Like pulykamell, I’ve been living abroad for several years, but in Budapest only for the last six or seven weeks. It’s been my experience so far that learning the local language is not absolutely necessary. In fact, I’ve met a number of students and missionaries who have been here for over a year and have not yet learned much more Hungarian than “please” and “thank you”. However, I can’t help but feel that in not speaking Hungarian, you are missing out on so many of the things that are going on around you. The vast majority of the locally-available newspapers, magazines, books, movies, plays, television shows, and other media and cultural events are in Hungarian only. By restricting yourself to your native language, I don’t think you’re really living in abroad so much as in a little cultural island you have created for yourself.
I’ll also second the observation that there are a lot of North Americans who are living and working here illegally. The ones I’ve met usually get money from private English lessons. They don’t seem overly concerned that the immigration officials are going to find them, let alone are even looking for them in the first place.
Nope. I must confess that I did not infer this unstated qualification from either your post or that of the OP. To me, “etc.” in this context meant “and other European countries which I have not explicitly listed”. Please forgive me for having thought that “etc.” might have also referred to the Balkans, the Baltic states, and Spain.
Lots of very good responses.
To answer a few questions:
Not all countries have the 3 month visa stamp rule, for example Lithuania. Here you get three months a year, period, and most people do not speak English although it is getting better. Travelling in the countryside is not easy without knowing the national language.
They may expect you to teach solely in English, however the national standard here does not require a large enough vocabulary reserve for the kids to be able to understand you (i.e. bored, lost kids). Only those who have had private tutoring will follow you but all will expect top marks because they have trouble getting into a university otherwise. So don’t expect an easy ride teaching. Peace Corps pays better than the local institutions but you can’t choose your country, only the region.
As to learning a language. I will go the long route. If you wish to learn mathematics, there are many rules that require an explantion (many in my case) and so a teacher is employed year round. With a language, esp. an Indo-European language, if you know, say, 6000 words but no grammar, you can still read a high percentage of documents. If you learn every grammar rule while learning only 100 words, you will understand absolutely nothing. A beginner needs about 2 weeks of grammar instruction and then needs to learn words, which are best learned at home, not in class (another topic in itself). Now who is going to spend 4 years at a university so they can work 2 weeks a year? Thus the lie that you need many years of grammar training. Get a GOOD dictionary (you will probably have to travel to the country itself), a grammar (to read though, not memorise) and some books translated into that language (often simplier language as opposed to local ‘classics’- imagine your first book in English being ‘Hamlet’ ) and start reading, memorising as you go. It takes a while 6-12 months but it is very low cost.
Be very careful about studying abroad and talk to other students before you enroll. I beleive some Lithuanian universities have received European accreditation but not all have.
Scandanavian countries have an intense English programme with several stations broadcasting only in English because they understand that their citizens will do better in the world market if they are fluent in English.
And I take Lithuania to be included in ‘etc.’ since it is a European country and will be an EU member, hopefully, in 2004.
Knew I was going to forget something. My thanks to Coileán. I thought I had a hard time of it getting citizenship here in Lithuania (been here 6 years) and hoped it would get better after entry into the EU. Oh, well, so much for dreams. We are about as restrictive only citizenship is only granted to those who held a Republic of Lithuania passport from 1919 to 1940. Part of our country at that time was under Polish control and Polish citizenship. People who held a Tsarist Russian passport prior to 1919 are Russians, no matter what their last name and people who held a Soviet passport Soviet Russians and not Lithuanians. This means that if you marry a young Lithuanian whose parents and grandparents held only Soviet passports, your child is not entitled to dual citizennship. (If you take out a passport for him/her from another country, Lithuanian citizenship is instantly renounced.) They are going to amend that to include great-grandparents. If your ancestor(s) held Russian or Polish passports, then you have to prove Lithuanian origin through direct ancestry, as Coileán indicated and are not entitled to dual citizenship. If your ancestor was a Lithuanian citizen, then you can hold dual citizenship and the process is not as hard.
As to getting a job with a Ph.D. in English, that will depend on the University. Some like hiring foreigners (helps with accreditation) and some don’t (help the natives). Most students prefer studying business, financial, and legal English, not literature, although they usually offer such courses. Therefore, you would do well to show your qualifications in the former when applying. Look at the websites for the facaulty names to find those that like foreigners.
I have to stop meeting like this. A couple more points on teaching. Professor’s salaries are low here. You are expected to work on the side, mostly editing/translation work for English professors. I also failed to mention that British English is preferred here, not US. And yes, there is quite a bit of difference between standard English and business/legal English. I thought I knew English until I moved here and had to do a crash course in reading dictionaries. Worse, translating only into English, you don’t get to see how others have handled the translation out of English, for example, ‘fail to’ is usually translated by a simple negative (‘ne’) into Lithuanian but these things are not easy to find out going Lithuanian to English. Makes editing fun too, but this is another long story I’ll skip for the moment. Good luck.