Why is it so valuable to make friends with people from different countries?
Studying at Langports, you will have an amazing opportunity to meet countless people from different cultures. People who are from different age groups and cultural or religious backgrounds from you.
Below are some of the pros and cons of engaging with people from different countries:
Pros (positive points):
- You learn about the lifestyle in a country that you may not have ever known about previously. Also, you may have only known of the ‘stereotypes’. This is your opportunity to learn about a country from someone who has lived their whole life there and can tell you what it’s really like. For instance, what kind of food is popular, what their education and professional life is like, popular sports, and other cultural habits.
You might learn some fun facts! Did you know that the largest population of Japanese people outside Japan is Brazil (mainly in São Paulo)? That Switzerland has four official languages (the three main languages are French, German and Italian)? That the main language spoken by someone will usually depend on which region they’re from?- You might make friends with someone from a different country that will now open up the opportunity for you to go and visit them in their home country – perhaps you had never thought of travelling there but now that you have a friend there, they would be more than happy to show you around. After all, who doesn’t like showing off their beautiful country to a visitor?
- You get to practice your English because you have no choice but to speak in English to communicate with them. You are essentially practising your English but not in a classroom environment – speaking and listening to each other during after school activities, going out to parties and doing weekend trips together means that you’re constantly communicating in English with each other and this benefits everyone involved.
- When you graduate from Langports and go back to your country, you can tell all your family and friends about the wonderful and diverse group of friends you’ve made from all over the world and all the things you’ve learnt about all the countries and cultures that are different to yours. After all, isn’t that what travelling and studying abroad is all about?
Cons (negative points):
Go out there and make the effort to meet new people and go that extra mile to reach out to someone from a different country. They might be just as shy as you and all it takes is a simple “Hello, how are you? Where are you from?” to open up the dialogue and hopefully make a new friend today 🙂
Related Blogs: