Language Barrier

One thing that was stressed by pretty much every study abroad officer during the application process and pre-departure meetings was that almost everyone in the Czech Republic speaks English. And that we shouldn't worry about trying to learn some Czech before we left.

Okay, so "almost everyone" isn't technically incorrect. But outside of the tourist-y areas, which make up about 15% of the city, about 75% of people speak Czech and extremely poor English. And that's where we live. And in most of the tourist-y areas, they speak to you in Czech first and would obviously prefer that you speak Czech.

This experience has been really uncomfortable for me. You know that people are talking about you - you can just tell - but you have no idea what they are saying. Sometimes you catch a little snippet that sounds like "Czech Czech Czech TOURIST Czech Czech AMERICAN Czech Czech." This, coupled with the Czech reserved nature, is very intimidating and unnerving.

It is making me rethink my stance on people who move into America without knowing the language. I always said that I would never move somewhere without having a decent grasp of the local language, and that I didn't understand how other people could do that. Well, technically I moved here (even if it's only for 6 weeks), and the overwhelming sense of just...exhaustion? that comes from trying to remember the right words and pronunciation and the embarrassment of getting things wrong is enough to make me not want to try to speak Czech some days.

All this and I have only been here a week! I will continue to try to practice my Czech and hopefully, by the end of my stay here, I will remember how to say please and thank you correctly.