ll always be a little disappointed to see the vast amounts of English speakers living in a city permanently, with little of the local language. With a different approach they could easily learn the language quickly.

So maybe my aggressive approach just isn’t for them and they could do with external factors forcing them to speak the local language. In that case villages really are the best answer. Then again, we could always force them to practise the language with ransom notes for their kidnapped puppies…

But do you really need to be forced to speak the language? Any achievements you make in a village are based on the exact same potential that you would have in a city. Surely you can look inside yourself for that motivation that initially drove you to take the step to move abroad for your language dream? There are great challenges for those attempting to learn a language by immersion in a major city, but the long-term benefits far outweigh the extra work required, as long as you’re willing to put in that extra work.

—————-

Of course, I write this post to you from a city! In the end, I chose Bangkok to conclude my Thai experiment.

With just over 2 weeks left in this project, I have been both facing challenges (that, interestingly are not new to Asian languages for me at all; laziness will hold you back from learning any language!) and discovering how my first Asian language was not as hard as I had thought. I’ve had some interesting discussions with other Thai learners and I’m convinced that despite the differences and the huge amount that I still have left to learn, the hardest aspect of both an Asian and a European language are essentially the same: confidence, commitment and an efficient learning approach.

Moving to a village in Thailand (or anywhere for that matter) won’t change me. I’d still have the same personal confidence and commitment issues to battle with, despite forced external pressure from lack of English speakers. My lack of time investment in this particular project (due to work, travelling, that episode of Lost that I had to watch, and various other excuses) is an internal issue, and changing my external environment would be ignoring that fact.

Despite the fact that I’m still not speaking Thai yet, I am not going to give up so easy! In my remaining 2 weeks I still have some fight in me and I’m still convinced that I’ve got a decent chance of achieving everything that I had initially aimed for. I have a secret weapon that makes sure that I don’t give up so easily, and I’ll be discussing that weapon (which you too can very easily use!) in the next post!

So, is city life really a better long-term solution, or do villages have an extra charm that can’t be ignored? Are you too nice to convince someone who wants to speak English with you, to speak their own language? Am I just too cynical about what’s needed in the long-term? Do you agree with a commenter on this site’s Facebook page that you can’t spell authenticity without city? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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Over the last month, I’ve changed my ways of trying to communicate in the local language, and I’ve been living the life of a typical English-speaking tourist.

This is the first time in a long time that I’ve tried this, as I almost always work on linguistic immersion as a means of getting to know a culture. The results of this experiment have been eye-opening for me, especially since I can compare it to the alternative through years of experience.

So, enough talk of learning other languages. How can that possibly enrich your life if you are already a native speaker of the [ironic mode on] best language ever?

In today’s post, I’m going to give some arguments shared by my fellow English speakers, on why learning another language really is just a waste of your time. You can travel the world just with English, and here’s why:

• In many places, you will have no problem ordering food and checking into your hotel entirely through English. This is, after all, pretty much the only reason you ever need to talk to other human beings: to get French fries and an air-conditioned bedroom. Actually getting to know the locals is a waste of your precious travel time
• If you’re an English speaker, you don’t have any work at all to do in learning the international language! You automatically have the advantage over everyone else, as it should be. All English speakers agree that this is perfectly fair, so it is!
• The most important things to do in other countries are: taking pictures of the sites, going on package tours and eating food in restaurants with translated menus. Making a local friend, eating with their family and going out with them to somewhere not recommended in your tourist brochure / Lonely Planet guide can only lead to trouble; all foreigners want to kill you remember.
• You will find lots of other tourists to hang out with wherever you go. It’s way more logical to travel thousands of kilometres to hang out with people from just down the road; you share so much in common! Foreign countries are so weird; it’s best to avoid any kind of immersion and stick to what you know!
• Learning another language is hard and takes decades of study. On top of this, research has shown that after a certain age it is impossible. An adult could never learn a language quickly.
• You simply don’t have the time to learn even some basic phrases and polite pleasantries; on the flight over for example you have some important reading of quality airline magazines to do, as well as staring out the window and squirming uncomfortably
• English is the best language in the world and perfectly suited to being the international language. Anyone could find the inconsistent spelling rules, unnecessary formalities, huge amount of synonyms, irregularities and vast differences between dialects super easy to master. It’s not like there’s any good competition for international language or anything.
• English will always be the international language. I know we said this for Latin… then French… but we mean it this time!
• England and the US have no bad history with any other country on the planet, so everyone loves to hear English. You are doing the locals a favour by spreading the world’s best language!
• Foreigners use of English can never be confusing
• If they occasionally make it hard to understand, it’s their fault. You went to all that trouble to buy a plane ticket to their country, so they should have the common decency of speaking a language from the other side of the planet.
• Actually forget what I said about common decency, since that rule doesn’t apply to you; you speak the special chosen language!! It’s great to be the exception to the rule, isn’t it?!
• If the person doesn’t speak English, they aren’t worth speaking to. They probably all have simple lives, spending their days in tree huts. University educated locals that work in the tourist industry are your key to an authentic experience!

[Ironic mode off]

OK, seriously – the last month has been among the least interesting of all my travels. Thailand’s islands are pretty, but this style of travel is not for me. There are so many things missing, and this post shows that I really don’t understand other travellers’ attitude when it comes to learning at least a little of the local language.

It seems that most of them either think that learning the local language is unnecessary (which I disagree with, and will go into detail about another time), or is too hard or too time consuming; which I’m hoping this blog can help to disprove.

I suppose it comes down to different styles of travel. Some people take breathtaking photos of their destinations, and measure their travels in kilometres covered, number of countries visited, new foods tasted and perhaps even names of unknown villages they discovered. My criteria are much more simple: the experiences I have with those I meet. Sorry guys, but talking with Australians, Brits, Americans, Canadians, South Africans and other Irish that happen to be on the same path.. is not enough for me.

This post is mostly venting my own frustration in a disappointing last month, rather than trying too hard to criticise other modes of travel. I’m back to the style of travel I like, and that’s all that really matters.

I’ll follow this post up soon with a more positive look on how speaking the local language can hugely enrich your travels. My bouncing around is over, and I’m back in Bangkok now (just for 3 more weeks), attempting to speak the little Thai I know every chance I get, and to improve on it every day. The experience is much greater and I feel like I’ll be leaving Thailand with something extra than if I had left after just following the typical path covered by millions before me.

Learning some of the local language isn’t that hard, and I hope I can convince some people of that on this blog. Let’s stop being typical English-speaking tourists
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Travel update: no language tips in this (long) post!

After travelling for about 7 years already, I thought I was immune to surprises, shocks and general wide-eyed awe.

And then I came to Thailand!

There’s nothing I can say about Thailand that hasn’t already been blogged, Lonely Planeted, Documentary Channelled, photographed or twittered a million times already. This country is on pretty much every RTW ticket and gap-year itinerary and is usually among the first countries that travellers end up in.

However, what is slightly different for me compared to other Siam first-timers, is my mission to speak Thai in just 8 weeks (so far it’s going according to plan) and the fact that I have more travel behind me than most of my fellow temporary farangs here (however, I’ve already met a couple of people here who could see my travel years and raise me 10+). So to be totally honest I’ve had no strong feeling of culture shock here and have been comfortable and confident in finding my way around.

Having said that, there are quite a few things that have stood out for me in these two weeks:

Thai massages

I took a brief training course in India in Ayurvedic massage, and that was my first true exposure to proper massage techniques. I both gave and received enough massages to get the general gist of how they worked, and presumed that other international versions were just massaging different parts of the body in slightly different ways.

This is not how I’d describe Thai massage.

It’s more like your legs and arms getting pounded, squeezed, poked and squashed, then a standard nice back/head massage, and then pre-football-training aerobic stretching applied to a limp puppet… in a good way.

Before I even attempt to take a course, I’ve been getting as many massages as possible (hard life, I know) usually for about 200 Baht (€4/$6) for an hour. And I still have no idea how to summarise them because each one I’ve gotten has been completely different; ranging from excruciatingly painful by a distracted gobshite not even looking at what he’s doing, who seemed to prefer massaging nerves rather than muscles, to an absolutely relaxing experience that made me feel great for hours afterwards.

To those who haven’t tried, I’d highly recommend one, but get a location recommendation beforehand. I’m just randomly picking places and regretting it about half the time.

And if you are a single guy, you have an entirely different problem on your hands. Then again it’s hardly a problem for many; the famous “happy ending” extra that they offer you in less professional parlours.

My random stumblings of course brought me to one of these so far (there’s a lot) and I had the rather amusing task of politely turning down a massage to the one part of me that she “missed”. I’ve been in way more awkward situations than this one before, and was very much psychologically prepared for this by the many stories told to me by some more… “eager” friends of mine who’ve travelled to Thailand. So to be totally honest I found her clumsy “accidents” of brushing against me in the wrong places (to get me excited) to be just silly. I put a stop to it before she got carried away.

The land of smiles?

Don’t get me wrong; I find the Thais to be exceptionally friendly and I am really looking forward to getting to know them better through their language.

But Thailand’s claim to its subtitle has escaped me. If you compare it to places where workdrones tend to walk around with surely expressions on their face, like some major cities in Europe, then sure, they smile more.

I just do not understand why it’s “the” land of smiles based on what I’ve seen in comparison to other places. Brazilians smile way more than what I’ve seen here for example. Maybe the citylife/touristy nature of Bangkok and Patong have jaded the locals and I’ll see way more cheeriness if I go off the beaten track, (in fact, I’m starting to see more smiles now that I’m in a quieter, but still a touristy beach at Karon) but excluding populated areas isn’t much of a land.

It’s not that it isn’t a land of smiles, I just find it pretty much the same level of positivity that I’ve seen in several other cultures. I’d call Thailand a land of smiles rather than the land of smiles…

Affordable luxury

My first week in Bangkok was fun after I got off Kao San road. That’s a great centre of gravity for backpackers, but if you don’t drink you might get bored of it quickly. I don’t think I can call myself a backpacker any more; I did that for many years, but now I have a different style of travelling (and I even ditched my 6th backpack and now travel with a suitcase; more on why this has simplified things for me another time).

I moved into my first ever 4 star hotel (by choice; I’ve stayed in hotels a few times before in the past for just one night and only out of lack of cheaper options) by a metro stop (สถานีเพชรบุรี/Petchaburi).

I was happy to spend a few days there; for just over 1,000 Baht (about €25/$35) I had a king sized bed, a huge modern room (serviced and made up every day), fridge, TV, great ensuite bathroom, air conditioning (it’s around 32ºC in Bangkok in the streets these days), very secure, huge filling breakfast included and wifi and a working desk. The last two are the reason I was paying “so much” (I need to be able to work wherever I go). You can actually easily get a room to yourself for 3 times less than that and still have lots of luxuries, but for the short term I was happy with what I had; especially since I was right by a metro.

Paying that daily isn’t realistic for the long term; I’m hoping to find a Bungalow somewhere soon and pay rent per week/month rather than per day to significantly reduce the cost. But I still felt like pampering myself a bit, and €25 is the price of a bunkbed in a hostel in some major European cities… I’m just not used to “affordable” luxury, so I’m trying it out

However, based on how much other tourists complain about insignificant things in hotels compared to those in budget accommodation, I don’t think I’d travel hotels all the time, even if I could afford it. Too much luxury would make you have unrealistic standards for everywhere you go and seemingly turn you into a whiny crybaby, which I’d rather avoid!

Location independent = Location unsure

I’m sending this post from Karon , a medium sized touristy town on Phuket island (pronounced poo-get despite what the not-very-useful romanisation tells you). I had no particular itinerary when I got here, and I still haven’t a clue where I’ll be in two days time.

The problem is where will I find that Bungalow? I asked online forums, fellow travellers, Thailand experts and friends about where to go weeks before coming here and all the time since I got here. Asking that question will give you a list of pretty much every destination in Thailand if you ask it enough times. It depends on too many factors. Some people like the neon lights with nightlife all week, some like laid back, for some a breathtaking paradise view is essential, others like adventure and others still have their favourite village with no other Europeans around for miles.

I don’t particularly need any of these. I’m not on the hunt for some lost paradise (it’s actually funny how many people on online Thailand forums ask for the name of a “secluded paradise with no tourists”, not realising that publishing its name online to a tourist kind of defeats the purpose), or some false sense of authenticity in a mere 8 week stay. I am well aware of the fact that I’m a tourist here; a forbidden word among a lot of superior backpackers who know better.

Since I’ll likely be back to Thailand again in future, I am devoting most of this trip to look around to find a place that I like. Simple as that.

But it’s hard to put what I’m looking for into words (trust me, I’ve tried!) – I do actually like a wee bit of home (i.e. Europe) around so I don’t feel homesick; Italian restaurants, crêpe stalls, some other travellers, things available to those who can afford it like day trips, windsurfing/massage etc. lessons. So yes, I do actually want to go to a “touristy” town. Most of these are based on the beach, so that’s why I’m covering coastal areas right now, but I don’t actually need the beach for anything more than a nice morning jog on the sand. I’m not here to work on my tan.

I could totally see myself in Bangkok, since it has everything I could possibly want in a city… but when you see so many people wearing face masks to protect themselves from the pollution from the city’s incredible amount of traffic, it makes you think twice about a medium-term stay if you are asthmatic. A lot of people warned me that Bangkok was chaotic, but I find it nothing of the sort. The road traffic is horrible, but the public transport on the skytrain and metro are very clean modern and cheap, and even the Chao Phraya express through the river and the canal boats get you to most other destinations.

I moved on to Patong for the weekend and there was a little too much going on for my tastes. Neon lights and constant reminders of sex tourism is not my scene. Karon is a slight improvement over Patong, but still doesn’t strike me as a place that would suit me to stick around long in.

Vague itinerary for next weeks

I think I’ll spend a night in Phuket town Tuesday before heading to Phi Phi. It seems just bouncing around is the thing you have to do, if you want to find which island/beach/town is best for you! I’ve got momentum behind me, so even if I find my perfect spot soon I might still move on to get some places I had wanted to see (Krabi & Ko Samui) off my checklist, so I can relax in one place for my last weeks and know where to go directly to, next time.

If I move fast enough, I might make it to Ko Phangan for the famous full moon party (30th), but I’d hate to skip places just to be there on time, since it’s on the other side of this stretch of Thailand. So if I miss it, I’ll catch it on my next Thailand trip. The next one (Mar 1st) is too close to my flight out.

So it looks like I’ll have to hop around for a few weeks. Even if I only find my ideal spot on the last day before going back to Bangkok to fly out, I’ll still be happy, knowing that it’s there for next time.

I did the same in Goa in India and travelled for several weeks before settling down (for a month). I hated the north and didn’t get along with other travellers there (minimalistic drugged out yoga retreaters vs non-drinking non-smoking yuppie language nerd travelling with enough technology to make the starship Enterprise look like a lightbulb… is not a good mix) but then I found a place I was happy to settle in, in the south; Palolem. I’d like to find my Palolem in Thailand!

Note that not going somewhere touristy will have little influence on the speak-Thai-in-8-weeks mission. I don’t need to go to a village; I can learn (and have learned) languages in touristy places and I’d just get bored in a town with little to do when I’m not working. I’ll have to devote a whole post to this some time because a lot of people seem to think immersion is only possible in villages off the beaten track and I disagree. If you especially like villages then that’s an excellent reason to spend time in one. I don’t.

Things I’ve never seen before here

To end the post (sorry for the length), I’ll give a random list of things I’ve come across that I’ve never seen at home or in my other travels before:

• the wai - the Thai greeting of putting your palms together and bowing slightly. I really like it! I do it to everyone before talking to them, and I will definitely miss it when I get back to Europe. As you can see in the photo above, even Ronald McDonald does it
• Casual sales of firearms. This is new to me; in broad daylight in a mall in Patong and in a flea market in Bangkok I’ve been very openly approached by the Thai smile and presented a “menu” with various hand guns and rifles that I can buy (free bullets included!) Usually you have to go underground if you want a gun. I don’t particularly like this “freedom” to be honest, but I presume Thai laws about firearms are much less strict than in the west.
• Fakes. Rolexes, Calvin Klein underwear, etc. I’ve seen lots of fakes elsewhere, but not this vast amount of them for sale everywhere tourists are. I think I’m the only one here with actual Havaiana flip-flops. The price for the fake ones are the same as the price for real ones if you buy them in Brazil…
• Go go bars. One visit was enough to satisfy my curiosity, and I won’t say what happens in there since I know I have some young readers!
• Thais’ level of English in the tourist industry. Apart from India (where English is a ‘subsidiary official language’), I’ve only ever been in Europe and the Americas. In Thailand I’ve only been in very touristy places so far and I find people’s level of English to be quite low. This is not something I’m complaining about, since I’m here specifically to learn Thai. But it’s new to me when dealing with people used to tourists (I’m not talking about random people in the street). It has been frustrating having my orders in restaurants messed up or taxis taking me to the wrong places, despite the fact that I’m sure I have extremely easy to understand English compared to many other natives. But this is just further motivation to continue working on my Thai so I can soon explain it to them in their own language. In what I’ve learned from Thai I can see why European languages would be quite hard for them, especially when it comes to grammar. People have been very happy to hear the little I have already (I’m still working on the theory behind tones and their use in the writing system before I open the floodgates of conversation!) although that reaction is the same in other places with other languages.
• Hotel cards. I’m not a regular frequenter of hotels, so I don’t know if this is international, but the hotels I’ve been in have cards to open the door that you also insert into a slot inside to activate the power. Since you need the card to get back in, you take it with you and the room is not powered while you are gone. I find this to be a very very clever idea for conserving energy (since there will obviously be forgetful clients who don’t turn off lights or leave the A/C running while they are out).
• The glass in the picture on the right. I asked for a non-alcoholic cocktail (or mocktail as I like to call it), since someone just clicked the link on the site to treat me to one! I had a great laugh at the container it was served in!

Sorry for the very long post. If you made it to the end, congratulations!

In the next post I’ll get back to language learning suggestions, but getting used to a new country is part of the adventure and perhaps a few of you might have been curious to hear how that aspect was going for me this time!

I hope nobody takes offence to anything I’ve written here, I’m just thinking aloud and sharing with those curious. Feel free to explain things to me that I’ve misunderstood or share your thoughts on Thailand in the comments!
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Rio de Janeiro

I am absolutely amazed by this city. It has a fascinating cultural history, an active music and dance scene, some of the most outstanding scenery I’ve ever come across, the world’s most famous Carnaval, samba, enough to inspire judges to have it be the host of both the 2014 World cup final and the 2016 Olympics, and, most important of all, Cariocas – its residents.

I came here in September of this year, with the mission of trying to become more like them (me carioquizar), and I got so much more than that from my time there!

3 months in the marvellous city

Some things that foreigners are expected to do in Rio include going up the Christ statue and sugar loaf mountain, visiting specifically during the Carnaval (or New Year), getting an apartment/hotel in Ipanema (or Copacabana), going on a favela tour, and getting to know only other foreigners or those working in the tourist industry.

I didn’t do any of these in the 3 months that I was there. All expats are tourists in one way or another, but I have my own “touristy” style (not better, just different). Hoping for an “authentic experience” is the holy grail of tourists and long-term travellers. I’m not unique in that goal; but I think my way of doing it through emulating locals (both outwardly and linguistically) does make it that wee bit more achievable.

I had wanted to learn to samba, but didn’t find a set-up to conveniently learn it intensively in the way I wanted, as I had done for tango in Buenos Aires, so that will have to wait for next time. However, Brazilians (and Cariocas) are not just samba, football and beaches, there are so many sides to them that I personally appreciate. Based on the response to the article I wrote about why I love Brazilians, Brazilians themselves have confirmed that I “get” them, at least better than your average gringo.

Other than that, I had gone up the Christ statue and the sugar loaf in 2006, when I was in Rio for a few short days (a visit cut short due to a “disagreement” with a federal police officer, but that’s another story). This time I really wanted to get to know the city through its people.

Day to day life

I made friends mostly by just talking to them in the street and in parties (Brazilians and definitely Cariocas are very friendly) and also through Couchsurfing, meetup.com and Orkut. I love eating out, so I would socialise over dinner (always vegetarian), or go out for drinks (non-alcoholic in my case).

To save enough money to give me some financial security in case work dried up again in future (as it did when I was in Prague), I had to work about 50 hours a week for most of my stay. This meant spending most of my week at home and spending much less time with Cariocas than what I ideally could have spent.

Despite this, I achieved my goal and learned so many ways to vastly improve my Portuguese to even sound like a Carioca. I am always working full time while trying to achieve the goals in all my missions, so I remind others that lack of time from being “too busy” is not a good excuse for not realizing important projects.

Since I was to spend most of my week there, I found some really good accommodation (you can watch a video tour I made of my home). I would go out once or twice a week to parties, mostly at the weekend because I had to get up quite early during the week (since my clients are all in Europe, I have to follow European work times, no matter which time zone I may be in).

For the last month I hosted various pizza parties, where I invited up to 50 people to my penthouse apartment and we simply ordered delivery pizza and enjoyed the view and one another’s company. That pizzeria absolutely loved me for the amount of business they got thanks to me!

Tips on how to become a Carioca

It turns out, (surprise surprise) that I was not the first gringo in the history of the universe to ever try to become a Carioca! (Although I may have been the first to seriously attempt and document it in such a short time frame).

There is an excellent book written for those on a similar mission, who wish to know the mannerisms of Cariocas, simply called How to be a Carioca (Amazon UK, US). It contains some excellent tips on how to act like a Carioca. It’s a humorous account and most of what it says is amusingly accurate. It’s got a few handy Carioca words, but otherwise does not help with actually speaking; although I found my own way of becoming fluent in carioquês.

Most things that I learned myself were confirmed in the book, the most frustrating of which was Cariocas’ relationship with Paulistas (residents of São Paulo). It’s the only part of Cariocas I didn’t like – they make up ridiculous reasons why São Paulo and its residents are the mole on the ass of the world. ”Well… I’ve never been there, but my sister has a friend who went once and someone was rude to him in the street!!” I heard this same explanation several times (with sister replaced by brother/friend/doorman).

If you wish to become a Carioca, you’ll have to hate Paulistas for no good reason; I can’t do this – São Paulo was my first port of entry ever in Brazil and I have very fond memories as well as some amazing friends there. But this competition between major cities, major universities, major sports teams etc. all in the same country is something I’ve seen in other cultures too. It’s rarely logical.

Other than that one negative point, I loved everything about Cariocas A few points I’ll add myself that I didn’t find in the book:

• Cariocas love to take the piss (sacanear). While they are always friendly with strangers, they will play tricks on and mock friends in a cheery way. Fortunately, Irish culture has this dry humour between friends too, but it still took some getting used to, since I’ve been out of practise in other countries that don’t do it as much (or make it really obvious, like the American “I’m kidding” frequently added to any humour so there is no confusion). It’s very important not to be overly sensitive and to take this in your stride, it shows how comfortable and relaxed they are with you. I quite liked this!
• Cariocas can be relied on. One surprise I found was that Cariocas were actually quite punctual (by South American standards). If they make a promise, they will live up to their word. However, a true promise needs to be understood from the context. For example, a casual eu te ligo should not be taken literally as written in stone that they will call you. An inability to distinguish between these “filler words” and real promises will have you feeling disappointed!

There are other points I had to work on, which are more generally Brazilian or simply non-anglophone, such as:

• Snappier formalities. It was immediately pointed out to me that I dragged out telephone conversation formalities too much. The equivalent of “It was nice talking to you, I’ll see you later, have a nice day!” is replaced with “um beijo!” (presuming you are talking with a woman). Day-to-day conversation is also much quicker and to the point. When ordering food from street venders for example, you just say what you want, you don’t precede it with the equivalent of “Good morning, I’d like a…”

Closing remarks

There are many other points that I’ve learned in these three months that I feel may be common to other Latin cultures and languages, so I’ll discuss them at some other time.

I really felt the passion that Cariocas have for Rio during my stay, especially for during the lead up to the announcement of who would host the 2016 Olympic games. I have to admit that I was almost in tears in hearing the passionate presentation given by those representing Rio, and I could feel in the resulting celebrations that they really wanted it; not out of arrogant pride, but out of genuine love for their city.

Cariocas really adore this city, and now so do I. For reasons much greater than those seen superficially by very brief visitors, I now finally understand why it’s called a cidade maravilhosa; the marvellous city.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed joining me in this journey! If you have your own experience in Rio you’d like to share, or your thoughts on my time there, please leave a comment below

That just about wraps up this mission! If you haven’t had the chance yet, could you please leave me your thoughts on how the website has presented this mission in this 10 question survey (I’ve already gotten an amazing 120 fantastic and insightful responses!! Thanks so much to all of you that have contributed already!!)

I’ll summarise the results of the survey in the next post (I’m planning to make big changes in how I post thanks to your suggestions!) and then later in the week I can get started on posts relevant to the next mission
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Despite this, I’ve learned how to avoid creating an awkward situation and how to sample some local cuisine and, most importantly, not go hungry, without breaking my lifelong trend of never eating meat or fish. Today I’d like to share how I do this, for any other travelling vegetarians out there!

Some tips

• Learn to cook. If your temporary home, hostel or Couchsurfing host has a kitchen, then the simplest and least expensive option is to just cook at home! No matter where you go, you will always find ingredients in markets to cook a wide range of vegetarian dishes. If you are short on ideas, and don’t have a vegetarian cook-book handy, then definitely check out the vegetarian cooking videos on videojug.

• Know that the translation of “vegetarian” is not so useful. Je suis végétarien / Soy vegetariano etc. have been hugely useless phrases for me both for eating well and for even avoiding meat. Vegetarian can mean anything from a dull plain food that just happens to have no meat (and no vegetables either; i.e. zero nutritional or taste value) to simply “no red meat”, with people insisting that poultry and fish are as veggie as you can get. Using this word can result in someone only feeding you lettuce, imagining vegetarians as nothing more than scurrying rabbits, or someone packing “thin slices” of meat into your food and actually thinking that they are helping. It’s not their fault, the word itself simply does not translate well.
• Be very clear about what you can eat. When I have mistakenly asked if there was anything “vegetarian” in a restaurant and plainly told no, I didn’t give up and asked “Is there anything with no meat, fish or chicken (yes, chicken “isn’t meat” in a lot places) on the menu?” and actually get lots of options. So many people simply don’t understand the v word. It’s fine to use it in a list to describe yourself, but in actual eating situations, avoid it and be clear about what you want.

• Get a phrasebook and learn the food vocabulary section. A phrasebook is an excellent way to get a start learning a language. Most good ones not only have a normal dictionary at the back, but a dictionary entirely dedicated to food! Knowing some basic words such as the names of meat to be avoided etc. will save you time when reading a menu.
• Learn Italian (and Indian etc.) food vocabulary. Globalisation means that even in the smallest town you can still find international food. Chains like McDonald’s may not be very useful to the likes of us, but there are other options! Most of the time, menu explanations are entirely in the local language (outside of touristy areas), but if you haven’t learnt that language yet or are only passing through briefly, then it can help to “cheat” and use the international language of food – Italian! When I was in Slovakia, I was actually there to learn Esperanto so knowing just “where is the nearest” in Slovak, I added “pizzeria”! Lucky for me the one I found was Italian/Slovak bilingual and I could choose a nice meal without any trouble, because the menu was half in Italian (for those who have learnt to read a few Italian words) and the waitress was Italian (for those who can speak it)! Many pizzerias can also have a wide range of pastas that can be very healthy when eaten in moderation, especially when vegetables are included. Indian and other vegetarian culture restaurants can also be in a lot of places and I will always go straight for the Aloo Gobi in that case! Many kebab places can include a very filling Falafel option.
• Vegetarian restaurants Happy cow is an excellent online listing of vegetarian-friendly restaurants all around the world, with honest reviews from customers. It isn’t extensive (lots of “normal” restaurants may have vast vegetarian options) but it does simplify things hugely to just go to a vegetarian restaurant.
• Copy the ideas from local veg restaurants. The best part of local vegetarian restaurants is that a lot of them will adapt the local cuisine to suit vegetarians. I wouldn’t eat regularly in these types of restaurants since they are not usually frequented so often by many locals (and because of this, they may also be quite expensive), but their menus give great inspiration for ways to cook local food or ideas to suggest to those cooking for you.
• Order a simple meal + vegetables, or several starters. Sometimes there is no “healthy” vegetarian option available, and you may need to go for something very plain. Most restaurants do have vegetables, but will only ever include them in complex meat dishes. In this case, if I want to make sure I eat well, I ask for the simple meal (plain rice or just a plain Margarita pizza for example) and also request cooked vegetables “on the side” that I add myself. Alternatively, a combination of several starters may be a fine and filling meal in themselves!
• If there’s nothing on the menu, make a request! Maybe something looks particularly interesting, but they’ve included chicken in it. Simply ask them to prepare it with your favourite vegetable(s) instead of chicken. Almost every restaurant in the world will be flexible with their menus. This is one of the ways I eat in restaurants with “no vegetarian options”. This is not always the case, so confirm that they can change something for you before you sit down!
• Find local veg-friendly equivalent concepts. Surprisingly, there are options that you wouldn’t directly associate with vegetarianism that work spectacularly well with it. In Buenos Aires I discovered, to my delight, that instead of using the v word, if I simply looked for the dieta section on some menus (and even “diet” restaurants!!) they were almost exclusively vegetarian! I had to double check to be sure, but I ate very well thanks to the word dieta (I’m far from on a diet btw!!) and not from the word vegetariano. Here in Brazil, the “self service” (they use the English words in Portuguese) restaurants usually have vast arrangements of vegetarian options that are presumed to be eaten beside the meat. You pay by weight so it is an extremely cheap option that is available absolutely everywhere and gives you great freedom in variation. I’ve eaten very well in South America from these discoveries!
• Ask other travellers what to do in that destination. Since it’s too hard to write an exhaustive list for the vegetarian options in every place, the best option is to ask other travellers (this is the one situation where I would not ask locals, who typically just list the vegetarian restaurants) for advice on where you are going. You can find great travel advice in the Lonely Planet thorntree forum and on Couchsurfing group discussions, in each case going to the particular forum for the city/country you are visiting.
• Order delivery. If you are somewhere with no options nearby, just order food to be delivered to you! Delivery may be free and they can be flexible in where to go. Last night I had a vegetarian pizza delivered to me on the beach
• Have an easy-going attitude to the whole thing. Although I am very strict about not eating meat & fish, I try not to distance myself from locals and I attempt to present a different side of vegetarianism to them. As you can see in the photo above, I may crazily gobble down my dish like a hungry animal and I like to make up silly stories about how us veggies also “hunt” our food as we “stalk” our prey in the fresh food markets before striking. I quite enjoy mocking meat eaters about their “pathetic” canine teeth, and reliance on ovens and utensils, when I’m clearly closer to the “manly” wild natural option, etc. Whenever I can tell that there is little point in trying to present a logical argument for vegetarianism to someone, I skip the whole argument and give them the conclusion they’d reach anyway and say “I’m vegetarian because I’m crazy!”

Explaining yourself

If vegetarianism is something that you are just “trying out”, then I’d actually recommend that you don’t take the diet with you as you travel and make things easier for yourself. It can be stressful and frustrating to maintain this diet in a lot of places and if you are not 100% committed (for moral or health etc. reasons) then you may be better simply trying it out after your travels.

If you are a vegetarian for moral reasons then you have to be very careful about how you express this. Do not try to convert foreigners to vegetarianism or present your case with moral superiority. This concept is simply not (currently) compatible with many cultures and you will actually offend a lot of people simply by not eating their local food or suggesting that animals are suffering for their lunch. Learning how to present your case in a logical way and being ready for the typical retorts will help people to respect your dietary decision. But when abroad, the goal should primarily be to gain respect and much less be one of convincing people.

My own reasons to be a vegetarian are less in-your-face. I was very sick as a baby and was put on an extremely restricted diet for medical reasons, and out of pure stubbornness I stayed on that diet longer than I should have and slowly adapted to a more healthy lifestyle by expanding it without incorporating any meat or fish. Since my body is completely unaccustomed to meat, the very few times I have mistakenly eaten some, I have felt ill for several hours. I could just force my body to get used to it, but I don’t want to now for the many common reasons that vegetarians chose this diet.

The advantage of my story is that it doesn’t leave much room for argument. I get sick if I eat meat. Most people will sympathise with that. I have found that the exact same discussion (it gets old after the millionth time!!) of going into reasons can be avoided if you give an answer like this. The simplest argument of all that you could use is just “I don’t like meat” and is less likely to lead to awkward discussions.

We have to respect them too

Many proud vegetarians won’t like this, but you have to adopt an apologetic approach in a lot of countries. People have to go out of their way to help you; based on their cultural history they don’t have to cater to vegetarians, but they may do it anyway out of generosity and respect for foreign culture and you should always show gratitude for this and be humble in asking for the favour of their help in catering for your needs.

Always warn a family in advance before eating at their house and make lots of suggestions. In many cultures it is an insult to bring your own food to social events, so sometimes the easiest solution is to eat before you go and to simply have the non-meat “snack” at the event, honestly saying that you aren’t hungry.

However, arguing on moral or other grounds is arguing against a lifestyle that someone has led for decades, and this will not make you many friends. I am not interested in converting the world to vegetarianism, despite that fact that things would be a lot easier for me if it did. People live their lives as they chose to. Using a much less aggressive approach and argument, will make your life a lot simpler! If people are genuinely curious about your reasons, then as long as you express it as a lifestyle that you happen to prefer, and in a non-confrontational way, people will be very curious to hear your opinions.

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If you are a fellow vegetarian with some thoughts on some of these tips, or some advice of your own, please do leave a comment Don’t forget to share this post with your veggie friends on facebook and twitter! If you are a meat-eater, feel free to share your experience in talking with vegetarians and any advice for them from your perspective.
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If you plan on learning a foreign language, and especially if you plan on travelling, you have to meet new people. You can’t avoid this! It’s kind of the whole point of learning a language (unless you are only interested in literature) and travelling (unless you travel only to take photos). Even if you don’t travel or learn languages, meeting new people is fun!

One reason that I’m not a fan of audio courses and pure-input methods of learning a language is that they encourage people to embrace their shyness. It just seems “easier” to stay at home or have to do nothing more than turn on your TV or iPod.

While these methods do have advantages for learning the basics of a language, they are absolutely useless when it comes to actually practising it. Language involves communication – sorry to point out the obvious… but you kind of need another person for that

The self-fulfilling prophecy of being too shy

The main retort I get when I suggest this to people is that they are too shy or introvert. They say it as if it was an incurable illness or handicap. Sorry, but it’s nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy. Today I have to be frank! GET OVER IT!

It would be crazy to suggest that a blind man could just “will” his way into being able to see, but shyness only exists because you tell yourself it does. When you remind yourself how shy you are, you are actually just reinforcing this invisible psychological barrier.

There’s no such thing as a “natural” extrovert/introvert. Babies aren’t extroverts – we learn to act this way, and some people learn it quicker than others. We shouldn’t use this as an excuse to not even try. Human beings are naturally social.

Despite the extrovert persona I imply in these blog posts, I could argue that I’m more “naturally” introvert; I was a socially awkward nerd as a teenager and currently am quite happy to enjoy my bachelor lifestyle of living by myself and travelling solo. Despite this, in recent years I have learned to be much more social and it has been a crucial part of being able to learn languages quicker, and generally enjoying life more!

Speaking often is important for cultural as well as linguistic reasons

The biggest regret I have in both this mission to perfect my Brazilian Portuguese and in the previous one of learning Czech, is not that I didn’t study enough grammar, or read more newspapers etc., but that I didn’t practise enough. Even living in the country is not enough; you have to try hard to make sure that you are speaking with natives (or at least, with other learners if you can’t travel) as often as possible.

As well as this, I’ve noticed that I could “cheat” in Prague and just not say anything and people would presume that I was Czech most of the time! In some northern/eastern European and North American cultures, this is the norm. You have to give strangers their space and speak only when spoken to or if you have something important to say…

That is not the case in Brazil and other Latin cultures. Not speaking shows them immediately that I’m a foreigner; not because of my outward appearance, but because Brazilians are very social and if you are in almost any situation where you are near someone for more than a few seconds, a conversation naturally starts, where us foreigners would presume that it’s rude to impose yourself.

I’ve noticed that when a friend meets someone they know in the street, if I keep quiet for several seconds (because, back home, I would not interrupt out of “politeness”), the third person will ask my friend where I’m from (not just presuming that I’m a foreigner, but presuming that I don’t even understand Portuguese). When I’m in lifts or even in waiting in a queue, complete strangers start up conversations with me! If I only nod politely I can feel immediately that it was the wrong response. This means that to become Brazilian I have to become more active in all conversations!

Even forgetting about Latin cultures being more social, life is way more interesting when you know more people and especially if you get over shyness.

Case study: conversing with everyone you meet

To implement this idea, I decided to carry out an experiment! Since I had been working quite hard recently, I decided to treat myself to a weekend on Ilha Grande to the west of Rio. Most people go there to soak up some sun or to hike through the vast unspoilt wilderness of the island, but I was there simply to talk to as many people as I possibly could.

I could see that I wasn’t making as much progress in my current mission as I had hoped, so I needed to force myself to be more social and going somewhere where I knew absolutely nobody was a good place to start. Despite the fact that the weather was pretty miserable all weekend, I had a fantastic time! This was simply by following the rule of chatting to as many people as possible. This may be a bit easier to apply in Brazil, but is applicable anywhere in the world.

I started a conversation with almost everyone who crossed my path for longer than 5 seconds. The person who sat next to me on the bus, the group of American tourists on the boat, almost everyone at the hostel I stayed at (including the nice looking receptionist… although I would have chatted her up anyway ), the waiters at the restaurant, the guy who sat on the bench next to me; I had an interesting conversation with all of them. Since it’s a touristy island, over half the conversations weren’t even with Brazilians.

It was a fantastic weekend! I made friends with almost the entire hostel (I could have stayed in a cheaper “pousada”, but hostels have more socialising options), got invited to dinner and out for drinks, made some friends with others also living in Rio etc.

I went to the island alone, but I left with dozens of new contacts. I also met some fascinating people; including, for example, a hilarious Austrian who sells air conditioners back home during the summer and travels the southern hemisphere for several months during the winter… every year! Making all of these new friends would not have been possible if I had stayed in my shell and used the excuse that I’m “not extrovert enough” to talk to strangers without a really good reason to.

Give it a try! A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet

Don’t start with a formal introduction. Start the conversation from the middle!

I never introduce myself with “Hello. My name is Benny. I’m a translator from Ireland” (or its equivalent in the foreign language). Sorry, but this is dull and is a slow way to have a more natural informal conversation. It’s better to treat the stranger as a friend already and be more natural.

The first thing I said to the Austrian was “You walked all the way up the hill with that huge backpack??” and I immediately started swapping stories of working in a hostel with the receptionist. I overheard one guest say she was from Valencia so I started singing the anthem “Amunt Valencia”. Joining the conversation each time as if we had already gotten past the dull introduction part. I’ve done this in Europe and North America and I have never gotten a weird response as long as what I said wasn’t inappropriate. You make friends quicker this way!

Don’t be scared – what’s the worst that could happen?

See the picture I’ve included in this article? Perhaps the worst that could happen is that the stranger will explode in rage and eat you alive for invading their personal space. I don’t think this is very likely (it’s only actually happened to me once – it was the Hulk himself, what are the chances?!)

At worst, someone closed minded will look at you weirdly and think you’re crazy, or even if they are rude with you, it’s their problem for living in such a boring world, not yours. It’s their loss, just go on to the next person.

This Wikihow article gives some other good advice and a friend of mine goes into even further detail on what he calls Social Skydiving. Have a read of both of these articles for some good ideas to remind you that it’s not all that bad talking to strangers, especially if you are holding yourself back with the excuse of being “too shy”. If you’ve tried this, or have any thoughts on the article, please do leave a comment
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Brazilian Portuguese

Motivation is extremely important in being able to improve your command over a language. Today I’d like to share my motivation for deciding to make Portuguese the first language that I want to reach the stage of hopefully speaking with extremely little or even no foreign accent, enough that even Brazilians think that I’m Brazilian! If you are learning a language yourself you should try to come up with a similar list (feel free to share your motivations in the comments) and help reinforce your own passion to learn it

Brazilian Portuguese itself is a beautiful language, which sounds really pleasant (especially in music). In my opinion it sounds much nicer than French (which many people tend to rate as the nicest sounding language) and I can even go as far as saying right now that it is my favourite language. It has lots of interesting characteristics that make it very unique and interesting to study. Despite its similarity to Spanish (which I’ll admit, did give me quite the head start in learning it), there are a lot of differences which are important to be aware of if you are studying it after Spanish. It is its own beautiful language that evolved in a very different way.

However, I’ll admit that my love for Brazilian Portuguese has a lot less to do with grammar, vocabulary, syntax, pronunciation etc. and a lot more to do with something integrally attached to many languages; the culture of its speakers.

Brazil

After travelling for 8 years, and living in 13 countries (and visiting a few others) I can say that my favourite country in the world (at least so far) is Brazil. This is my third time here and it definitely won’t be the last.

There are lots of great things in Brazil; the tropical climate, the food, the drinks, the Carnaval and parties, the dances, their passion for sport, the vast range of nature, the amazing mix of European/South American/African cultures and skin colour, the beaches, and so much more.

But this isn’t what actually keeps bringing me back, and it isn’t the reason I am so passionate about the language. The reason I like Brazil so much is plain and simple; it has the coolest people on the planet! I am so passionate about this belief, that the purpose of this particular visit is to become Brazilian and see if I can understand them better by emulating them; imitation is, after all, the best form of flattery! As I do this, I hope to be able to communicate even better with them and get to know the culture I love so much even more. Today I want to share some of these reasons that I love them so much with you, so you can understand my passion for this mission!

Brazilians

Don’t get me wrong; every place in the world has arseholes, and there’s no way I can accurately generalize almost 200,000,000 people. But in travelling from Porto Alegre in the very south all the way up to Natal in the north-east, mostly by bus (that’s well over 3,000km), I’ve met a lot of Brazilians on the way, and I rarely meet any that I don’t like. I’ve met lots in Europe too, first by living with several Brazilians in Spain and then through the extremely active communities of Brazilians for almost every major city in the world, in the social networking site Orkut . They always have a spark in them that makes them special and unique compared to us Europeans/North Americans. It’s so hard to actually describe this spark, but I’ll try to list a few points that come to mind!

• They are really friendly! I travel alone and it can be hard sometimes when in cultures that are closed and fearful of making new friends. Here in Brazil, any place I go, I can guarantee myself several invitations to parties and dinners within hours, whether I know someone already or not. There is less of a barrier to break through to be considered as someone’s friend in a shorter time. They share the Irish philosophy of a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet!
• They are social. Although Brazilians do love to watch soap operas and football, they are almost always otherwise out of the house in their free time. Brazil has pushed me towards being extrovert where I was not as much before. I’ve met a few Brazilians who claim to be “shy” and I would put them in good competition for the life of the party compared to other Westerners.
• They are so nice!! Almost everywhere you go, you are greeted with a genuine smile and curiosity. Rather than being xenophobic, which I have unfortunately come across in some other Western countries, they are actually even more curious to get to know you when they find out you are a foreigner!
• They are healthy. Brazilians don’t have their famous great bodies because of genetics; they work out regularly, eat a much more balanced diet than a lot of Europeans/North Americans and are a lot less stressed out than them too!
• They are optimists. Brazil definitely has plenty of problems; poverty, floods, corruption, gang wars etc. but on a day-to-day basis they don’t complain about stupid little things as much as we do, and they enjoy life much more because of it!
• They are very hygienic – surfaces, buildings and services accessed by the public are cleaned very regularly, and Brazilians have more regular showers than any other culture in the world I’ve encountered
• They are warm people. I personally love greeting people with warm hugs, friendly pecks on the cheek and maintaining closer body-contact during a conversation. Sadly, other countries seem to have invented this horrible concept of a “personal bubble” that nearly all others can’t ever enter.
• They are smart. People seem to love to simply categorise Brazil as a third world country that is backwards, where everyone still lives in trees etc. They are actually more advanced than we are in several ways! They use way more Biofuels, they tackle the unemployment problem by creating lots of jobs (like 2 people on a city bus; one to drive and the other to take money who you can pester with questions), they do some things just better than we do (any inter-city bus I’ve taken in Brazil includes a baggage receipt, and the “bag guy” only gives you your bag if you have the corresponding receipt number. In Europe, every time the bus stops I have to look out the window to make sure that nobody is stealing my stuff…), rather than create more bad-blood between countries by inventing different visa systems for different people, Brazil simply has a reciprocal visa system. Anything a Brazilian has to do to get into your country, you have to do to get into his! Good news for Europeans where Brazilians are freely given tourist visas on entry, bad news for Americans, who have to pay $100 and send off an application in advance… just like Brazilians have to do!
• The beautiful girls (or men). In my opinion, Brazil has the most beautiful people on the planet, especially thanks to the melting pot of cultures from all around the world. Sadly, there is a misleading belief that Brazilian girls are “easy” that I really hate to hear abroad. This is a complete misunderstanding of the culture; based on the points I gave above, because Brazilians are friendly you can approach even the prettiest girl and she’ll be nice to you (sorry, but pretty girls in Europe can sometimes be quite full of themselves!!), because they are warm they will give you a greeting of kisses on the cheek, as in most Latin cultures. This is all just being friendly. If I ever hear someone speaking badly of Brazilian girls I’ll go Capoeira on them and kick their ass. If you want to be anything more than a friend, you have to be charming like anywhere else in the world. Rather than being simple sex objects, Brazilian girls are strong women (despite the macho culture) and really fun to spend time with. If you’re lucky you may meet a single one and start something special if you are charming enough. The reasons I like some Brazilian girls so much after that… I won’t get into (Oh yes, I’m told that the men are good looking too!)
• They are relaxed. You learn to love Brazilian time when here. It slows you down to the pace of appreciating life much more than being controlled by the gadget on your wrist will ever allow you to.
• They are proud. Brazilians love Brazil, and they love the state and the city that they are from. As you can tell, this love is spreading and it has infected me!

If I wanted to be exhaustive, I could write a whole book about why I love Brazil and Brazilians, but hopefully this gives you a bit of an idea! If you’ve ever been in Brazil, please share your reasons for also liking them in the comments! Is there another culture or language you are passionate about? Share it with us!
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Choosing the right home can make all the difference

Choosing the right place to live in isn’t just important to be close to work, having all mod-cons that you may need, and paying rent that’s within your budget. These are all extremely important, and will always be the priority. However, if you can be flexible on your choice to help your language mission, it can really make things easier for you on that front.

For young ladies, the most popular means of full-immersion is to become an au-pair. I can’t speak from personal experience, but I highly recommend it, as you would be living with a family who may not speak English. You would see the culture from the inside and be exposed to the language more than you could hope. It is also one of the most price-friendly options. There are plenty of resources online with some good tips for the asipiring au pair.

Otherwise, we have to look for an apartment and find a local (or location-independent) job. What I see too often is that other travellers tend to rely a lot on agencies and tourist channels. This tends to be much more expensive (due to commission and the general expectation that foreigners can and will pay more) and may lead to a less authentic experience, depending on where you live, especially if there are just other foreigners around.

I had to face this problem when I was trying to find a flat in Rio. Even those who know nothing about Rio will have heard the words Copacabana and Ipanema due to popular songs about people in those city districts. These two parts of Rio are actually where most foreigners end up, and are by far the most touristy and expensive parts of the city. I have nothing against tourists or tourism since we’re all actually tourists in our own way and it’s an important industry in many places, and despite my language and cultural immersion, I depend on tourist channels for many things when I travel. But I prefer to avoid it when it comes to accommodation if I can. Finding temporary accommodation in Copacabana or Ipanema may have been much easier, but I am sure that I would hear a lot of English there and be surrounded by too many other foreigners to be able to feel immersed. If you live in these zones, feel free to correct me if they are just as Carioca as the rest of the city; I also didn’t need to live there because being very close to the beach is not a priority for me (although I can actually still walk to the beach from where I am now).

The other problem is that you may end up living with other foreigners; this can actually be very helpful at times, especially if they are also enthusiastic to learn the language. However, if they are English speakers or like speaking English with you, then this huge amount of time each day not practising the local language can greatly slow down your progress. If at all possible, the priority should always be to live with locals. I’ve enjoyed the company of over 80 flatmates in the last 10 years (not counting Couchsurfers), but since I work from home and need to make sure that there are less distractions, and since I can afford it nowadays, I usually rent an entire flat to myself. This is much more of an affordable option in cheaper countries, but not necessary the best option for most people.

Pressure to adapt

My flat in Rio is actually located in Urca, a charming and very safe neighbourhood that is ideally located right beside Botafogo and just north of Copacabana. The best part is that it has a small-town feel to it despite being so central, and in walking around for hours and going shopping etc. for this entire week, I have yet to see other gringos since I got off the bus from the airport! (Or perhaps I have come across many, who have been successful in what I’m attempting in these 3 months!) This is the ideal situation, since being surrounded by other foreigners may lead to speaking in English, which I avoid in these missions and is thus the “secret” to how I learn languages. It also means that here in Urca I am extremely aware of how gringo I look (I still need to have a “makeover”, more on that later!). There is more pressure for me to adapt, which I wouldn’t feel as much in a touristy area. So, how did I find this place?

Finding a flat

How you should go about finding a flat varies hugely depending on the country, city, time of year, your requirements and your budget. Summarising the best way of finding all of that and covering the whole world would be too difficult. But what you should do, is write to other travellers to get their advice based on your requirements. This request for help in itself is very easy and the best way to start. If you have a friend or two in the city that’s great, but they may not know how to look for the kind of accommodation you want. I know plenty of people in Rio already, but their advice wasn’t so useful because they are only used to looking for long term accommodation, or could only offer me links to touristy accommodation agencies.

So one solution to be prepared before arrival is online forums. My two favourite ones for finding out the best means of finding accommodation or any general information for particular cities are the Couchsurfing groups and the Lonely Planet Thorntree forum (in each case, going specifically to the page for the city/country you are going to). Usually you don’t even need to ask the question since someone else already has, and the information is there waiting for you!

Asking those who have already done all the work before me means that I have gone straight to the best source, whether that is simply knowing which beach to go to for haggling a price for an entire beach hut in India with an excellent view down to €5 a night, or knowing which online ads website to check daily to see new ads sent by the owner of the flat, like loquo in Spain, expats in Prague or craigslist in Rio. It’s completely possible to get an excellent deal through ads just in English, but you have more options if you can read in the local language, or at least use Google Translate to help you. Starting with online forums is one option, but there are lots of other means of finding accommodation abroad.

Just make sure you use some common sense when it comes to paying deposits before leaving, and that you try to haggle prices down whenever possible. Other travellers can give you advice that is specific to the city you plan to move to, but always take your time and research plenty of different options before settling too quickly on something.

What to do you think? Is accommodation really that important in language immersion, or is it just a roof over your head that makes no real difference? Do share your thoughts in the comments!
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• Blending in with Cariocas in Rio
• Is it better to travel to villages for language/cultural immersion?
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EDIT: This mission was a success! You can read how I spoke Portuguese with no foreign accent, and how I adapted to life in Rio. I also wrote about why I love Brazilians so much :=)

After learning 6 languages to fluency in 6 years of travels, and learning to speak Czech in just two months (and of course, telling you how I did it!), it’s time that to go on to the next level in language learning!

I think that I may finally be ready for the greatest challenge I’ve ever set myself. This time I am not only setting the bar higher, but I’m setting it the highest you possibly can! What’s the next step after fluency? “Very fluent”? Too vague. “Bilingual”? Quite good, but I can make it much more fun than that…

Destination: Rio

On Monday morning I’m hopping a flight to Rio de Janeiro, where I’ll be spending the next 3 months. Out of all the places I’ve travelled to, Brazil is by far my favourite. In 2006 I spent 3 months in the south, mostly on the island of Floripa, and in 2008 I travelled the northeast, and experienced the amazing Carnival in Olinda. Over both trips, and a total of about 5 months, I’ve mostly bussed all the way from Porto Alegre in the very south to Natal in the north-east tip (a distance of about 3,000 km…) and have friends everywhere and gotten to know many cities. Nevertheless, Brazil is big, so I’ve barely even scratched the surface!

Even so, I still at least know the country a bit. There are many, many reasons that I love Brazil and keep going back, but the main one is by far the fact that it has o povo mais legal do mundo - the coolest people in the world. Although Brazil may be famous for its amazing football players, samba dancers and very beautiful natives, there are so many more levels to them that those who don’t travel there, or just go for extremely brief holidays, just don’t get. I’ll gladly explain the many reasons I love the country and its people in a later post. For now, just know that I highly respect Brazilians, and even idolise them. Their way of living and enjoying life is something that Europeans and North Americans could learn a lot from.

So, my next mission is to become Brazilian in these 3-months. No, this doesn’t mean that I’ll be applying for citizenship. The end goal of this mission is very simple to explain, but it will be extremely complicated to achieve:

I want Brazilians to think that I am Brazilian

That’s the mission! By mid-December, I want several Brazilians to have believed that not only am I speaking Portuguese as good as a native, but that I actually am a native. This is way more than just a linguistic mission. This will involve examining and adapting everything that I do; how I walk, how I dress, how I shave, how I eat (e.g. in Brazil you shouldn’t eat a pizza with your hands, but you should smother it in tomato ketchup!), how I dance, how I socialise, how I react to certain situations and many other things that I haven’t even considered yet. I want to put on such a good show for them that they will be genuinely surprised when I reveal that I’m actually from a town in the middle of Ireland!

There are two main aspects that I’ll be working on in this mission:

Speaking like a native

Easier said than done! I’m making things really hard for myself this time because I’ve never gone beyond fluency, so this is entirely new territory, which I may not be ready for yet. Reaching a native level in 3-months (starting from fluency) in itself is already a tough nut to crack and I genuinely don’t know if I can do it. Especially in such a short time limit; I’ve met foreigners who have managed to speak a language with no accent, but it took them years to get there. If I manage this, it will have been from a total of only 8 months of exposure to Portuguese. I may be aiming way too high this time! This objective is daunting, and ridiculously ambitious… which is why I simply have to give it a try

Until I see how to adapt my current learning method to this new challenge, I will treat this like I have with any language. I am not aiming to speak “Portuguese” like a native, because nobody actually speaks that; in each language we usually have plenty of dialects and Portuguese is no exception. I will be focussing on trying to speak the sotaque carioca (Rio dialect of Portuguese) fluently first and then like a native, by adapting my current rather neutral and somewhat formal Portuguese to become more casual, and of course to reduce my accent and foreigner-isms, and include as many of the dialect’s nuances and expressions as I can. Then I’ll start getting into the nitty gritty final mistakes I’m still making with my pronunciation to see if I can reach the holy grail of language learners, and speak with no foreign accent! Do we really need years to achieve this? Or is it possible in such a short time-frame? That’s what I intend to find out!

Cultural and appearance

Even if I were to (somehow) speak the Rio dialect perfectly and with no accent, there is still no way that I would pass off as a Carioca in my current state. The last frustrating 6 weeks stuck indoors working double time to work off debts means that despite all the sunshine in Prague, I’m completely untanned, and even a little stressed out, so I won’t initially be as relaxed and up-beat as many Brazilians (but I’ll be chilled out soon enough over there!!) My body language screams gringo and also, my clothing, grooming, facial expressions, and many other things are simply the result of my upbringing and even some influence from countries I’ve recently lived in, and will all give me away as just another gringo in Rio.

Despite all that, becoming Brazilian is an important attempt for me to try to understand the culture a little better; from the inside. Also, imitation is the best form of flattery! There is no culture that I have grown so fond of as I have with the Brazilian one, so I want to learn as much as I can about how they think, and how they live their lives. I’ll try to adapt my outward appearance and general behaviour to the Brazilian style. Luckily, I’ve spent a lot of time in Latino countries in the last few years, so the general warmth between people is no longer an adjustment I have to make, and is something that I’m actually quite looking forward to returning to! I also fancy myself a bit of an amateur actor, so this will be my greatest role! I have fun trying to integrate myself into other cultures, as you can see when I tried to pretend to be Italian, and I will be examining every aspect of how Brazilians behave and attempt to emulate it.

Challenges and realistic limits

I am of course aware of the obvious first criticism to this being possible; I’m a white northern European! Believe it or not, even us Irish can tan pretty well. And Brazil has possibly the greatest ethnic diversity on the planet, with no “typical” Brazilian look possible, as there are African, Asian, European, native-American and many mixtures in-between there. So there are plenty of white Brazilians!! If I find that I still look too “alemão” to be a Carioca, then I have a plan B!! (And no, it’s not plastic surgery!!)

Apart from the obvious challenges (like this being a ridiculously difficult objective and the fact that you’d have to be crazy to try it), there are some that are more surprising. Brazilians are actually too nice, especially when it comes to gringos trying to speak their language. They will always compliment you and congratulate you, no matter what your level is, because you are trying to learn their language. This was excellent motivation to keep my momentum up in the early stages, but the lack of criticism is going to hold me back at this more advanced stage, so I need to make sure that I can find some Brazilians who don’t mind correcting me and reminding me of my mistakes, as I did to reach fluency in my first trips.

It is also important that I am clear about what I am aiming for and what I am not aiming for. I won’t actually reach “native” level, but I will hopefully reach a point where talking to me briefly seems like talking to a native. I don’t intend on impressing or “fooling” any linguists, or reaching a professional level of Portuguese. I just want normal people in normal social situations to talk to me for 2-5 minutes until I slip up on something, or just naturally mention where I’m from, and I want them to genuinely think that I was Brazilian. I’ll be meeting lots of new people, and unless a decent amount of them think I was Brazilian in December, then I won’t be giving myself 5 gold stars! I obviously don’t intend on lying to convince them; I want them to draw their own conclusions that I will correct.

I will say right now that I will be trying my hardest and devoting most of my free time to this project (although, I still have to work a normal work-week as a translator), but that I am totally accepting the likely possibility of not reaching this objective and will take it in my stride if I “fail”. Having said that, like in my previous project, I will presume that I will succeed and work on that assumption until proven wrong.

The best part of all of this is that even if I “fail” (as I said when I stopped my 3-month mission at 2 months, with the right attitude there’s no such thing as failure), I won’t actually fail since I will have achieved quite a lot in those 3 months! I’ll have (hopefully) greatly improved my Portuguese, and my understanding of Brazilians and how they think, and I’ll have learned what I need to do if I aim for a quasi-native-level again in another language in future (which I will). And you know… I’ll have spent 3 months in Rio, which can’t be that bad

As part of the cultural aspect of this mission, I’ll be trying to learn the basics of samba and will possibly make a short video documentary about it, like I did about learning tango in Buenos Aires.

How you can help!

As a novelty, I decided to blog my latest mission over the summer about learning Czech, and my general language learning tips, and the huge amount of encouragement that I got from comments, and seeing the subscriber numbers go up so quickly was definitely my main motivation to continue! Now, I’m no blogging expert or writer, but despite that the site has naturally grown somewhat popular! I’m not sure if it’s because of the mission and story itself, or because of sharing my language learning tips and ideas, or a combination of both, but seeing this growth is such amazing encouragement for me to continue!

This means that even if you don’t know any Portuguese, you can definitely help me achieve this next mission! My energy source to learn languages is pure positivity and motivation, but sometimes I do need a recharge So if you’d like to join me in this new adventure, I just ask that you leave the odd comment to share your thoughts, encouragement or advice, and especially that you share interesting posts with your friends through Facebook, twitter and stumbleupon so that more people can join me in this adventure! Also, I’m not making any money from this site (not at the moment anyway), so if you’d like to treat me to an Orange Juice (although, my drink of choice will mostly be Guaraná for the next 3 months!) it would always be welcome

So, do let me know your thoughts below and share this post with others and join me as I try to become Brazilian in 3 months!!
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• Summary of month 1 in the mission to become Brazilian
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Finding translation work

So, if you read my previous post you’ll know that I was in a pretty bad situation two and a half years ago; I had no job or money, my long-term career plan was destroyed and I was going to Canada with no working visa in hand. This forced me to consider online-based work. I’m glad that I was presented with this challenge because my temporary solution has turned out to be a job I get great satisfaction out of, and of course have continued with!

My initial approach to find work was rather clumsy! I basically wrote out my CV in all the languages I knew, and prepared a cover letter for each one too… and then copied and pasted the cover letter + CV to no less than two thousand emails! I found these emails by doing a search for translation companies directly on the yellow pages in Spain and France etc. Most of them ignored me, a lot of them just gave me a negative response, but one out of the two thousand called me back! After not speaking in French for over two years (and learning two more languages since then, further confusing my French) I suddenly had a spontaneous interview in French on the phone while travelling in a noisy train in Italy. They gave me a trial period, proofread all of my translations for a month and finally took me on! I still work with them. That’s the beauty of being freelance, you work with people, not for them

However, I wouldn’t recommend this approach for those in a similar situation. There are two good translator social networking websites; Proz and translatorscafé, which have forums and many other features. But the most interesting part of these sites can be their job search boards. The translatorscafé one is free – I can’t say much for that since I have never used it. The Proz one has a free version and a paid version; the free version shows you the advertisements after several hours delay, in which time someone else is likely to take the offer. I signed up for a paid account and have found all my other clients (technically outsourcers who look for clients for me) through that site. I find that it works pretty well; especially since you can leave and read references, which is great for confirming that they will actually pay you.

It is important to have a competitive price! If you have no experience at all, then you should actually start working for next to nothing or for free (or as a volunteer) and have your documents proofread so that you can learn how to actually translate before you start trying it professionally. After my training period, I started off with a kind-of low rate because of my lack of experience and then I raised my price last year. Many translators charge per word, which I much prefer to all my previous monthly wage jobs since I get paid for the actual work that I do. The current global economic situation seemed to have caught up with me this summer as I had no work at all for over a month. I’ve reduced my price back to the previous one and have gotten a flood of work because of it. I’ll have to be working 10-12 hours a day for the next few weeks to balance out the debt created by the summer lag and new reduced price, and this will have a serious negative impact on my current 3-month-fluency mission. But more on that in the next post!

The actual price you charge depends on a lot of factors; those who translate novels, for example, may charge much more per word than I do (or would charge per page), but our hourly wage is about the same. I am very familiar with the technical documents I translate and never need to ponder over a more poetic way to say it (as a writer-translator would for example) so I can charge less but still earn the same because I’ll produce more words an hour. Also, the language combination is very important – you may be able to charge more for a language that is more in demand, or need to be more competitive if you have a common language combination.

The importance of a good background and specialisation

I usually like to say how my methods of learning a language are easy for everyone to apply. But becoming a translator definitely isn’t for everyone! Translators do not get the credit they deserve; if you read poorly translated instructions on a cheap gadget from China it certainly doesn’t help! But when you do read a translation (which happens more often than you might think!) and don’t realize it, that’s the sign of a good translator! Always an unsung hero, because it doesn’t seem like it was ever even originally in a foreign language!

Translating a text isn’t a simple task of writing over the words in a text document, which “anyone” with casual understanding of the source language and being a native in the target language can do. You need to understand the source language extremely well and at a professional level.

However, you can’t be a translator just because you speak another language, even if you speak it really well. You need training and experience as a translator and complete familiarity with the subject you are translating.

Any translation work that I accept is always just for my fields of speciality, mostly related to my studies in Electronic Engineering. Thanks to my studies and work experience both in Ireland and abroad, when I translate a document I write as an engineer / computer scientist naturally would, and do so only in English. No matter how many crazy 3-month language-learning missions I have, or even if I manage to speak like a native some day, I will still likely be lacking in some (especially written) subtleties in the language and without much more experience as an engineer in foreign languages, it would be very unprofessional of me (or anyone in my situation) to accept work translating to a non-native language. Those horrible translations I mentioned above are usually done by those who think that they master the language and rarely do. This is a very crucial thing to realize; you should only ever translate to your mother tongue!

And specialisation should not be taken lightly either! When I was training to be a translator, it was extremely frustrating that I would get documents from a wide range of topics, none of which I was familiar with. I tried to translate wine cultivation techniques, legal and medical documents, corporate presentations etc. and it was always a disaster! Luckily all of my work was proofread and completely corrected each time before actually being used. I am not a lawyer or a doctor or a wine-lover so I simply can’t write about these topics in English, let alone understand them in a foreign language! This means that I should never translate them of course. I do not have a degree in translation, but I actually find it easier to get work than some people that I have talked with who do, because I focus on a very narrow selection of documents to translate that I can write very naturally. Being more flexible in your translation topics does not necessarily make you more employable since you may have little or no familiarity or authority in that field. Someone who has studied translation in university needs to somehow also become an expert in any fields they wish to translate. Luckily for me, my specialisation and language learning and training as a translator has been enough to help me to produce good translations.

Doing the work

So when you’ve got the translation, you just open up the Word document and replace the original text, right? Some translators may work like that, but it is horribly inefficient and cumbersome for the kinds of documents I translate! We have Computer Aided Translation (CAT) tools (not to be confused with Machine Translation!!!) that help us translate more efficiently and are especially useful in translations with recurring vocabulary (legal, technical etc.). These tools can produce a file called a Translation Memory (TM), which lets you or other translators work with the same theme later and not lose consistency in terminology, and you can even translate faster as it points out and automatically replaces repetitions.

For those interested in starting off with this, I recommend installing the free Open Source CAT tool OmegaT (along with the free Open Office suite). Unfortunately, many outsourcers much prefer to work with the TMs produced by Trados, which is quite expensive. I made the investment this year and do actually like the interface and I can work with those who require it now. I used to work with Wordfast, which I also quite liked. If you’d like to buy these programs, you should actually do it through the Proz website, since they have huge group-paying reductions for all the major CAT tools, cycling through each one regularly. There is quite a learning curb with these programs, so it’s definitely better to start with the free version and you may never need to change!

So I translate the document by the proposed deadline and send the result (and TM file(s) if requested) and add that quotation to an invoice that I send at the end of the month. They normally pay 30 days later. The annoying thing about this is that you won’t actually have the money for any work you do the first week of the month for about 2 months! This aspect of freelancing takes some getting used to!

Note that a VAT number for your resident country (which can be applied for easily enough) is essential in order to get serious clients and for legal reasons.

Making it location-independent

As you will have seen in my previous post about not needing to be rich to travel, I take this work with me no matter where I am. Once you can work from home, why can’t that home be on the other side of the planet? Since my clients transfer payments to my bank account, I can take it out of an ATM in any country and use it there .

I rent a Skype-In telephone number so that I don’t have to bother my clients with new number changes as I travel. I’ve actually had the same fixed phone number for the last two and a half years that forwards any calls to whatever mobile number (11 different countries/numbers since I started freelancing) that I happen to have at the time. Emails require immediate responses, so when I don’t have work on some particular day I can still leave the house but I have my iPhone push new emails to me and notify me of them. There have been some time-zone issues (California is one of the worst places I’ve lived in for synchronising with European times, with midnight to 8am responsiveness needed…), but I’ve found work-arounds and have comfortably travelled with this job since I started it!

I can’t emphasise enough that this job is definitely not for everyone! I get contacted so many times from people with intermediate (or less) in languages who think that if Google Translate can do it, then surely they can too! No. In fact, my in-house translation work was by far the worst job I’ve ever had (and I’ve had a LOT!!) that made me extremely reluctant to try working in this field again. And if it wasn’t for that training I wouldn’t be able to do it either, since getting trained to learn about the important subtelties involved in translation really is necessary. Nevertheless, I hope this post at least explains a little about how I work for those curious! I’ll come back to particular aspects of how to translate in more detail in later posts, especially when it also applies to language learning. Any other translators out there with a different story and point of view, please do share

You can also check out these two blogs from translators who are much more experienced than me: Musings from an overworked translator and There’s something about translation. There is even an online comic strip about translators! If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments! If these tips are at all useful to you, then to thank me you can always treat me to an Orange Juice! Every little drop is appreciated
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Unlike most of my posts, this one is not a general “how to” that I think everyone can also follow. It’s my random story of the path I took to get to my current job; for those curious . This post does not have any useful information about finding work as a translator etc. It is purely background information for my next post which I will talk about my actual work itself. Feel free to skip this post if you aren’t curious about the story!!

Most unlikely candidate: Language-stupid electronic engineer

There is no way that I pictured myself as a translator after I graduated from UCD as an Electronic Engineer. Until I figured out what holds us all back from really learning, I was a self-confessed idiot with languages. I had only ever studied German formally, and my exam results were always less than impressive. But my year in Valencia completely changed everything for me. I was exposed not just to Spanish, but to dozens of other cultures and languages through the Erasmus programme (even though I wasn’t taking part in the programme myself). I had already decided after a short time that I wanted to speak several languages; not just Spanish. I promised all of my Erasmus friends that I would speak each of their languages one day, and despite receiving a lot of scepticism at the time, I’m not doing too badly in keeping that promise

I even found a cool job possibility to combine my undergraduate degree and new passion for languages. There is an intensive Masters in Conference Interpreting that I really wanted to study; it doesn’t matter what your undergraduate degree is because you can interprete conferences for that speciality (medicine, law, technology etc.), and it takes just one academic year to finish it, and it’s not that expensive. Best of all, the same course can be studied in different countries. I put it in the back of my mind for almost 4 years because first… I had to actually be able to speak the languages!!

More experience, qualifications and more languages

I initially worked as an engineer in Spain before teaching English, and after almost a year and a half since graduation with no relevant engineering experience I found a job with a cool company in Paris as an intern for 9 months. I didn’t like Paris at all, but the job was fantastic and gave my CV a well needed boost. When I moved to Toulouse, I studied for and passed the DELF (which wasn’t that hard; in retrospect I should have gone for the higher level DALF and will soon enough) to formally prove some competence in French.

Learning several other languages was great, but formalising your level for recognition is also important. So I went on to do the Spanish DELE (this time the highest level possible), and studied for the Italian CELI (but didn’t have the time to take it). All of these diplomas are recognised world-wide, are inexpensive and do not require any particular course to be able to sit the actual exam.

Then the time came when I felt I was ready for the Masters! Out of all the places I could study for it, my only options for this particular Masters were London (too expensive and English speaking), Paris (don’t like) and La Laguna in Spain. My Italian wasn’t good enough to consider studying for it through that language, so all my hopes were for moving to Tenerife for a year! I thought that I had a pretty solid application, but to make it a little better I decided to work as a translator for a few months. Never something I actually wanted to do; I only wanted a little experience to improve my CV for the extremely competitive application procedure for the Interpretation Masters.

First and last job as an in-house translator

After lots of searching, I found a company in Italy that agreed to train me half-time as a translator for a poor wage and accepted me only because the other half-time I would teach English in their language school. I feel that I am a really good English teacher and after years of experience and excellent references it was almost impossible for me to not get any job I applied for as a teacher. Normally the wages would be pretty good, but I made the sacrifice this time for the translation training aspect of my work.

It was tough. They wanted me to learn quickly so that I would be a useful translator to the company before my contract ran out, so all texts I produced were scrutinised and unapologetically criticised. Translating isn’t just a simple case of guessing a “pretty good” equivalent; you have to research the correct terminology and confirm it appears in that context elsewhere etc. I got to learn all of this and more, but instead of an academic environment, I had a stressful work one. Despite learning a lot, I hated the job; I had an incredible 3 hour commute on the train daily and would only get home around 11pm and get up before 6am to get the train on time.

Then I got some horrible news… La Laguna had changed their application procedure for that year (and only that year) and were not accepting any applications from those wishing to interprete from Spanish. Only to (i.e. only natives). I had a long and complicated time trying to get out of the work contract and reassess my situation. This was a huge disappointment, but I had to continue on and find another option.

I decided to continue my travels anyway, and applied for a working visa in Canada. Normally, us Irish are given working visas very quickly but I rushed off the application form and lied about currently residing in Ireland (which is crucial for acceptance). Note to self: when lying about being currently in Ireland, don’t send the application form in a letter with Italian stamps on it and a big fat IRLANDA written as part of the address… Naturally, they turned me down, and I found this out after I had already arranged accommodation with some friends for the entire summer. I really wanted to go and my complete lack of money, or work, or future job prospects wasn’t going to stop me!

That’s when I considered Internet-based translation as a temporary solution for the summer… but more on that in the next post!!
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• Blending in with Cariocas in Rio

Actually, I’ve got quite a normal job that you would rarely associate with a perpetual traveller. I’ll be talking about how I became a freelance translator in the next post (Edit: here is all info about how to become a location-independent freelance translator!), but my wage is quite normal (depending on the amount of work that I receive each week) for my level of education and work experience and for someone living in the likes of say, London or Paris.

Only, I don’t live in London or Paris. Taking western wages and bringing them with you to cheaper countries in Europe, Asia or South America, means that you actually can live very well on the same money! Or even better; work less and enjoy the country and life in general!

Your laptop can be your office

So many of us have work that we do on a computer, so if you are convincing enough to get your boss to let you do it from home, especially if you accept slightly less money (to balance out daily commute costs and time wasted in that commute, for example), then you can work from your own office. You can even take that work somewhere else and travel with it as long as you guarantee the same quality output. Telecommuting from your current job, or getting a new one and working as a freelancer or running your own company on the road and becoming location independent is not as hard as it sounds. You can even search online for jobs for digital nomads.

There are plenty of challenges of course, so there is a certain risk to it. Even this summer I have had hugely reduced workflow, but I am working around it and always learning to adapt. I consider a life stuck in a job that you dislike and always wondering “what if” to be much more risky to your health and stress levels than actually attempting to live your life the way you want to!

Of course, there are lots of jobs were this is not possible; you can’t teach children in school via the Internet or take care of the elderly, for example, by clicking mouse buttons. If your work is more hands on, then it may still be possible to find work in your field in another country; especially if language isn’t that much of an issue. Even if you have a family you can still become location independent and travel the world longer than just for week trips. But some other “technomads” have even had to give up trying to convince people that this type of lifestyle isn’t as hard as it seems, because of the many excuses (some of them valid) that people give for not being able to try.

You can teach English!

If you can’t get your dream job (or the job you studied for and work best at) and presuming you are a native English speaker, take a “gap year” break from your current job and teach English! It’s easier than you may think! And even non-natives can do this. If your English is very good you can still teach it, even though it’s more work convincing someone to hire you.

You can get a TEFL certificate for just a few of hundred dollars/Euro close to home in just one weekend! (They even give the course in my home town in Ireland!) A lot of schools accept this (I’ve worked for the Wall Street Institute and Berlitz as well as countless other schools based on just these qualifications and some teaching experience), and as you get more experience it is easier to find work in more places. Even getting paid in the local currency, English teachers generally earn more than most other jobs.

Even without any qualifications, you can also skip the schools and just give private lessons by putting up advertisements in universities or shop windows, or on sites for such ads . Teaching experience is ideal, but it can be easier when with people with intermediate English already, since they mostly want to practise and get corrected, which most of us can do with very little effort. If you teach English then you can decide to only ever use the local language when not at work to make sure that you learn it quicker. Once you speak the local language then you can get back to something you’d be more passionate about!

I have had my current Internet-based work for just over 2 years now, but before that, I found work every time I arrived in a new country. I worked in a youth hostel in Rome, ran a yoga shop in California, interned as an Electronic Engineer in Paris and of course taught plenty of English pretty much everywhere else! Arriving in the country without much money and looking for work was hard every time, but with the right attitude and approach, and some imagination, it’s quite possible; even in the current economic climate.

Of course, I’m a happier in my current location-independent situation since it takes away the need to look for work each time or even arrange a working visa. But even forgetting the advantages you can have from earning in Euro and spending in rupees/Czech crowns/Brazilian reais etc., you can still focus on not spending as much with the money you do have.

Instead of earning more, learn to spend less!

If you give up expensive addictions like smoking, and drink less, and are generally wiser with how you spend your money, you don’t need to earn that much. I’m also a vegetarian, and cook at home whenever possible so no expensive meat (especially in Europe) makes a big difference in my weekly shopping budget. Flights to nearby countries and even across the world aren’t as expensive as you think if you buy them in advance or find special offers. If you sell your house or car, as well as having some extra money, you won’t have to pay insurance and mortgage costs every month. My only necessary monthly expenses are food and accommodation (and travel/health insurance, although I don’t really need to pay extra for health insurance when in Europe).

In my days of being on a tighter budget, all I would need to save up for would be the next flight and a tiny bit of extra spending money for any other things that really were necessary. My budget has changed since then, although I still make sure that I get the best deals, haggle prices down every chance I get and go through local rather than touristy channels. Speaking the local language makes a huge difference on the price you’ll get on almost everything. There are plenty of other ways to save money as you travel!

Of course, the best ways of saving money are simply not spending it at all. You can use Couchsurfing for free accommodation (on a temporary basis) when travelling, instead of buying your books you can exchange them with others and watch them travel the world through Bookcrossing, and hitchhiking or ride sharing saves you on travel costs.

The links included in this post all show that I’m far from alone in travelling the world without needing to break the bank! If you have any other ideas for finding work abroad or saving money to fund travels and language learning projects, please do share them in the comments! Don’t forget to share this post with your friends if you think the ideas are interesting!
Similar Posts:

• Ironic post: Why English is all you need to travel the world
• My background before becoming a location-independent freelance translator
• Finding the right accommodation for immersion in a culture
• [video] Travel hack: How to pack over 40kg of luggage with you on no-frills airlines
• Is it better to travel to villages for language/cultural immersion?