Blog: life as a student linguist in London
Sama Saraf and Andrea Lim study on the BA English Language and Linguistics at King's College London. Here they describe their experiences of living and studying in London as overseas students. This blog first appeared on the Kinguistics blog, set up by students on the BA.
It has been 1.5 terms, 5 months, 24 weeks and 168 days since we first set foot in London. After living here for a period of time we would like to share with you our experiences and observations thus far– from understanding the peculiar obsession with tea to the unpredictable weather, and from the organised underground system to being surrounded by people from a plethora of multicultural backgrounds. Like other foreigners, we also had the impression of London being the land of tea, fish and chips and businessmen wearing suits and bowler hats, singing ‘God Save The Queen’. Were we wrong? Not really. But there is more to London than our stereotypical view of it.
Let’s break the ice by talking about everyone’s favorite topic- the weather. We’ll keep it simple: at first we loved the weather because it was a stark contrast to the tropical Asian climate. Now we don’t- we really, really don’t. Everyone gave us strange looks when we said that we love the cool weather, but after settling down in London, we finally jumped onto the bandwagon. We find it odd that the overcast skies of London so poorly reflect the fast pace and vibrancy of the city. Then again, we have developed a love-hate relationship with the sun; we used to seek shelter from the sunlight in our ever-so-hot-and-humid countries, but now we find ourselves chasing it. We all know that feeling when the sun momentarily decides to come out from its hiding behind the clouds!
As Asians in a European country, there are times when we become linguistically insecure. For instance, with people from our home country we speak with our natural accents, but when we converse with anyone else we have the tendency to tweak our accent in an attempt to suit the interlocutor. For example, we would naturally say /ˈwɑː.t̬ɚ/ but here we are inclined to saying /ˈwɔː.tər/. As linguists, you should know what we’re talking about. Thank God for phonetic transcriptions!
In case you weren’t aware, the whole world is really fascinated by ‘the British accent’. We would be lying if we said that we hadn’t tried mastering our James Bond and Emma Watson accents alone in our rooms. Much to our surprise, we subsequently realised that there is no such thing as the British accent! Rather, there are many English varieties in London. Every person here has their own concoction and we are as fascinated by their accents as they are by ours.
One of the initial cultural shocks we received was when people questioned us “You alright?”. We were confused by this “greeting” and thought that maybe we looked ill or that there was something seriously wrong with our faces. After giving a defensive “yes” response a couple of times, we eventually learned the true meaning of the question. But, being linguistic students, we were intrigued to know more about the local lingo. We now have another reason to say “Cheers!” (even though half the time we don’t have a glass in our hands). However, our personal favourite is the ‘restroom’, known to you as the ‘toilet’ or the ‘loo’.
Another topic worth discussing is that sometimes people here seem more distant, reserved and stoic as compared to our home countries, which could come across as being rude. They like their personal space and prefer to maintain a little distance between themselves and the person they are speaking to. On the other hand, we appreciate the fact that they are polite when it comes to apologising and saying ‘thank you’ even though they aren’t the ones at fault! All we have to do is be kind and smile and look beyond Londoners’ strict armor.
Being an international student means that sadly we could not attend the open days, or the offer holder events. Despite that, it was made sure that we were exposed to as much information as possible. Now, we can proudly say that we made the right decision to study Linguistics in the birthplace of the English language itself. London is renowned for its world class education. Although it was overwhelming at first with a melting pot of cultures, we have eased our way through it. Like any other student, we were excited about becoming more independent, living on our own. But they say ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. Little did we know that our life would end up revolving around cooking meals, doing chores, budgeting and trying to keep up with our studies at the same time. Not to forget the continuous struggle of keeping up with the different time zones.
Despite these small linguistic nuances, we are fortunate enough to study in one of the top institutions in the U.K. In retrospect, after 1.5 terms, 5 months, 24 weeks and 168 days, so far we’ve had a good mix of the good, the bad and everything in between. We would just like to end off saying that it feels good to write an article after so long without worrying about citations or plagiarism!
Read more about the BA English Language & Linguistics.