Hi everybody, this is my first thread message as one week ago I was offered a place to do a PhD!-I will commence it in September. The application process was quite long and hard, but it was finally worth-it !I'm moving from Italy to UK so I will completely change my life!I was wondering if there's somebody else who is doing a PhD/will do it in a foreign language, which implies to reorganise linguistic habits, using different concepts, develop new oral skills and learn to write academic english.
How do you cope with that? Some useful and practice tips- apart from BBC Learning English and speaking, listening, thinking, writing English night-and-day?????!!!
Thank you very much! ,-)

Well, I am Greek and I am doing a PhD in UK. I think that the best thing (although not the easiest one) is to try to think in English!!!! Forget your language, watch TV, listen to radio, read books (outside your PhD), meet people and start conversations. All in English!!!
As far as academic English.....read a lot of papers in your field and it will come naturaly.
I hope I've helped a little
;-)

Hi Silvietta,

recognise the feeling. I agree with all the things Emakki and yourself already said.

For me it was also very useful to have a native speaker read my writings and having explained the errors. This really improved my writing skills. Often it is the "nittygritty" which is the most difficult, which one can only learn by being corrected by a "local".

Kind regards,

Rick:-)

Ciao Silvietta!
I am English and am doing my PhD in England but I am doing my data collection in Italy where I live most of the time. I know that at my university there is a lot of help for foreign students - courses, tutors to help with writing skills etc. I started my PhD after ten years of work and was really out of the habit of writing academically. I have found that reading lots of academic articles helps you to get into the way of writing better essays too. Good luck!

don't worry! in the UK the majority of PhD students are non-native English speakers and they all manage! once you live in the UK English will become the natural language of thinking for you - in particular at work!!

Hey thank you all for your answers!! I do appreciate them :-)

My advice would be: read! Read as much as you can, academic and non-academic stuuf (e.g. novels, newspapers). The brain will do the rest, and sooner than you excpect you'll find yourself writing better than you thought you could.

Although I've been living in the UK for the last two years, there are several occasions when I still find it difficult to express myself (mostly when speaking). In a few months time I'll have to do my transfer viva and I'm terrified! Any foreign students want to share their viva experiences?

Thanks

PhD_Saga, I know what you mean about the speaking bit. As preparation for your meeting, devise a list of questions you are likely to be asked and then go through the list, one by one, giving answers to yourself, speaking out aloud. In that way you can have many attempts at answering a question, you realise how good you already are, where you maybe need to do more prep, like looking up words, good phrases etc. I would have thought some dry practice runs like this should help...

Silvietta - it's really good to see you considering the implications of doing a PhD in a different language. I think many people expect this won't be an issue, despite their dreadful English (which yours isn't!); so I think the very fact that you've made this post bodes well.....

Hey-that's the point!I do think that this is a crucial issue for foreign PhD students in the UK, especially because italian (spanish and french I would say too) and english are such different languages- in english one word for one concept (most of time), in italian 100 words for half concept :-(
anyway I'll try to do my best to cope with this; thank you all for your tips, others are always welcome!

Good luck to everyone!!

Hi Silvietta,

I just thought: can you write first in italian, then translate it into english?
I mean that makes it a lot easier to write, getting in a flow. If you do everything straight away in english this could be hindering the creative process.

Obviously sticking to italian all the time does not improve your english, so in that way it is not recommendable.

Well, I don't think it's a good idea to write in your language and then translate it into English. The structure of my language, at least, is very different from that of the English language, so when Itried to do that for my first master I ended up with a text that nobody could understand, but yet to me (and to other Greeks) it was good! But when I started writing it in English from the beginning, the result was much much better.
But this is only personal experience. Given the fact that I have no idea about Italian, I maybe wrong and such a thing is doable.

Thanks for the advice Poppy! I'm sure it will help.

Thank you for your replies! Hopefully the best thing to do is to write and think in English -as I did for my research proposal- and as all of you pointed out I should find an appropriate way -my way- to get ready for a full immersion in the English language. The first months will be difficult but I think I will be rewarded soon ;-)

All the best with your PhD 8-)