MY NEW LIFE IS A PIECE OF CAKE

“Sometimes our life has to be totally shaken, changed, and rearranged again, to bring us to the place where we are supposed to be.”

A year in a new country. I’m Polish but I live in the Czech Republic. After one year I am surprised at how hard beginning a new life is. Especially since I have experience, I am an immigrant for half my life. Acceptance in a new country should seem like a piece of cake. https://littlepuzzlesandme.com/the-beginning-of-the-new-life/

What I hear every day and of course annoying me the most is:

“We don’t understand what you are saying”

– I try to speak Czech, which is not too difficult for me. Our countries are very close, I have always had contact with the Czech language, also on TV. It is a language very similar to Polish, at least for me. I know that I am not using the Czech language in 100% correct form. After a year I understand more than I want to say. Which is probably normal for beginners with a foreign language. Speech blockage has been around forever. Only my children start to speak a different language faster. They don’t think about mistakes in sentences, but about having a good time. Adults should follow their example.

“We don’t understand English”

– At this point, I know the feelings of all British people who weren’t understood in Spain. The second universal language of the world is Spanish and Spain doesn’t give a shit about the English language.
But here I have to add, that unfamiliarity with the English language doesn’t apply to the younger generation. So if my new hairstylist reads this, I hope she doesn’t get revenge on my hair. This case doesn’t apply to people who try to understand me – like my parents-in-law. People who were abroad at least with one toe, understood me also.

“Speak our language”

– It makes me think I’m a fucking alien in this new country. Sorry for the language because it’s a family blog, but I couldn’t find a suitable synonym that would reflect my feelings in this situation as well. Please put yourself in a situation where you suddenly leave the Czech Republic and are in another country with a different language, how will you behave then, as you do now?

Everyday frustration related to not understanding each other in shops, train stations, and schools. It is tiring in the long run. And yes, I know, everyone says the beginning is difficult, but talking and not being in my situation make a difference.
I am shocked that after a year I still have more bad experiences than positive ones and it kills me more than during my emigration to England.
I am with my whole family in a new country, so I should feel better, but it seems to me that my lonely beginning of emigration to England was, surprisingly, easier. But I found the answer to it.

ENGLISH STYLE

English culture is all the fault. You are doing very wrong 3 things:

• smile, even in the morning, even when exhausted, non-stop happy face, don’t worry be happy
• ask about my well-being, always, even when you’re in a hurry
• at the end of the conversation, you say: have a nice day, have a good weekend, say hello to the children, give to children a kiss

POLISH STYLE

And during my 10 years in England, this behavior and this culture passed over to me. I completely forgot that countries such as Poland react to a smile from a stranger with the sentence: “What are you staring at? Want to fight? At a polite request for a bag in a store, I recently heard: “Jesus now is asking, couldn’t at the beginning, I have to open my till again, and is the queue.”

And it is not a mistake that I didn’t add the form “he” or “she”. I don’t know where the custom of addressing everyone in an impersonal form in Poland comes from. Looks like a Stone Age conversation back. I will mention right away that perhaps this was a situation that only happened to me. I don’t want to offend anyone.

CZECH STYLE

I shouldn’t be surprised to the Czechs that seeing my morning smile for no reason and hearing a nice question from me, they are terrified. It is all to blame for the English way of life. You know what? I’m afraid that after a long stay here, their lifestyle will catch me and my Czech version will be created. Then my every day will start with the sentence:
“How poor I am, everything is expensive, I have 2 cars and an apartment, great family and job, but my day is shit and my whole life too.”

But still better than punch in the face for no reason.

I hope everyone will accept my stories with a dose of humor, as I have been trying to do for a year.