[quote]PimpBot5000 wrote:
milktruck wrote:
how prevalent is English spoken if I were to go out to pick up girls in Tokyo?
I lived in South America and picked up Spanish (fluent) and Portugese (sorta), so Im not the ugly american, but Ive got a friend in Tokyo Ive been meaning to visit for like 3 years and Japanese beyond a few polite phrases is rough for a potential 2 week trip haha.
If you go to clubs and bars, you’ll meet a good number of girls who can speak decent English. Looking at the general population of Tokyo though, I’d estimate probably less than 20% of women can speak English. You’ll get a few phrases out of them like “where do you come from?” but it might be difficult to generate more than 5 minutes of conversation. [/quote]
man, as an aside, pimpbot and hand banana are two of my favorite characters ive seen on tv in the past decade haha. Im just a dog, all I know is ball, and good, and RAPE
[quote]kleinewaise wrote:
If you are thinking about France, you can try to join the french foreign legion. You fly over to one of the 5 major cities, you walk around and ask the locals “legion entrange?” and hopefully they will point you in the right direction. You get to a house or gate and the words above it will say LEGION ENTRANGE. The french foreign legion is an army unit comprised of different people from different countries and led by French Officers. Most have never spoken a french word before they joined. Once you join you have to commit 5 years for training, you might have to even go into combat. But afterwards you are automatically made into a French citizen. Good route if you are don’t mind putting 5 years into foreign military service. Seems like an adventure if you ask me. But 5 years of service is a bit too long.[/quote]
I might be totally wrong here. But if you violate your 5 year commitment, don’t you get into some serious shit, like desert on penalty of death? I could have sworn I read something crazy on the FFL years ago, I’ll have to google it.
[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
kleinewaise wrote:
If you are thinking about France, you can try to join the french foreign legion. You fly over to one of the 5 major cities, you walk around and ask the locals “legion entrange?” and hopefully they will point you in the right direction. You get to a house or gate and the words above it will say LEGION ENTRANGE. The french foreign legion is an army unit comprised of different people from different countries and led by French Officers. Most have never spoken a french word before they joined. Once you join you have to commit 5 years for training, you might have to even go into combat. But afterwards you are automatically made into a French citizen. Good route if you are don’t mind putting 5 years into foreign military service. Seems like an adventure if you ask me. But 5 years of service is a bit too long.
I might be totally wrong here. But if you violate your 5 year commitment, don’t you get into some serious shit, like desert on penalty of death? I could have sworn I read something crazy on the FFL years ago, I’ll have to google it.[/quote]
They chop off your wee wee!!! (k after I typed it it wasn’t as funny damnit)
I spent a few days in Warsaw a month ago, and from what I saw it would be a good place to live for a bodybuilder. Cheap food, well equipped gyms, it’s a modern western city at half the cost of most cities.
On top of that, there are tons of hot chicks walking around with guys that wouldn’t be able to score with a 4 or 5 where I live… shit, I might move there.
Most young people there seemed to speak english, though a lot of the girls were very shy about it at first.
For North Americans, I recommend Prague (Czech Republic) or Budapest (Hungary) because it’s relatively cheap, and both places are fun.
My friend lived in a Czech city bordering Germany, he worked a minimum wage job in Germany, but lived comfortably in CZ. Of course, the dollar will get you far, but 1 year from now, who knows?
Thanks for the replies. There’s a lot here to think about.
Teaching English is not high on my list of things I want to do but its nice to know there is some stuff to fall back on. One of the guys I work with did it in China for three years and I was talking to him today. He really didn’t have too much to say, but he did it for 3 years, so I guess he liked it enough.
I think my best option is to try and find a company looking to staff people overseas. It might be a bit difficult, but I’ll give it a shot over the Winter. Probably save up some money and do a bit of traveling as well.
If anybody has any other experiences, please feel free to add them.
Why did you leave your old state and when? If you feel like sharing.
In 1981, my wife’s employer offered her a position as deputy manager on a resource assessment job in Nepal, a year after we were married. We had no strong ties to Toronto at that time, and we were young and adventurous. We ended up staying in Kathmandu for four years. Our older son was born there. After that, we spent time back in Canada, then went to Russia on a World Bank job. I finally came back to Toronto in 2004, but my wife still does development consulting work (she’s an agricultural economist). She’s in southern Tajikistan now, after two years in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
How did you find employment/start to support yourself financially?
I was hired to handle the project finances and logistics. We were fortunate to have jobs arranged before leaving. Since then, we have had to aggressively market our services/CVs to contractors that bid on international development jobs. There have been short periods of unemployment, and some short term contracts, but also some long term jobs (2+ years) with great benefits and excellent pay.
Are there any employeers that you know of that are will hire people specifically for expatriate job opportunities?
The best resource I know of, is the book “The Big Guide to Living and Working Overseas” by Jean-Marc Hachey. Check out his website:
I’ve recommended earlier editions of his book to many people.
As suggested, check the expat forums. Have you considered Peace Corps? I don’t know your age/situation, but I’ve met a lot of Corps volunteers over the years. Some were miserable, but most were happy for the experience. I like the Peace Corps idea of living with a host family. It’s a good intro to the host country and reinforces the language training.
How did you handle the language barrier? Did you have a good grasp of the language before you moved?
Didn’t speak a word of Nepali. We worked six long days a week, so we didn’t have the time for intensive language lessons. We both managed to pick up some “market Nepali”, enough to haggle for vegetables, hire taxis. We were in a bit of a cocoon, supported by the company and lots of local staff. We did much better in Russia and Ukraine - I learned Russian to a fairly high level, my wife and both sons are now completely fluent. But, when we got there, only my wife spoke any Russian at all. I took lessons. My sons went straight into the Russian school system. It was tough for them.
How did you go about finding a place to reside before you moved?
Usually taken care of by the employer, at least initially.