Rate This City: Day 40 - Rome
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mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
White/Black. I guess I look like a light skin brother...I've been mistaken in the past for anything from Caribeean to north-African to Madagascar
What job allows you to travel all over the world and goes to the different places? Ive been looking at all these threads and never been to any of those places.
mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
I live in Europe lol, in Paris. I don't have a job right now and haven't worked much these past years but I I had some money on the side. I haven't been outside of Europe in like 4 years. With trains, busses and low-cost flights one can go to this or that city for a week and spend like 400-500 euros all included.
I don't know if you can answer this, but how do you like Europe compared to America? Also, how hard is it to learn Italian, Spanish, French, and German? I only know English lol.
mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
So first of all I'm not American at all (Belgian and Centralafrican) so I can't honestly fully compare. I did live in the US, but as a kid (left when I was 8) and only been back to NY a couple times on short holidays stays. You have the obvious differences, such as a more solid social system, arms control, everything is smaller too lol (cars, streets, houses, dishes, drinks...). What's cool is that when you're in Western Europe you're literally a two-three hour flight away from a whole other country, culture, language, food...in every direction. Like me in Paris I could go to Rome this month and to Amsterdam next month. Still Europe obviously but totally different vibes. I find that quite cool. On the other hand depending on where you are in the US you got the Caribeean or Mexico on your doorstep so that's cool too obviously. Culturally Europe is also interesting because with US soft power we get A LOT of US cultural productions, while on top of that having access to european culture (obviously) as well as for example an interesting amount of African and ME culture. Not sure for example that there's that much European culture that is available in the US. Obviously this is more the case in a city like Paris than some random countryside town in Poland. Public transportation I think is way more developed here, in most bigger cities you don't really NEED a car. And if you like walking (as I do) Europe is better. That's one thing that most of my friends who've traveled way more in the US than I have always complain about, outside of NY and Washington they don't really like to stay in the cities. I do think that if you want to "live large" you might have better opportunities in the US, and if you do make it and are rich you probably have a whole other level of "rich" over there than here. And if you're an (aspiring) athlete it's way better to be in the US I think (except for football/soccer obviously). If you're Black it's another brand of racism over here, more subtle and less in your face (and less police killings) but still there. On the flipside it's much harder to actually talk about racism at a policy level because here "race doesn't exist"
But tbh a breh who's lived in both a significant time in adulthood will probably have more relevant specific differences.
Regarding languages well my mother tongue is French, so Spanish and Italian weren't that hard to learn (I don't really practice my Spanish anymore, but I had a pretty good level and can still read in the language and get by in Spain), since they're all romance languages. I lived in Italy for a year and a half, that's obviously the best way to learn a language. For an english speaker German might be close, but the pronunciation is totally different. Grammar too I think. French might be closer to English than most people realize but there too the pronunciation is totally different and since it's a romance language there's a whole different set of rules (feminine/masculine for example) and structures. I think the main problem for English speakers is that English has become so dominant everywhere that you can literally live your whole life without REALLY being exposed to other languages. Due to the size of Europe, its history, the cultural movements, etc...I think we're a little more exposed to other languages than you guys are. Even if only english. And when we do learn another language it's probably easier for us to actually speak it. Also we are more used to watching movies with subtitles, so even passively you end up learning bits and pieces of a language. If you want to pick up a language the best thing is to ask yourself why. Do you want to travel to that country? Is it to have access to its culture? Is it for professional purposes? How often will you be able to actually speak the language? Depending on your answers you will have an indication of which language you could consider more seriously than others. Every language is hard to learn if you lack a good motivation to learn imo. Assuming you're American I would say that the go-to language would be Spanish since that's the other dominant language on your continent, you have a sizeable hispanic community in your country and you can easily go on holidays in spanish-speaking countries. French is interesting if you want to connect with another part of the Black diaspora/Africa. Same with Portuguese. No offense to German and Italian (I speak Italian myself, and love the language), but unless you actually plan on going in Germany or Italy for whatever reason or have some serious interest about their respective cultures I'm not sure how relevant it would be for an American living in the US to learn either. Obviously I'll never tell anyone not to learn a language, just giving you stuff to think about when choosing. Like I would like to learn Arabic because I'm interested in the culture and history. German would probably be much easier (same alphabet, and I speak some Dutch so I can already understand some words) but right now I'm not that interested in German culture. But if I were to move to Berlin (a possibility) that would obviously change.
@mbewane thanks breh, great and thorough post!
Yeah spanish should probably be something i learn. Both of my parents are mixed, my mom is white and black. My dad is from venezuela.
In your opinion what are the best job opportunities in europe? I hope to get in the air force but if it doesnt work out i want to get a degree in something from a technical school and move to somewhere like new york or chicago or san diego or overseas in europe.
Yeah spanish should probably be something i learn. Both of my parents are mixed, my mom is white and black. My dad is from venezuela.
In your opinion what are the best job opportunities in europe? I hope to get in the air force but if it doesnt work out i want to get a degree in something from a technical school and move to somewhere like new york or chicago or san diego or overseas in europe.
mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
You're welcome breh, I'm fascinated by languages so it's a pleasure. Yeah honestly if you have a connection with Venezuela you might as well try going with spanish. Assuming he speaks spanish, pardon me asking, but how come you don't? I had that situation where my parents didnt teach me their real mother tongues (Sango or my father -language from the Central African Republic, and Dutch for my Moms) but spoke to me in french. Never got around to learning Sango (I know simple sentences and some words) but learned some Dutch later on (even though I'll never be at a native speaker level)
Career-wise in Europe well it's not that different from the US I think so anything in tech, business, advertisement and all that "new economy" stuff should work, even though the job market is tight here, especially with the pandemic. But since we're talking about languages, trying to teach english I think will always guarantee you some level of income, whether it's with established schools or as a freelance. Won't be balling, but should make for a decent living I think. But you would need to have a good understanding of the language of the country you're in.
I don't speak because I was lazy growing up. My father only taught a little but didn't really push for me to learn. Also, I was around 8-9 when my parents divorced and lived with my mother from that point on.
In terms of the future of Euope, (say the next 10-20) years what countries in Europe do you see being the strongest economically and being real powerhouses in general? I feel America is on the decline honestly.
mbewane
Knicks: 93 til infinity
Ah yes I see. Tbh it's not that easy to pass on one's language to their kids, there's often all kinds of personal situations that come up.
Germany and Scandinavian countries are usually safe bets, the UK might be recruiting because it might get more complicated for EU citizens to work there (not sure). Portugal was doing quite well pre-Covid, even though it seemed to be somewhat of a "bubble" economy due to gentrification. The Netherlands also always quite solid. But tbh with Covid and rising nationalism one can't really predict how even the next 5 years will pan out.