As part of my undergraduate degree in Chinese Studies, I spent the last academic year abroad, initially in Beijing at Peking University. The course in Beijing covered a broad range of areas, from newspaper reading and 20th century literature, to more advanced speaking classes and classical Chinese. Upon the outbreak of COVID-19, my UK university instructed Year Abroad students to move to Taipei where we attended Mandarin classes at National Taiwan Normal University. The teaching at both universities was excellent and I am pleased to see that my Mandarin has improved significantly.
However as I’m sure many other language students who have been lucky enough to study abroad would agree, my most significant learning came outside the classroom.
Peking University had a wide variety of extracurricular activities to get involved with. I particularly enjoyed attending Sanshou Kungfu and Calligraphy classes. In both Beijing and Taipei I was lucky enough to make lots of Chinese-speaking friends, which not only helped improve my Mandarin, but also helped broaden my understanding of Chinese culture and society.
The highlight of the year was without doubt the opportunity to travel widely around China.
Thanks to the support of the John Speak Language Trust, I was able to explore diverse parts of China, ranging from the amazing spectacle of Harbin’s Ice Festival to ultra-modern Shanghai.
I am extremely grateful to the John Speaks Language Trust for their generous financial support this year which has allowed me to really make the most of my time abroad. The chance to live and study abroad is an incredible opportunity and it is fantastic that the Trust is helping students to do this.
In February 1934, at the ripe old age of 19, I left the UK to begin a German language scholarship in Leipzig, Germany. My Scholarship was awarded by the John Speak Language to study German from February to October.
My journey began by boat from the UK to Bremerhaven
During my stay in Germany, I lived with the family Hübner in Leipzig.
Jack and the Hübners
In additional to my German studies, I undertook voluntary work at the Leipzig Wollkämmerei then the second largest and oldest wool combing site in Germany.
Leipzig Wollkämmerei
I arrived in Germany 1 year after Hitler came to power and met many instances of the population being ‘managed’ by National Socialists with many instances of overt anti-Semitism.
I pursued a career as an Interrogation Officer in the Intelligence Corp in WW2 rising to rank of Captain.
I later returned to the wool / textile industry to pursue the role as Export Manager for Harold Holdsworth Wool Spinners. In 1950, I moved to Scotland where I worked as Managing Director of British Textile Manufacturing making knitwear then later to Mitchell Goldie Co Ltd in Darvel making curtain fabric. I retired in 1979, aged 65.
I was able to use my German language throughout my army and civilian careers. After World War 2, I travelled for business in many German speaking areas both to sell manufactured goods but also to attend annual trade fairs (Heimtextil Frankfurt) and purchase machinery (Mayer & Cie) and continued to use my German language skills throughout my retirement even continuing my German studies after retirement passing a German Higher exam just for fun!
Throughout my life, I regularly visited the friends I had made in Germany during my 1934 study period and regularly holidayed in many German-speaking regions.
I continued to use my German by regularly speaking with German UK visitors in Scotland. My German language never left me and German visitors often commented on how grammatically correct my spoken German was.
The John Speak Language Trust Scholarship gave me opportunities that would not otherwise have been available to me. Studying and living in Germany gave me great self-confidence and opened the way to a very successful business career.
Jack, age 106 (taken December 2019)
I kept a diary throughout the whole of my trip and given that I was in Germany only a year after Hitler became Reichschancellor and during the period of the Rohm purge (otherwise known as the Night of the Long Knives) today the diary makes fascinating reading.
One extract reads:
“Very soon after my arrival In Germany I was shown a photograph of Hitler by one of my family hosts but I avoided commenting by pretending not to understand what they were saying. There were several occasions when shop windows displayed pictures of Hitler in ‘various poses’ and I wondered at the homage he had paid. Later in my trip however, I did manage to get a picture of Hitler when he was visiting Leipzig!”
The John Speak Trust further commented:
Jack’s diary also gives an insight into how the population was being managed throughout this period. In March Jack describes how loudspeakers were set up outside the Wollkämmerei and how, on the following day, all of the workers (about 2000 in total) were assembled outside to listen to speeches by Goebels and Hitler that were being broadcast from Munich. In April Jack describes how there was a march arranged in support of the National Socialists and that he had been told by men at the works that if they didn’t march, they will lose their jobs. Jack also notes that everybody was very careful when discussing this as they were often unsure who they could trust.
On the darker side, in June Jack described attending a wrestling match at the end of which came what he described ‘the Hitler salute’. One student had failed to salute and was immediately called out by another and asked if he was a Jew. Jack comments in the diary entry that this incident shows how dangerous it was not to salute. In a similar vein, Jack notes in the diary how he had been warned not to greet his dentist with the customary ‘Heil Hitler’ as the man was a ‘Jew’.
Fortunately, not all of Jack’s diary is so dark. He writes about having a very enjoyable time in Leipzig with many friends enjoying both his student days and work at the Wollkämmerei. Jack records in his diary several trips that he made during his stay to places such as Dresden, Berlin, Bechtesgarden and further afield to Prague, Vienna and Budapest.
Sadly, Jack passed away late March 2020, before this Case Study was published. The Trust would like to give special thanks to Jack’s daughter, Fiona Oldfield, for providing extracts from her father’s diary, photographs and permitting the publication of this Case Study on the John Speak Trust website.
Over the past 6 months I have been completing an internship in Paris as part of my university degree. Ever since I started at university and was aware that I would be spending 18 months abroad, I knew that I wanted to spend some of my time in Paris. Living in Paris gave me amazing opportunities both to work on my language skills and to experience the amazing lifestyle and culture that comes from living in the French capital city.
Before moving to Paris, I had spent 6 months studying in Bordeaux, improving my language skills massively from when I left university in Sheffield, but the experience of living and working in the capital city really gave me the opportunity to improve my French further. Whilst my internship was not as rewarding as I had hoped, the free time that I had gave me the opportunity to immerse myself in French newspapers, TV shows and films, which all provided me with better communication skills but also a better idea of culture in France.
Additionally, aside from the amazing benefits of living in Paris on improving my communication skills, it was such an incredible experience socially.
Paris has a way of being both relaxed and abuzz with energy that I have not experienced in any other city.
This allowed me to feel natural with the Parisians during the day, when exploring the city through one of the many museums or stopping for a drink, then also to feel alive and excited in the evenings as there is always a huge variety of things going on.
My best piece of advice to anyone going to Paris, either as part of a studying/internship opportunity, or just on holiday is to say yes to everything and make the most of your time. Obviously it is still important to go and see the typical tourist spots, such as the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, but as well as that, if you walk past a quirky museum or see a poster for an unconventional night out just go for it because you will find some experiences that are impossible to recreate anywhere else, especially not in England.
Being awarded with a John Speak Language Trust scholarship allowed me to do these things and to really explore the city with great ease that would not have been otherwise possible.
Living costs in Paris are amongst one of the highest in the world and that combined with my very small student loan and even smaller internship wage, therefore without the help of the John Speak Language Trust, I would not have had the opportunity to have any of these extra experiences of living in Paris.
I would strongly recommend anyone to spend some time abroad, either working or studying, as it not only opens your eyes to amazing, new cultural differences but also allows you to make a strong personal development.
From July to December 2019, I had the privilege of studying at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, as part of my modern
languages degree year abroad. My Spanish improved immensely whilst in Colombia, partly through daily exposure to the language in my university classes (which included Salsa – a cultural, if not academic prerequisite!). I was given the chance to develop my academic Spanish too, writing a 2500 word research project for a module on Colombian cinema, which involved an amazing trip to the Pacific Coast to meet some of the non-professional actors which made up the cast of the Colombian film El vuelco del cangrejo. Here, and in other trips within the country, I was exposed to various kinds of (sometimes barely intelligible!) Spanish, helping me to appreciate the language’s rich diversity. I threw myself into Spanish socially too, and my best friendships comprised of Spanish speakers from all over the continent. Spending so much time with Mexican exchange students for example, was extremely enriching and made me appreciate just how diverse Latin America is culturally and linguistically. Indeed the contact I had with native speakers from at least 13 different Hispanic countries has left me confused and bewildered at the number of options I now have for calling someone my ‘mate’: pana, parce, wey, socio, veci, tío, hermano only touch the surface….
La Barra, a village located on Colombia’s Pacific Coast and where the film El vuelco del cangrejo was shot
Living in a country like Colombia, all too frequently defined by its bloody history, made me re-think some of the stereotypes of the country that are disseminated in the west, such as in the series ‘Narcos.’ Refreshingly, it also gave me an insight into some of the stereotypes of Europeans seen through Colombian eyes.
To Colombians we are seen as cold and serious, and compared to Latinos we don’t know how to party or have a good time.
After a fare share of ‘farras’ and what feels like 100 salsa classes later, I can confirm that there is a degree of truth to this accusation, and believe that the principal cause of British sobriety at least, is the absence of dance in our lives.
Caldo de costilla
The strong lesson I have learnt from my exchange is that in order to really know a place, you have to live there and interact with the locals in their language. Indeed, daily life abroad can be very rewarding as you discover all the hidden gems a tourist wouldn’t. For example the various broths, soups and consommés, which I ate on a daily basis in Colombia, were a revelation, and the famous caldo de costilla (a rib soup) has a well-known macondian power to cure a hangover. As if taken from a García Márquez novel, the soup is known as ‘el levanta muertos’ or ‘the resurrector.’
In conclusion, I am extremely grateful to the trust for facilitating my language learning abroad. The grant helped cover living costs and allowed me to spend an extra month in Colombia doing an intensive C1 Spanish course upon arrival. I am also grateful to the grant for allowing me to develop my writing skills in Spanish through the monthly reports. Crucially, these have provided a platform to ponder and discuss aspects of Colombian culture, which has proved extremely positive and healthy. I am sure they will serve as an excellent archive for my unforgettable time abroad.
As part of my Year Abroad during my degree in Spanish and French, I spent the last six months in Santiago, Chile, working for the British Council as a communications and marketing intern.
The scholarship from the John Speak Trust allowed me to take on this unpaid internship, which wouldn’t have been feasible otherwise, and to enjoy my Chilean experience to the full.
My job was an incredible learning curve; it was an entirely Spanish speaking environment, and the wonderful team of Chilean colleagues gave me a great induction into Chilean life and the many idioms that make Chilean Spanish notoriously so challenging. My Spanish, though already proficient when I arrived in Chile, really had to adapt to the accent and the vocabulary in Chile, and in a workplace context I learned how to make professional phone calls and write formal emails in Spanish, using business vocabulary I hadn’t previously encountered. It was wonderful to work with the British Council, who run a variety of incredible programmes across Chile such as the ‘Crafting Futures’ project which teaches artisan communities in remote towns how to preserve their craft and adapt their skills to the 21st century.
I learnt a great deal about Chilean culture and the socio-political landscape.
Speaking of politics, my time in Chile took an unexpected turn in October when mass protests broke out, triggered by an increase of the metro fare but really addressing much deeper issues such as the economic model and drastic inequality in Chile. For months (and still to this day, although less intensely) Chileans took to the streets to protest for change and were faced with brutal police repression in the form of tear gas, water cannons and physical violence. During the first week I wasn’t able to leave my flat after 6pm due to a government-imposed curfew, nor would I have wanted to due to the menacing presence of the army on the streets. Coming from a country like Britain where there is no culture of protesting, it was quite incredible to see such sustained and determined protests that drew out for weeks, and to see people coming together in phenomenal numbers. Undeniably, there were scary moments when the shops below my flat were being looted and there were fires and gas right outside my window, but overall I feel privileged to have witnessed such an historic moment for Chile, and it also brought me closer to a lot of my Chilean friends and gave me a deeper understanding of the country.
Chile is so often described as the ‘safest’ or ‘most stable’ country in South America, so it was eye opening for me to see the inequality and frustration that lies under this exterior.
During my time in Chile, I was also able to travel outside of Santiago and see some of the incredible variety the country has to offer. I was blown away by the landscapes and sheer distances, and think it is an incredibly underrated destination! From the desert in the North, to the glaciers in the South, with lakes and volcanoes in between, I completely fell in love with Chile and look forward to going back one day. I joined a boxing gym in Santiago, through which I met some amazing friends and really gained a sense of community in such an enormous city. By the end of my the 6 months I had really built a life there and was so happy in my job, apartment and friends, and it was incredibly tough to say goodbye. However, this experience has definitely given me the confidence to move to a new country again. Beforehand, I had been very wary of moving to another city, but I have realised that I am very adaptable and capable of settling in new environments, so I am definitely contemplating moving back to Santiago or elsewhere in South America once I graduate. I cannot thank the John Speak Trust enough for enabling me to have such an eye opening experience.
As part of my year abroad, I spent 7 months in Lisbon working as a translation and communication intern. My initial and main goal was to immerse myself in Portuguese as much as possible. Although I arrived in Lisbon already having an intermediate level of Portuguese (B2), my understanding of Portuguese was tested to a new level, and I essentially lived the language. I arrived at the beginning of June which was an excellent time to familiarise myself with the city. The weather was perfect and there were so many events to choose from. Despite the fact that I had already visited the city before, this would be the first time living in the city for an extended period of time.
At my work, I was able to learn and explore new professional areas. I was able to develop my translation skills while working with professionals. I mainly translated documents from Spanish and Portuguese into English, and I was able to apply my skills to different types of translation. Not only did I learn many translation skills, but I also took care of the social media of the company which taught me many valuable skills about media management.
Portuguese literature is one of the best worlds I now have access to. I enjoy literature and reading in general but reading in another language is an amazing experience. Reading in Portuguese was very taxing at the beginning because I had to look up many words as my vocabulary was not very large. My favourite Portuguese book O Universo num Grão de Areia [The Universe in a Grain of Sand], written by Mia Couto, is a book of short essays that touches on so many issues without making the issues overly academic or complicated. Not only was I exposed to Portuguese culture, but I also got a glimpse into Mozambican culture, where both histories are intertwined.
I had the chance to travel to the north and south of Portugal which were very different experiences. The north is must colder and has Portugal’s second biggest city Porto. There is a huge art community in Porto and a rich cultural history. In the south, I visited the Algarve which is renowned for its beaches and for the beautiful walks. While the country is not huge the contrasts make from excellent holidays. Though Lisbon has a lot of charm it does not show the full range of Portuguese culture; therefore, it is worth visiting other places outside of the capital.
What really stood out for me was the friendly nature of the Portuguese people. Even though I was in a capital city, I had many conversations with Portuguese people in cafes, in taxis and at bus stations. Speaking to people directly always helps when learning about recent Portuguese history. I have made many lifelong friends and I hope to stay in contact with them.
There have been many people who has supported me on my studies, and the Trust is one of those who has helped me through the process. In its on way, writing a report each month helped me to keep track of my progress and achievements and it helped me to value my experience in Portugal.
I am very grateful for the opportunity I have had in Lisbon and I hope others are able to have a similar experience.
As a compulsory part of my undergraduate degree in Arabic and Hebrew, I have spent my time this year between Amman and Jerusalem, learning both languages during my time abroad. Coming off the plane into Amman, I was so scared and worried. I had never been to a country with such a different culture, and my mind was occupied with worrying about how I would dress, how I would survive the heat, what would people think of me. My biggest worry was that my university had only taught us Standard Arabic, practically useless in day to day life, but for the first few days that was what I was to use.
I quickly jumped into learning Jordanian Arabic, and for the first time in my Arabic studies, the language finally came to life. Walking in the streets and being able to speak to people was amazing. I remember how I used to hate Arabic while at university, as it felt like constant repetition of grammar rules just to pass a test and without any real application to learning, but here, finally I was able to live the language. I made friends in Arabic, something I never thought that I would be able to do, socialised like a Jordanian, with Jordanians, an experience not all my colleagues had.
I became so integrated that leaving Jordan was one of the hardest things I had to do in my life, leaving my new friends and my new lifestyle was really tough. After a small visit home however, I was onto Israel and so I had no time to be sad. While in Jordan my Hebrew fell behind slightly, as unlike Israel, I did not feel comfortable or free in Jordan to speak Hebrew. While my learning was geared towards Hebrew while in Israel, I also took advanced Spoken Arabic in the Palestinian dialect, which is similar to Jordanian in order that my Arabic did not falter while I learnt so much Hebrew.
Thanks to the funding from the John Speak Trust I was able to further myself professionally by taking up internship positions alongside my studies, both in Jordan and Israel, where I was able to use my Arabic for a variety of purposes. Not only that, but thanks to the financial assistance I received, not only was I able to visit my friends back in Jordan a few times (and be immersed for a week or so at a time in Arabic), I was also able to truly experience the countries that I lived in, whether it was visiting the Bah’ai Gardens in Haifa, to the Pride Parade in Tel Aviv, from the Beauty of Petra to floating in the Dead Sea.
This year has hands-down been the best year of my life. Not only can I confidently say I’m trilingual, I can say I’ve made the best friends I’ve ever had on this year.
I cannot thank everybody enough at the trust for the help they’ve given me in reducing the financial burden, pushing me to improve my language skills, and allowing me to truly immerse myself in the Middle East.
In September 2018 I came to study at Tsinghua University in Beijing, to improve my Mandarin and understanding of China more generally. The intensive nature of the course has meant that my language ability has steadily increased throughout the year. Of course, the real test of ability has come when out and about in the city and it is amazing how much of a difference immersion in a language and culture makes.
Outside the classroom, time spent doing extracurricular activities with Chinese friends has been crucial in providing a stage to put those classroom skills into good practice. Furthermore, the facilities and the range of clubs and societies at Tsinghua is phenomenal, and I have been lucky enough to try a few new things. The popularity of winter sports is snowballing in China as it gears up for the 2022 Winter Olympics, and I jumped on this bandwagon (or sled?), taking up curling and sampling the skiing slopes outside the capital. Likewise, football is gaining a more substantial footing in the Middle Kingdom as investment pours into the Chinese Super League. I enjoyed watching a few games in Beijing and playing for my departmental team on campus. Across the globe football is a powerful communicator and I met several Chinese friends in this way.
Although China is such a rich and diverse country, the extent of this perhaps didn’t quite dawn on me until I saw it first-hand through travel. In the October national holiday I made it to Yunnan province, trekking the length of the Tiger Leaping Gorge and visiting the laidback town of Shangri-La on the edge of the Tibetan plateau. In January I made it in bone-chilling temperatures to the heavily Russian-influenced city of Harbin for the world’s largest ice sculpture festival. And in May I travelled through Gansu and Xinjiang provinces along the camel-trodden path of the ancient silk road to Kashgar, a city both geographically and culturally closer to Baghdad than Beijing.
These three trips alone took me to the South-West border, the North-East corner and the Western limit of this vast continent-sized country. They allowed me to see where Han culture meets (and in some cases clashes with) the Tibetan, Russian and Uyghur cultures respectively and every moment of each trip was thrilling. My biggest hobby is undoubtedly travelling, and it is definitely on this aspect that the John Speak Trust has been indispensable.
The scholarship has eased the financial burden of the year allowing me to explore China by myself, which in my opinion, goes hand in hand with studying its language. For this, I extend my wholehearted thanks.
As a final thought, I noticed during my time in Beijing that so many young Chinese people can speak English very well and already have a thorough understanding of Western culture, something which I do not think is reflected in the UK. Moreover, looking at the immense array of international students at Tsinghua, I’d go one further to say that I think the UK actually lags behind much of the world in this regard.
Thankfully, however, it is due to organisations such as the John Speak Trust that this gap can be closed. I would recommend a year abroad to anybody and my sincerest thanks goes to the John Speak Trust for helping make mine possible.
Being filmed by Youku (Chinese Youtube) about my life in Beijing
As part of my undergraduate degree, I spent a year abroad in Beijing where I enrolled at Peking University. The course at Peking University consisted of all key areas of the Mandarin language, including areas such as speaking to newspaper reading, and even advancing our skills in classical Chinese. The excellent teaching meant that I continued to improve throughout the year, and could iron out issues that had previously been causing been problems.
Getting my haircut in Inner Mongolia
However, as most students would probably agree, time outside of class was just as, if not more, enjoyable. But also, crucially, I would argue, absolutely vital to my language and cultural acquisition. It was by travelling to various parts of China that I got to grips with the cultural, linguistic and geographical differences of the country. This oft-perceived heterogeneous nation is in fact bursting with idiosyncratic and dynamic cities and provinces.
Hotpot with friends!
Throughout the year, I visited a good number of different cities and areas. I started off visiting the barren ghost city of Ordos, Inner Mongolia, in Golden Week, before subjecting to myself to temperatures of -20C in Harbin in December. I then thawed out in Yunnan, Sichuan and Guangxi during the week of spring break. Here, the chance to escape the concrete jungle of Beijing and discover the breath-taking natural landscape of China was a welcome one: hiking 20km with 2km of ascent/descent in Tiger Leaping Gorge was a favourite memory of mine, closely followed by a 40km bike ride surrounded by the imposing Karst mountains in Guilin. Travelling also proved to do wonders for my aural and oral skills; conversing with locals from all over the country made me practise no end and forced me out of my comfort zone. However, it also showed me the gulf I still need to overcome; the Naxi minority of Yunnan (speaking Mandarin as their second language) was especially tricky to understand!
This opportunity to travel has been solely down to generosity of the John Speak grant which relieved me of the financial burden this year. The grant also encouraged me to find an internship related to my future career plans.
At the bottom of the Tiger Leaping Gorge
Consequently, I worked as an unpaid intern at Trivium China, a political consulting firm, which presented me the challenge of reading policy documents, newspapers and other primary sources in Chinese, as well as contributing to bespoke consulting projects within the team. It has confirmed my interest in the field and has undoubtedly been a great asset to my CV! The monthly reports also served to reflect on my time throughout the year but also help practise my writing skills on the topics that were of interest to me. Funding for year abroad students is still exceptionally hard to acquire, thus I am extremely grateful to the John Speak trust and would recommend any student wishing to study abroad to apply for their grants!
I had studied Arabic as an extracurricular course, during my undergraduate degree at Oxford University. These weekly classes had given me a good grounding in Arabic grammar but I knew my spoken Arabic needed some work.
The support of The John Speak Trust enabled me to devote three months to improving my Arabic, through an intensive course in Jordan.
I had previously lived in Cairo and so I was interested in living in another Arab country. The reputation of the Qasid Institute in Amman attracted me to Jordan and that reputation was quickly confirmed once I had arrived. The tutors took no prisoners and I was straight into daily classes of three hours, entirely in Arabic. I had to brush up quickly on my knowledge of grammatical terms in Arabic!
The scholarship from the John Speak Trust also enabled me to sign up for an additional evening course focusing on the Jordanian dialect. Sentences in regional dialects can have a different structure, and even different words, to a sentence with the same meaning in Modern Standard Arabic. Modern Standard is the language of newspapers, official documents and professional work but dialects are the language of everyday life. My morning classes focused on Modern Standard, developing my knowledge of complex grammatical structures and my ability to read, write and speak about academic, political and professional topics. Meanwhile this additional evening course introduced me to the Jordanian dialect. I may have been able to have a conversation in Modern Standard about the history of Arabic newspapers but at last I was learning how to direct a taxi driver to turn left, or how to buy a kettle!
The most satisfying aspect of my time in Jordan was the development of my Arabic. I was surprised at how quickly my confidence and knowledge improved. Studying Arabic in an immersive environment provided limitless opportunities to practise whilst enjoying memorable experiences. Floating in the Dead Sea, visiting a Roman city almost entirely still standing, wandering around desert palaces and castles from the Crusades, camping out in the desert, and of course marvelling at Petra, made famous by Indiana Jones, were all fantastic experiences.
The John Speak Trust gave me the opportunity to improve my Arabic considerably and I am grateful to the Trust for their support.
