“Tu aimes le beurre?” is the name of the game where children scratch their faces with buttercups. The person whose pollen turns yellow is the real Breton. He spreads salted butter at least as thick as a knife on slices of bread and cheese. When I think about the months of the pandemic and the long list of hardships that young people have to endure, I keep coming back to one thing. When I work in the kitchen, I often do this too. If I have not explored European languages and cultures from the age of 13 until I enter the learning phase-through living in a host family, intensive language baths, usually associated with two to three weeks of courses, my whole life will be different. Foreign schools and corresponding return visits.
In the past year and a half, it has been almost impossible to organize language accommodations for children and young people abroad. And it’s really popular—except for the American Year—Unfortunately, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, it could accommodate older children and teenagers, and most of these families were foreign to them. In most cases, there is no harm in experiencing the situation elsewhere, not just in exclusive language courses and modern youth accommodation. How other young people do their homework, what tone of voice prevails in different families, what breakfast they eat, how the needles are held differently, and what games they play can only be experienced by immersing themselves in the private world of others. Self-study of foreign languages is as if native speakers share their daily life around the clock.
