Thrown-in at the deep end.

Anna Szczepańska, 1st Grade

Have you ever wondered how is it to live abroad at a very young age and not knowing the language? Well, I can tell you my story.

It starts when I was 5 and my parents told me that we were moving to South Africa. At first, I was shocked and sad because I was leaving my friends here in Poland and I didn’t know when I would see them again. I was young so I didn't know what it would look like to live in a different country, because Poland was the only place I had known.

I was told that we were going to live in Johannesburg and that I would go normally to school despite leaving in a hotel for the first few months. When we got there, we joined AISJ (American International School Of Johannesburg), where the school year had already started. For me, going there was the worst part and I didn't want to go to Pre-K, because the only thing I could say in English was my name and I was sure that nobody would know Polish. Soon, I figured I had been wrong, because it was an International school, so there were people from all over the world. I was also scared of meeting new people and wondered if they would accept me or not. In my class, there was a girl who used to live in Wroclaw, but soon, just like me, her family moved here. During the lesson the teacher needed a lot of her help, so she could communicate with me and tell me what the exercises were. All of the teachers were very kind and helpful, but it was also really frightening being surrounded by people who could not understand you. My brother is generally more open and extroverted than me so he found it easier to make friends, and after the first day, he was really happy to be going there.

After three months of trying to communicate with everybody around me, I started to understand them and was able to talk in English. I think that three months is a very short period to be able to speak fluently in a different language, but because I was young and learned through observing and listening to everybody around me, it was easier to learn and start talking in English. At that time, it was also my main language because me and my brother talked only to each other and at school in English, but with our parents in Polish. At this point we were bilingual. Now that I look back at this, I am truly shocked that I needed only three months to be able to talk in a language previously unknown to me.

When I think back and remember the happy moments that I had there with my family and newly met friends, I’m very appreciative of having had that amazing experience. I got so used to it that once I’d come back to Poland after almost 4 years of living in SA, I was shocked how different lives are here to how it was when I lived abroad.

I came back to Poland speaking fluently with a beautiful American accent, but my Polish needed a lot of work and I had to re-learn my national language. Also, British English is taught in Polish schools so now my accent is turning British instead of the American I used to have. Nonetheless, it was all worth it and even though I was really scared and concerned about living there at the tie, it is now something that I dream of doing again. For me, being presented with the opportunity to learn a whole new language at a very young age and getting the experience of seeing life outside of my hometown is an amazing chance and I would never change it for anything else.