Posted 17th July 2015 1923

I have a new housemate whose struggling with his Englilsh skills, and its driving me insane!! I feel bad cause you can tell he’s a very nice guy struggling to fit into a culture completely foreign to him (a Middle Easvern man in Australia), and he’s studying English. I live on a uni, & we’ve had many foreign students and English struggles. This ones completely different though, because this guy needs a translator for every third word (thank god for iPhones & Google), and every concept not only takes a year to explain, but he keeps asking questions about our culture, & cant seem to grasp the concept of personal choice. Either everyone loves chocolate, or everyone hates it. Either everyone parties on Tuesday night’s, or no-one does. But if these were the only isaues I might be ok, but what really gets to me is, in the past with other foreign students, we could have normal conversations without English lessons or cultural classes. With this guy, every single conversation becomes a lesson. The other day I was trying to be friendly and said his dinner smelled yummy as he was cooking, and that compliment led to a 25minute conversation getting him from what he called the flower daisy, to the cooking spice turmeric (what he meant by daisy). Look, I know I’m being an arse here. I can’t imagine how daunting it must be dealing with foreign language&cultu re, so I’ll never say this to him, I just needed to vent. I need a break, seriously, I’ve already
lost all my hair. My other housemate warned me my friendliness would get me in trouble here…. He was right! Any advice on how to.deal with this?

P.S. I know my rant is on a very small problem compared to many of yours. I admire your courage & strength in.dealing with those issues. Congratulats on keeping it together :)

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