I had to pick one of four words, in a language that is not mine
- Looking for
- somebody patient with a person who is unsure in two languages at once
- Experience
- None. Two months on the app and a lot of dictionary tabs.
- Around
- Noord, Amsterdam
The sign up would not let me continue until I chose one of four English words to sit above my photograph. I know what all four mean in a dictionary sense. I do not know what any of them mean to the people who use them daily, which is a completely different kind of knowing, and I stood there for a long time before picking the one that seemed least like a claim.
Twenty nine, Noord, here for two years, no experience of any of this. The language problem is bigger than it looks. Almost everything written about this is in English or in my own language with all the terms left in English, and I keep finding that I understand the sentence and not the thing.
What I would like is to talk to somebody who has been doing this for a long time and does not mind explaining what a word means in practice rather than in theory. Specifically what people actually do in an ordinary week, and what happens when it stops working.
I am sociable, I ask a lot of questions, and I am aware a profile like mine attracts a particular kind of attention.
Not looking for anybody who opens with a list. Not looking to be told what I obviously am. Not looking to meet anywhere private, now or in six months.