LSE – Language
Although language barrier may not be what comes to mind regarding a study abroad in England there have been quite a bit of nuances and miscommunication, at least more than I would expect. My first encounter was on my second day when I walked around the entire first floor of the library looking for a printer, after being assured by the help desk it had been on the first floor. After roaming around for five minutes I came back with no luck after which she kindly explained to me that the first floor I am used to is known as “the ground floor” and the floor above it is the British first floor. Later the same day a few friends and I went to a local pizza place for dinner. Staring perplexed at the menu I asked the waitress what the aubergine topping was only to have her describe to me a purple fruit that I knew as eggplant.
The most common source of frustration for me regarding this “language barrier” was not however calling an elevator lift or anything of the sort. It was during lecture when taking notes on my computer and whenever copying from the lecture slides into a document, seemingly every other word was underlined red, telling me I spelled it wrong. Center was centre, analyze was analyse, labor supply was labour supply, and much the same it was for hundreds of words throughout the lectures. Besides these nuances the words are pretty easy to adjust to, and I even caught myself chips instead of fries to an American friend once. British slang however is quite a bit more puzzling but equally entertaining. A favorite word of mine that I’ve heard in passing quite a bit is “knackered” which means simply, extremely tired; I may even try this one out back in The States.
