Au pair Lina from Brazil said: “The best way for you to enjoy your year as an au pair is to have a very good relationship with your host family.” Her au pair friend Julia from Sweden added that very good relationship could only be achieved through an open and honest communication.

 

However, communication that must bridge different languages and cultural expectation can pose challenges. A quick game of deconstructing Twitter acronyms showed just how tricky understanding and interpreting a new language can be, whether it’s Twitter-speak, spoken English or culturally inflected body language.

 

Samantha from Mexico spoke for everybody when she suggested that both au pairs and host families needed to show flexibility and patience when communicating and soon enough everybody will speak the same argot!

GL TTYL