What are the chances?

You could try Tescos but obviously they'd want to pay you a local salary which would not be that much I expect. We've seen English speakers working in Tesco but we don't know why they were there (maybe they came from the UK for some special reason).

Yeah was thinking tesco might be in with a chance, no matter how slim. I know its probably going to be really tough to find somewhere being able to do as little as i can but luckily im staying with girlfriend and will have enough money to do a few months.

Really i'd only need stuff like that until i got the basics of the language down as i can earn anything else from her and her family and then it'll open up at least a few more options.

The initial few months are the main concern. Thanks for reply

Whereabouts in Hungary are you moving to? How good is your grasp of the English language? ie can you speak it correctly or do you always use a lot of abbreviations/slang and do you talk with a strong regional accent? There may be opportunities for you to hold private English conversational classes if you're confident enough. To work anywhere here without decent qualifications or experience you'd need to be able to speak the language to a certain degree.......and it's not easy to learn.

I speak slang with friends and family but i can speak it properly too, with girlfriend etc, even refuse to use txtspeak and this would be all typed perfectly also if either shift worked.

I do have an accent though as i was originally from belfast up to 2 years ago, girlfriend doesnt have a problem and understands it better than most other english so shouldnt be a problem.

Moving to Érd. No experience teaching so what exactly does the english conversation classes involve? I'm sure there are some kind of exercise planning and not just talking. Thanks.

Scarecrow ,have you been to Erd? Is a suburb of Budapest but not the nicest one,to be honest Erd do not have a decent pub ,neither a proper restaurant is just a sort of unsucesfull mixture between a village and a town .
People who live here have to comute everyday to Budapest to find decent,proper stuff ....anykind.
Of course is a Tesco and other supermarkets ,but I prefer the one in Budaors.
So you should consider having a car ,if you want to be confy.
I do not know what to say about jobs,I told you just bits of my experience.We thought renting something in Erd ,but we give up quite quickly and now we live happily in a nice area of Budapest.

Yeah been to Érd, reminds me of when I lived in Belfast, a little rundown but homely (for me anyway), expecting if i eventually get something i'll have to commute but not really a problem for me, so long as the ipod is charged.

Fortunately staying with girlfriends family for 5/6 months as she finishes the last of her education so luckily finding our own place wont be a problem too soon, got a chance to find my feet as the saying goes.

Have saved enough money to last 6 months, but obviously would like to get working so that isn't used up (always nice to have a little extra), pretty much any job is going to be good enough for me until i get settled and a grasp (no matter how small) on the language.

I agree with Girlie. Erd is not the best place to be at all. Erd and Diosd have quite a reputation for crime. If you come to Hungary, you're far better off in Budapest itself. One has to be very dedicated to live in a village in Hungary. Even where I live we're just a commuter village for Budapest. We have the Budapest blue buses and we can get to Moscow Square and the Mammut Shopping Mall in about 20 minutes on a good day by car. It's good for families but if you're just a couple without kids my recommendation is definitely to stay in Budapest.

Érd seems fine to me at the moment, 2 minutes from trains so would rarely have to actually walk around the place, once the college gets done we'll most likely go in to budapest itself, just seems to make more sense to me, but due to living with the family it's the place i shall begin my stay.

Hadnt heard about the reputation but nothings ever happened to the family so crime doesn't really bother me, happens everywhere, but good to know all the same thanks.

mr_scarecrow wrote:

Hadnt heard about the reputation but nothings ever happened to the family so crime doesn't really bother me, happens everywhere, but good to know all the same thanks.

The crime in Hungary is mostly different to that in the UK.  Usually it's all relative petty but irritating stuff but occasionally there are more serious problems. Car theft and burglary seem to be the major thing. I myself have had my car stolen (recovered 7 years later), another car broken into (they stole my fire extinguisher and about 250 Ft in car park change) but in doing so, the ripped my car door locks out physically and caused a lot of damage. You can see what it's like when you drive around. We see reports in the local newspapers about thefts from building sites etc but nothing extremely violent.   A lot of houses have high walls, bars on the windows, dogs in the gardens and private security monitoring signs outside. The police are generally thought to be ineffective at doing much about tackling small scale crime.

I don't have a car thankfully by the sounds of things. Luckily this house is pretty secure, i actually commented on it the first time i saw it, something about planning a prision break anytime i wanted to go to shop, funny at the time as it was more the way i said it. Also got a great big dog (more like a lion) in the garden.

Most places i've been have a high crime rate (main street/hastings in vancouver was the worst) but so long as you keep your wits abut you, pay attention to surroundings, make sure you've locked up well i find you usually turn out fine, obviously sometimes thats not the case but again something that happens anywhere.

Just got to stick the area out for about 6 months and assuming i've got a job (no matter how rubbish it may be) we'll head into the city to live

mr_scarecrow wrote:

Most places i've been have a high crime rate (main street/hastings in vancouver was the worst) but so long as you keep your wits abut you, pay attention to surroundings, make sure you've locked up ....

There's nothing like the crime in the UK or in North America so I wouldn't worry about it. Sometimes there are really violent crimes but there are not many. I've never seen anything like binge drinking, general fighting in the street or anything like that. I've been in far more dangerous places including ex-war zones like Kosovo and Burundi. Bars on the windows are useless in Africa, they just attach a truck to them and pull them out!

Welcome to Hungary!

I complelty disagree with earlier posts. I moved to Hungary almost 3 years ago and I lived my first year in Soskut which is a realvillage ,called Soskut, outside Erd. Erd is a calm and nice area but Soskut was a bit too far away (we eventually moved into Budapest) for me since I don't drive so I had to take the bus every morning to the train station in Erd but if you live close to the train station, you'll get to dowtown Budapest in 20 minutes (which is less time than it takes to cross from Buda to Pest in rush hour by car).

I doubt you will find any job opportunities (besides maybe teaching people English at home) in Erd but in Budapest I think you could land a job quite quickly, even in these times. The fact that you speak English will provide you with a lot of opportunities for various call center jobs and similar proffesions where usually no other education is needed. Check out jobsites as proffesion.hu and cvonline.hu and search for "English".


Good luck!

Thanks for the reply, shall definitely look into those sites. Is there a certain layout for CVs there, as my UK one looks a lot different than my girlfriends and if so i'd want to make one that is correct.

About the language, i know it is not going to be easy to learn but how about the basics, quick, well not quick but is it handy enough to pick up?

mr_scarecrow wrote:

About the language, i know it is not going to be easy to learn but how about the basics, quick, well not quick but is it handy enough to pick up?

My experience is that it's pretty difficult. The words are often completely different from those used in other languages and that doesn't help at all with guessing. It would help if they used subtitles on the TV instead of (badly and wrongly) dubbing everything. I've learnt other languages by a mixture of lessons, watching TV with subtitles, reading local newspapers and listening to the radio. I reckon learning German, Dutch, Spanish, French or Romanian is far easier because so many words are the same. With some guesswork, it's possible to get the gist in those languages about what's going on. However, Hungarian seems to be much harder for some reason.

There are foreigners who speak excellent Hungarian but they are few and far between. Anyway, it's a source of great interest to locals to hear a foreigner speaking Hungarian. You often get a lot of smiles and Hungarians are very forgiving about foreigners making mistakes - unlike some other countries - e.g. Austrians! I suppose the locals appreciate the effort. It's also a source of great amusement to my (bilingual) daughter and my wife to hear me getting it all wrong. If they are all happy and amused, I guess I am ok with that too! :-)

I agree with fluffy2560, Hungarian is incredibly difficult, even for someone who normally finds learning new languages easy. This because Hungarian has a completely different structure and vocabulary than another language so you have to memorize everything. i found even the basics to be difficult. my suggestion is to take a basic course as soon as you arrive (there are plenty of language schools in Budapest)to get hold of the most common words and then to encourage your surrounding to NOT speak English to you (this has been my main problem; almost everyone I know and work with speak fairly good English so it's not too often I’m forced to use my Hungarian). But, as fluffy2560 said, Hungarians really appreciate it when you try and they are very helpful, so don't get scared by this, just be aware of that it won't be easy. Good luck!

I can't say Hungarians are all that forgiving when a foreigner tries to speak the language. Usually if you don't pronounce something correctly they have no idea what you are trying to say (as opposed to say English-speaking natives who are used to foreigners mispronouncing).  But anyhow's advice to jump in ASAP and try to practice as much as possible is spot-on.

Anyway, don't worry about being based in Érd - only it's a dull place away from the social life that can be found in BP - and commuting can be a drag from there (close to BP but slow to get in at rush-hour).

You might be lucky to get a job somewhere that needs native English speakers but in the absence of other skills it won't be too easy I fear.  But you never know until you try...!

I tried looking for an English speaking job for months. I don't speak Hungarian... okay maybe a little. And even if there is an English speaking job, they would usually require you to be able to speak in another European language - German,Dutch, French etc. It's frustrating.

So I've decided to just tutor English to young kids.

Managed to get a job in a call centre in my first interview, surprised me, only speak english myself, so I guess it turns out the work is always there if you look really hard.

I saw on budapestsun.com that a kindergarten called Planet Kids is looking for native English speaking teachers/assistants.

I'm not connected with it and I know nothing about them. I just saw the advert on the web site.

Yeah seen that myself, I'm no good with kids or I'd have considered it myself although they always seem to be looking staff  so that was something I found a little odd.