Quote Originally Posted by chris View Post
That's it then. I really can't imagine you in a situation where you wouldn't be able to talk to people.
I think Nellie is in the same category as me which could accurately be described as garrulous.

In 1988 my other half talked me into moving to Spain as she had got a job teaching English.
At that stage I had a total of about 10 words of Spanish, mostly related to beer and wine, and I can remember a really strong feeling of isolation as I was so used to spending my free time bantering with mates and I was now reduced to a mixture of sign language an pidgin.
After 6 months I could read pretty fluently but it took me a good 5 years to gain any degree of verbal fluency.
Reading and writing is easy as you have all the time in the world but listening and speaking is way more demanding.
people who do not speak a second language think that you kind of absorb it through the skin if you move abroad but I remember Spain was full of 20 year veteran expats who still had no Spanish at all.
maybe I am just a plodder with regard to foreign language acquisition but I can remember putting in a lot of really hard work at the start, always reading the paper with a dictionary and a notebook open and stuff like that.