I worked in New Zealand, and my English was poor. I’m going to write about the language barrier. My English is still not good. If you read through it, I would appreciate it. You can check the previous story here.
I was good at English in my home country
Getting high scores in English in my home country was easy for me. We concentrate on vocabulary and grammar. We learn to listen a bit, and the English speakers speak clearly and slowly. So, I didn’t have to improve my listening skills. If you have enough vocabulary and grammar, you can understand the speakers.
When I was 12~15 years old, a junior high school student, I learned almost all English basics. When I was 15~18 years old, a high school student, I learned more vocabulary and all English grammar. I studied hard for entrance examinations of high schools and colleges. I memorized English words and did quizzes of grammar daily.
I just saw lists of English words again and again and learned by heart. My scores on exams were really good, usually higher than 90 points(the maximum is 100). The subject I was the best at at school was definitely English.
The first language barrier in my life
On my holiday, I went to Australia and stayed at a farm for 40 days. I was a college student.
I was confident about my English. The farmer picked me up at the bus station. I was in his car. We started talking. I didn’t practice to speak English at all in Japan. I couldn’t get what he said. He was an Australian. Of course, the main reason was that I didn’t try to improve my listening. I couldn’t get myself understood. I was nervous. We both felt awkward.
I got to know I needed to improve my English conversation skills.
I didn’t go to school in New Zealand
After I decided to work in New Zealand, I learned English again. First, I learned how to pronounce some letters that Japanese don’t pronounce, such as “v,” “f,” and “th.” Japanese don’t learn English pronunciations like this at school.
I was confident about my vocabulary and grammar, so I focused on listening and speaking, which we rarely learn. I wanted to talk with people in English. I could have spoken with foreign people in online English-speaking services. They are not free at all. I didn’t want to spend money because I’m cheap.
I used an app where I could talk with random strangers on the phone. The app is called “Good Night”. I used the app every night and made three friends there about a month before I went to New Zealand. One is from Chili. The others are from New Zealand. From about 2 weeks before, I started to talk with them every day for more than 1 hour at a time.
Some days, I could understand what they said and vice versa. I got confident about English conversations. Most Japanese go to school after they go to New Zealand. But, I decided not to do it. I wanted to save money and spare time I went to school to work.
I kept confident about my English
Right after I landed in Auckland, I met my flatmates. One of them was an English native. It was hard for me to understand what he said. He was old, and I know old people have different accents. I didn’t think not understanding him was my problem. A few days later, I went to a shop where I bought a new SIM card for my phone. I talked with a European-looking guy. I could get what he said and the communication was smooth. I got more confident about my English.
I worked and served customers in New Zealand
There are, at most, only two people working at my restaurant. At night and in the morning, we have just one person on. I usually worked with my manager, and unless I was busy, I needed to run the restaurant on my own. It meant I needed to take orders. Most of the restaurants at the food court that our restaurant belonged to had screens where customers could order their food. Our restaurant didn’t. My English conversation skills were poor. I was nervous in front of customers, which made my English worse. It would have been easier if we had had an online ordering system.
I couldn’t get customer’s orders or inquiries so often. I didn’t relearn vocabulary and barely remembered it, so sometimes I needed to match what customers said to my vocabulary. I sometimes got their words in the wrong way, or I asked them to repeat what they said again and again. It made some of them angry.
Therefore, I was kind of afraid of letting them repeat more than one time. I ended up sometimes pretending to understand what they said. That made my manager kind of frustrated, I think. I tried not to do it, but especially when I was busy, I did that almost unintentionally.
On weekdays, office workers came to our restaurant and they knew about my poor English. They were kind and spoke slowly and clearly for me. Especially on weekends, a lot of tourists came to our restaurant. They didn’t know about me. When they got to know my poor English, some of them got confused or angry and left us. It was frustrating.
New Zealand has a big diversity of races, such as New Zealanders, Maoris, Europeans, Chinese, Indians, other Asians, and so on. hey had different accents. I needed to adapt myself to every single one of them.
Luckily, my boss was kind and I continued to be a part of his team. Thank you.
I tried to improve my English
I wanted to overcome the language barrier, so I made some efforts. I continued to talk with my friend over the phone about once a week. Moreover, I spoke English with the shadowing method. I listened to English sentences from a website on my phone and repeated what I had heard. In order not to disturb my flatmates, because the wall along my room was thin, I went out earlier before work, sat on a plaza, and practiced shadowing about an hour every day. I learned this can help me improve both my listening and speaking. I also borrowed books and read them. Reading can change my listening skills. I even set the language on my phone to English, not Japanese, my mother tongue.
How my English changed
I could feel my speaking was better right after I did shadowing, but, basically, my English didn’t change so much. I can say that my listening improved because I was surrounded by English for a long time.
I should have talked with people there way more. I was a bit awkward and felt it bothersome to do that.
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