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What's a skill that's taken for granted where you live, but is often missing in people moving there from abroad? (kyu.de)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by aard@kyu.de to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I was thinking about that when I was dropping my 6 year old off at some hobbies earlier - it's pretty much expected to have learned how to ride a bicycle before starting school, and it massively expands the area you can go to by yourself. When she went to school by bicycle she can easily make a detour via a shop to spend some pocket money before coming home, while by foot that'd be rather time consuming.

Quite a lot of friends from outside of Europe either can't ride a bicycle, or were learning it as adult after moving here, though.

edit: the high number of replies mentioning "swimming" made me realize that I had that filed as a basic skill pretty much everybody has - probably due to swimming lessons being a mandatory part of school education here.

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[–] RoquetteQueen@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Same with French here in Canada. I took French for six years and I still don't speak it at all, and I actually did really well in my French classes.

[–] lazylion_ca@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 year ago

I spent more time conjugating verbs than actually speaking it.

[–] Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yep. French Immersion was the way to go if you started in elementary school or had above average academic skills for late immersion. I'm still disappointed I had to stop when I moved and getting to the school with the program just wasn't feasible (had done two years of immersion prior). By the time I moved again it was Grade 10 and the presumed fluency was so high I would have struggled very badly.

Now the best option is dating a French girl, but my wife has reservations.