How a car accident changed my view on living abroad

Hi justachicaincostarica,

Welcome to Expat.com

Thank you for sharing your experience with us

I am sure the members will take into account your advice on the fact to learn the official language when you expatriate in a particular country.

Do not hesitate to participate on the various discussions on the forum or create a new thread if you need any help.

Have a nice day,

Hasnaa
Expat.com Team

Good post and once again points out the need to learn the language of the country you are gong to live in.

Bob K

Hi justachicaincostarica,

Wow, thanks so very much for sharing your wonderful story. As a fellow English teacher (25 year career) and a resident of Brazil for over 12 years now I have always maintained that the secret to success in adapting to living in ANY Non-English speaking country is learning the local language. See my posting:  https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=339795

Your story clearly proves this much more effectively than I can ever say, because you've got this experience to reinforce the validity of what you're saying.

I hope you don't mind that I have linked to it in my topic that has a "STICKY" I know it's going to be a potential life-changer for many expats. Bless you for sharing!

Cheers,
William James Woodward, Expat-blog Experts Team

Yes, please do share this story with your followers. I hope that it can motivate a few people to learn the language wherever they are. Thank you very much

justachicaincostarica wrote:

.............. That day, I started thinking about all the third conditionals (I am an English teacher haha) - the hypothetical situations in the past that you can't change, but you can think about. If I had been in the other car, that would have been my leg. If we hadn't woken up so early for the trip, maybe the accident wouldn't have happened. If I hadn't studied Spanish, I would have been completely useless to my friend in that emergency room.

That last hypothetical is what has changed my view on living abroad. So many people live abroad and don't make the effort to learn the new language. Sure at restaurants, hotels, resorts, spas, and the supermarket, the employees will probably speak in English. Even at the local pharmacy there could be an English speaker on the staff. But if you are in an accident and the nurses in your emergency room don't speak English - what will you do? How will you tell them your name, your age, your birthday, where you are from, your passport number, and the last thing you ate? ....

Hi Chica,

1). What most of you in USA are made to believe is that you can control your destiny, take the bull by the horn, that you are in charge of the future, etc. ...
It's very tempting to think like that and alas  , it may even work out well sometimes ...

What most people refuse to believe is the opposite because it throws them back into the darkness of caves when and where no knowledge based on facts existed.

What is bound to happen happens.  If it's time for an accident to happen, it just happens.
You can sprain your ankle going from the kitchen to the balcony. You do not have to be outdoors running to injure your ankle.

You can fall from your bed down on the floor while asleep fighting monsters, and to hurt yourself you need not just to fall down from a tree.

Most good people do not understand the flows of energies and event cycles which occur to all living creatures.
There is more but all I can say is that you were spared of a big injury not because you have been smart, but rather because Somebody or Something saved you for a reason.
You have been given a new lease on life when somebody else lost his life.  Do you see a transfer?
You, not me, have to think for what purpose your new lease is.  My answer and circumstances are different than your answer and circumstances.

2). Doctors do not have to operate when you want.  They have approved procedures of dealing with emergencies of all kinds which have been activated after lots of debates at hospital management levels.

3). You have something good in your mind and heart.  Make sure it does not deteriorate. 

John C: Thank you for your insight, however, I'm not sure you saw the point of my story.

justachicaincostarica wrote:

John C: Thank you for your insight, however, I'm not sure you saw the point of my story.

Hi there,

1). Your point was for expats to learn the language of the country they live in.
If your message was different, feel free to correct me.

I have seen Chinese people in Toronto who lived all their life in Chinese communities without ever speaking English, which I consider disrespect and self-sabotage of their efforts to live in a free country like Canada is.

Instead of learning the language of the residence country while living there, I believe it's much better to actually learn it BEFORE moving to that country.

I learnt English in secondary school (1967 – 1971) and had my Bachelor degree in English too.
In 1990 when I was in Austria I decided I did not want to stay there forever because it implied I had to learn German from scratch.  I was already conversant in English at that time, and, while looking for a new place to settle, my only criteria was to focus on a country where English was spoken.
I was happy to see that my English was good enough for casual conversation and that the locals (both Austrians in 1990/1991 and St. Lucians after 1991) had (and have) no problem listening to my English which I used to speak with an Eastern European accent for a few years.

2). I liked the fact that you opened this thread telling a full story, gave good advice on foreign language usefulness to potential expats based on your experience and thanked Instituto Estelar Bilingue for their good work.
That's all. 

Thank you, I am glad you enjoyed it.
Also, congrats on all your accomplishments, they are impressive.

justachicaincostarica wrote:

Thank you, I am glad you enjoyed it.
Also, congrats on all your accomplishments, they are impressive.

Thank you too. 

Do you speak other language(s) than (American) English and Spanglish? 

Haha unfortunately no
I would love to learn another language next, but first I need to master Spanish. Any suggestions?
I am thinking about Portuguese or Italian

Hi justachicaincostarica,

From my experience in learning Portuguese and actually now teaching it to other English speaking foreigners here in Brazil just some advice.

If you have some background in any of the other "romance languages" you'll find Portuguese very easy to learn. I was in my younger days fluent in French, but when I stopped using the language after my kids left French Immersion School in Canada, I lost my French completely and as another English teacher I'm sure you know how true that is with any acquired language. But, everything that I had learned about the basics of French, verb conjugations, gender of words, accentuation, even some of the words themselves helped me pick up the Portuguese language quite quickly because I could see how everything fit into place.

That said, I would really recommend that if you haven't yet mastered Spanish (nor have I), don't try to start learning Portuguese just yet. I think that you'll will find things too confusing, because you'll fall into the tendency of confusing the two languages which are so very similar, yet have some really significant differences (principally in vocabulary). I think that's why I was put off on continuing on to Spanish after I had mastered Portuguese, because I used the internet a lot during my acquisition of the language and everytime someone started conversations in Spanish I mixed the two languages, got confused, couldn't follow things easily and found that it even had a negative effect on my Portuguese.

Even at my  age I'd still like to learn another language, but now I don't know what to do. Should I go back and re-learn what I've forgotten about French or should I go on to Spanish and run the risk of "corrupting" my Portuguese. I'm really afraid that would make me very difficult to understand in conversations here in Brazil since it would probably alter the way I pronounce Portuguese words and the differences in pronunciation between the two here in Brazil is significant.

Just my two centavos worth. LOL

Cheers,
James

justachicaincostarica wrote:

Haha unfortunately no
I would love to learn another language next, but first I need to master Spanish. Any suggestions?
I am thinking about Portuguese or Italian

And another thing Chica,

Taking classes, going to school in time, answering the teacher's questions satisfactorily, behaving, being nice to classmates and then doing your homework in silence aiming for top marks is not all there is to it.

To accelerate your new language learning phase (from process to progress) you have to immerse into the studying and living the language.
You already do the ‘living' part since you reside in a Spanish-speaking country now. You have been ahead of time to go in a country whose language you did not speak.

As for the study part you must severe your ties with English-speaking contacts a.s.a.p. for as long as it takes for you to speak Spanish fluently and with no accent.  Your Spanish must be as good as to make native Spanish speakers swear you too are Spanish …
To achieve that, avoid speaking English as much as you can.  Leave your English-speaking friends alone with their sorrow and start reading, writing and speaking only Spanish.

If English is your prison, you must dig your escape to Spanish freedom with no (big) harm to yourself.  If you do something, do it in classy style.

Now, the question of ‘who's teaching the teachers' may come up.
Well, the answer is: John C.

justachicaincostarica wrote:

.... That day, I started thinking about all the third conditionals (I am an English teacher haha) - the hypothetical situations in the past that you can't change, but you can think about. If I had been in the other car, that would have been my leg. If we hadn't woken up so early for the trip, maybe the accident wouldn't have happened. If I hadn't studied Spanish, I would have been completely useless to my friend in that emergency room.

That last hypothetical is what has changed my view on living abroad.  ....

justachicaincostarica wrote:

..... That day, I started thinking about all the third conditionals (I am an English teacher haha) - the hypothetical situations in the past that you can't change, but you can think about. If I had been in the other car, that would have been my leg. If we hadn't woken up so early for the trip, maybe the accident wouldn't have happened. If I hadn't studied Spanish, I would have been completely useless to my friend in that emergency room.  ...

You do not know what the reality would have been if you had gotten into the other car.
It would have been your leg or something else or nothing.
If you had woken up later, the tragedy would have been different.
If you had not studied Spanish, you would have helped your friend in a different way.

From among hundreds of ideas with thousands of words only reality is what really happens. 

You travel to countries whose language you do not speak, you save people's legs, you give advice, you did not even learn a new language completely but you already think of other new languages to learn ...

All this comes from bird I would love to catch and put in a golden cage so that only I take care of it ... 

Thank you, wjwoodword, for your great advice! I actually had been thinking about starting to learn a little Portuguese, but I will definitely put it off now. Thanks

For you, I would say go for French. If you are trying to learn another language just for the satisfaction of it (like you don't need it for a job or anything), I bet that French will come back to you quickly since you were fluent before. However, I have a student from Brazil and she is living here in Costa Rica learning English. She doesn't seem to have a big problem with the two languages even though she only recently learned Spanish. I have seen her get confused a few times between the two languages, but for the most part it seems like Spanish comes easy to her.

Good luck with your decision!

justachicaincostarica wrote:

..........   Much thanks to Instituto Estelar Bilingue for the outstanding classes that prepared me for the horrible situation I was put in. You have given me a gift that will put me at ease for the rest of my time in Costa Rica

Hello Chica,

You went to CR to teach English and ended up learning Spanish.  Great. 
I believe learning a new language is not only for someone to get by with daily conversations in the park or to ask the correct questions at the grocer's.
Nor is it just to chat with sunbathers on the beach.

You as a professional teacher can see farther than casual Spanish.
Your Spanish may take you into translating novels, poetry or providing legal translation services.
How about getting to speak top Spanish so you could free lance as a translator to the stars?

Have you considered these options?
Will you expand your horizon and diversity your income possibilities? 

No actually I just want to learn to speak with friends and for personal growth. I don't want to learn for job possibilities. Thank you, though.

"The questions kept coming and coming and I noticed that they weren't going to touch her until I answered every single question. I wanted to tell them to just start helping her and we can deal with the questions later, but it was obvious that wasn't going to happen. "

In your place I would have wondered if I wanted to live in a country where the people are so heartless !!

Awwww well it's not that they were heartless. They had given her some pain medicine at that point (I think), but there were just some standard questions that needed to be answered before they could really help her. I am pretty sure that happens in the states too. They needed to know if she was allergic to things, when she had last eaten, if she was on medication, and a million more questions like that. I'm not positive that's how it is everywhere, but it makes sense to me that they needed to know basic stuff

@ El_Jost
and
@ justachicaincostarica

I bet US$100 that you can open new threads and discuss other topics as well. 

justachicaincostarica wrote:

Awwww well it's not that they were heartless. They had given her some pain medicine at that point (I think), but there were just some standard questions that needed to be answered before they could really help her. I am pretty sure that happens in the states too. They needed to know if she was allergic to things, when she had last eaten, if she was on medication, and a million more questions like that. I'm not positive that's how it is everywhere, but it makes sense to me that they needed to know basic stuff

Ok justachicaincostarica,
I was imagining their problem was to check out that her health insurance would pay their expenses. 
~ El

@ John,
Good one, but you would need to offer a lot more to motivate me 
That said, if a good question does pop up in the old grey cells I will put it up.
Gruss aus Basebiet
~ El

El_Jost wrote:

@ John,
Good one, but you would need to offer a lot more to motivate me 
That said, if a good question does pop up in the old grey cells I will put it up.
Gruss aus Basebiet
~ El

Proof first please! 

P.S.: Gruss aus Karibishe inseln!

John C. wrote:

El_Jost wrote:

@ John,
Good one, but you would need to offer a lot more to motivate me 
That said, if a good question does pop up in the old grey cells I will put it up.
Gruss aus Basebiet
~ El

Proof first please! 

P.S.: Gruss aus Karibishe inseln!

Thanks for the German greeting. We better not do that again or the mods will tell us off about breaking the rules.
BTW I read your profile write up...makes me wonder how a Romanian got to Saint Lucia.

El_Jost wrote:

John C. wrote:

El_Jost wrote:

@ John,
Good one, but you would need to offer a lot more to motivate me 
That said, if a good question does pop up in the old grey cells I will put it up.
Gruss aus Basebiet
~ El

Proof first please! 

P.S.: Gruss aus Karibishe inseln!

Thanks for the German greeting. We better not do that again or the mods will tell us off about breaking the rules.
BTW I read your profile write up...makes me wonder how a Romanian got to Saint Lucia.

Hi El,

1). Just like you, many people are intrigued by me, but when you hear my life story then you will be swept off your feet.

2). How I from Romania went to St. Lucia?
I worked in Austria for one year, got a vision (the hand of Destiny), saved my money, kept quiet, and then I took the plane.

3). See?    Austria, not a car accident, changed my view on living abroad. 
If I had gone to USA (like I initially planned) today I would have been a stupid dentist in New York with a wife and two kids nobody really cares about, but Destiny wanted me to go to a small English-speaking island and rise to where thousands of people around the world invest in the financial markets because of me.
I am happy to announce that I am The Chosen One. 

Someone has a high horse.

justachicaincostarica wrote:

Someone has a high horse.

Now, who that one could be?   
I really like how you switch quickly from cars to horses ... You are a sweet