So, you’ve decided to go on a study abroad trip. Very brave of you, especially if you’re going to stay with a host family. You might be asking yourself if it will be worth it, but rest assured it will be. Even with all the mishaps that might come with it, I can attest that living with a host family is one of the most rewarding experiences of studying abroad.
There’s a very specific kind of day that activates my inner travel bug–windy, temperature in the seventies, clear blue skies with a hint of approaching rain. It doesn’t happen often, but when it did two years ago, I gave in to the nomadic impulse and signed up to go to Münster, Germany with the Spring 2024 cohort. At this point, I wasn’t worrying about the host family situation. Being an international student, I get a kick out of transplanting myself into strange situations–one might even say I thrive on them, or I wouldn’t be an international student. But when we limped into the Münster train station on that bleak February evening and saw the formidable troop of host families waiting for us at the gates, I should have known that this situation was going to set a new unbeatable standard for awkward interactions.
I should have known, when I tried to shake hands, and my host parents tried to hug me instead, and we stood there doing a kind of soft-shoe shuffle with polite smiles plastered on our faces. I should have known when they tentatively tried some German on me, and then some English, and then retreated into a mildly exasperated silence, because my Broca’s area had apparently gone on sabbatical due to fatigue. But I think I finally knew when we got to the house and I collapsed on the landing and started hysterically petting the cat, refusing to move, so immensely relieved that I didn’t have to use words to communicate. Because living with new people is innately uncomfortable, and adding a different language to the mix just makes it so much more agonising to the introverted personality.
But life settled surprisingly quickly in my new home. My host family took their parental role very seriously–driving me to classes, going to the bakery while I was still in bed to get me a fresh pastry for breakfast every single morning, unearthing a Harry Potter costume for me at extremely short notice so I could go to the Rosenmontag Carnival, and even renting a piano for me to practice on for the entire duration of my stay, bless their hearts. They were initially unconvinced that I was a bona fide music student–“But what is your actual degree? What are you going to do for work?” but I’d like to think that I slowly convinced them of the viability of a music career. At any rate, they told me that the house would be silent when I left, and I decided to take that as a compliment. You can never tell, with Germans.
Having a quiet space, a home to go to after putting yourself out there talking to new people and navigating a new country, is essential. You probably already know that it’s mentally exhausting to communicate in a foreign language in a classroom. But when you have to do it in the classroom and at the bus stop, the bakery, the train station, the supermarket, the library, the post office, and, well, you get the idea–it gets to be a bit too much, and you need to rest your mental facilities. Or physical, if you’ve distractedly got on the wrong bus and gone thirteen miles off course and have to walk back through vast tracts of farmland in pitch darkness with nothing but a dead phone and a fat German grammar book in your bag. In such situations, it’s nice to have a home to come back to. Maybe settle on the couch with a mug of the weird fruit concoction that Germans like to call tea, and watch German crime television. Or have a long, and needless to say, rather awkward conversation about how Germans view the years between 1933–1945 and what their grandparents might or might not have done at that time. Pick your poison.
Living with a host family helps you create the best kind of relationship, one that is built on exchange. They tell you everything that’s wrong with current German politics, and you vehemently explain how your country is much worse. They offer you the vastly entertaining experience of watching Mamma Mia! in German, and you explain what the actor is actually saying in the atrociously dubbed Bollywood movie. They patiently explain German grammar rules, and you take them to concerts they otherwise would not have attended. You learn fascinating cultural tidbits like how it’s deathly bad luck to wish a German Happy Birthday before their actual birthday (I now realize that I might have overdone it with the flowers. Oh well). On the whole, you take more than you can give back. But you’ve created this bond in the process, and that is something that’s going to last a lifetime, if you want it to.
At this point, I feel obliged to add a disclaimer–getting placed with a good host family is like putting your hand into a bag of candy and getting your favorite flavor on the first try–it’s a matter of luck. Mine were exceptionally kind and caring, which I found when I staggered through the front doors at two in the morning after my first night out in Münster, and found them hovering solicitously in the living room to make sure I didn’t fall down the stairs. But then, another host mom in our group wouldn’t let her student boil eggs because she thought her kitchen would explode. My point is that on the whole, living with a host family and getting to know them enriches you, widens your perspective, and gives you an anchor in a new place, no matter how fraught your interactions might be. In the end, you feel less like a stranger in a different country because you are now part of a family, which is arguably one of the best achievements of learning a new language. And what family doesn’t have its rough edges, anyway?
