Life in the UK: What's it like to move to, live, and work in London?

Hello, I'm Gill at www.engvid.com , and today's lesson is not actually a lesson. We're doing

something a little bit different and we have having an interview with a guest whose name

is Chong who has very kindly come. He's agreed to be interviewed today about his experience

of living and working here in the UK.

So, Chong, welcome. Thank you for coming. Okay.

- Thank you

- And you would like to just tell us a little about yourself, where you've from, how long

you've been in the UK?

- Okay, my name is MK Chong, I've been in the UK for ten years now. And I work as a

surveyor.

- You're a?

- I'm a surveyor.

- You're a surveyor in the building industry, okay.

- Yeah, in the building, yeah, yes.

- And what country are you from?

- I'm from Malaysia.

- Ah-hah. So, what language, what is your native language or languages from there?

- Alright now, in Malaysia, the official language is Malay, and then we use our mother tongue

language, which is Chinese, Mandarin and Cantonese. And we study English as well in our school.

- Oh, okay. So, so you started as a child learning two languages, Chinese and Malay,

is that right?

- Chinese, Malay, and English.

- English as well. So, did people speak English within your family as you were growing up?

Or was that at school?

- Well, some of my family, they start English, with English background, speak English to

me.

- Ah, okay.

- Most of my family members speak Chinese to me.

- Right, okay. But from a very young age, it sounds like you were hearing and speaking

English. You were learning English.

- Yeah.

- From quite a young age, were you?

- Yes, I would say very basic English.

- Yes.

- Very basic, because.

- Yes, basic, basic words.

- Basic words.

- And for children anyway, children learn basic words, don't they?

- Yes.

- And then as we grow up, we learn bigger words, so that's how it goes.

- Yes, that's right.

- So, when you went to school, did they give you lessons in English?

- Yes, they did. Each day, we would have about an hour to two hours of English class or English

course.

- Right, okay. And do you remember much about it? Did you enjoy it? You know, did you have

interesting lessons in English?

- Um, I would say, because we got a textbook, so we used a textbook in order to always learn

things. It was quite interesting because we had two languages and we have to express ourselves

in three different languages.

- Oh, I see. So, you were working from a textbook.

- Yep.

- And, but, using your Malay, Chinese, and English

- Yep.

- In the lesson…

- Yes.

- So, an hour, two hours a day, that was quite a lot then.

- Yes.

- That was quite good, so…

- Yes.

- Do you feel that you learned, you got a good sort of basic grounding in English from

school?

- I would say some basic English language that we learned in our schools, as well as

our official language which is Malay and Chinese.

- Ah, okay. So, so that's good. So, so then, as you grew up and went through school, were

you still continuing to use English?

- Yes. We studied from the primary school until secondary school, as I say. It's between

an hour to two hours during our school days, and I get to college and we use English as

our background studies. For example, we use English only courses for professional technical

subjects in English.

- Oh, I see. So, that's interesting. So, for your sort of professional training.

- Yes

- You were using English.

- Yes

- Still in Malaysia, this was?

- Yes

- Ah, okay. So, you were learning your profession and using the English language as you did

that?

- Yes

- Ah, that's interesting.

- Yes, and at times, it was quite minimal Malay language, and we don't use Chinese from

that point onwards, because we realize English language is very important for my profession.

- Right, okay. And then, tell us a little bit about your outside work. What sort of

interests do you have?

- I would say I do some readings and do some swimming and I play badminton as well.

- Oh, badminton and swimming. So, that's very healthy to keep fit physically. That's very

good.

- Really good.

- Excellent, lovely. Okay. So, can you tell us about when you first came to the UK? What

was your purpose and when was it?

- Alright. I first came to the UK in 2004, a short course in Sheffield, which is in Sheffield

University.

- Ah, so Sheffield up in Yorkshire, so about 200 miles north of London, I think.

- Yep

- That is – so that was a short course at university in Sheffield.

- Very short course, correct, yes. It was like 15 years ago.

- 15 years ago, okay. So, what was that like? Your sort of first impressions of the UK up

in Yorkshire, not even in London?

- Yeah. We – it's very cold. What I remember, it's very cold.

- Cold. Was it the winter?

- No, it was in the summer.

- Oh, it was the summer and it was cold!

- Yes! Because I – Yeah. I am from Malaysia. We have a tropic country.

- So, you're in a tropical country, Malaysia. So, even the summer in Yorkshire was a shock.

- Yeah.

- Oh dear, oh well. And apart from the cold weather up in Yorkshire in the summer, were

there are other, you know, unexpected things?

- The things are different to Malaysia are the food.

- The food, ah-ha, okay. So, can you give an example?

- Malaysia, I eat a lot of rice and dishes and English dishes, for example. We call the

English big breakfast.

- Ah, the big English, what's it called, the full English breakfast?

- Full English breakfast. And then we have fish and chips.

- Fish and chips.

- Sausage and mash.

- Yes.

- These are quite different compared to my Malaysian food.

- Yes, compared to Malaysian food with lots of rice and things like that. So, was that

the kind of food that they were serving in the university in the catering?

- Oh yeah.

- At university?

- Yeah, it is. Sometimes it was roast.

- Yes, so roast meat and vegetables and maybe gravy.

- Yes.

- So, what did you think of that kind of food when you first saw it?

- Yeah, I quite like, I like it. I really was quite… because they got some veg and

mashed potato with some roast with it. The mash and mashed potato and roast to go with

it.

- So, a bread roll?

- A roast, and the roast meats.

- Ah, the roast meat. Sorry. Yes, that's it. So, it's quite healthy, quite a balanced food

and of course vegetables are always, you know, good for you.

- Yes, yes.

- So, something like the full English breakfast. Can you, for people who don't know what the

full English breakfast is, can you tell us what the different ingredients are?

- Okay. Its name is a full breakfast. And then we've got sausage, bacon, and baked beans.

Mushrooms and a slices of toast.

- And is there sometimes fried – there's a fried bread variety.

- Yes, yes.

- You know, when the bread is actually fried? So, it's very full of fat, isn't it? Yes.

- Yes, but it's quite tasty, though.

- Oh, it tastes lovely, yes.

- Any other ingredients?

- It's served with a cup of tea or coffee.

- Oh, a cup of tea or coffee.

- It makes it perfect.

- You drink tea or coffee at the same time as having your breakfast?

- Yes.

- And do they have anything else, is it tomato or egg?

- Yes, sometimes with some set, they will have some tomatoes and hash browns sometimes.

You can request for a bubble, which is like mashed potatoes with some veggie and some

pan fried or grilled.

- Oh, I think, is that bubble and squeak?

- Yes, bubble and squeak.

- Bubble and squeak.

- Oh, I think we need a whole lesson on that to explain. But anyway, so that's – if you

imagine, you must have to have a very large plate for all those ingredients.

- Yes, yes of course.

- And you mentioned hash browns, which that's a kind of potato, isn't it?

- Yes, I think they cut it into pieces and into a triangular shape.

- Ah, triangular. I was trying to remember what shape. And then, are they sort of fried

or?

- Yeah, they're fried.

- Fried, so fried potato, like chips, only triangular.

- That's correct.

- Sounds good. Sounds very nice. So, did you – you enjoyed having the full English breakfast,

then.

- Yes, of course I enjoyed it. Every weekend.

- Every weekend, yes. And if you have that for breakfast, you don't really need very

much at lunchtime.

- Yeah.

- Do you? You may be able to go through to the evening.

- I always say I have a late lunch after it.

- Ah, a late lunch, right.

- After English breakfast.

- Right, okay. So, and apart from up in Yorkshire, of course, you mentioned your lectures, lecturers

were speaking probably in the RP accent. So, presumably, you could understand your lecturers

well.

- Yes, that's correct.

- What about people outside the university? People, if you went into a shop to buy something

and had to speak to a shop assistant or something? What was it like speaking to the local people?

- Oh, yeah. At time, I realize the local accent, which I didn't really understand at that time,

however because there is a short-term course. I didn't stay here for long. I went back to

Malaysia.

- Ah, I see. So, how long was that course?

- It's about three months.

- Three months.

- Three months.

- So, you didn't really have much opportunity to get to know the local area so much?

- Yeah, correct.

- So, if you did hear, did you hear a few local people, and was it difficult to?

- Yes, it was quite difficult to me, even if I go to the market to get some food. It's

difficult for me to understand. I have to always ask “Pardon?” and “Can you please

repeat again?”

- Repeat it, yes, yes. Because people, apart from their accent, there might be unusual

words, like dialect words that you might not recognize because they have a particular set

of words in Yorkshire that maybe people in other parts of the country don't use.

- Yes, yes.

- So, okay. So, then that was just a short course, three months. And then you went back

to Malaysia. So, how long was it before you came back again?

- Okay, it was five years before I came back again.

- Right.

- And it was on the further education, I pursued my further education in the UK while this

time, I'm in London.

- Oh, you were in London next time, okay. Whereabouts in London was it?

- In the University of Greenwich.

- Greenwich, so Greenwich, that's Southeast London, isn't it?

- Yes.

- So, an area I think we both know very well. And so, what was – how long was that course?

- A year and a half.

- Ah, okay.

- A year and a half. And again, this is a full study course and the lecturers they are

using are English. I can understand. And when I finished the course and started to look

for a job, and then I have a difficult time understanding the local accent.

- Yes, yes, because also in London there's a local accent. We've had a lesson on the

cockney accent. So, that's not always easy to understand.

- Yes.

- So, how did you, how did you cope with this, the difficulty? How did you manage with the

difficulty of understanding what people were saying in the local accent?

- Well again, I would say I'm a bit lucky because I got a job in an English-speaking

environment.

- Ah, ah, that's good.

- Yeah, my colleagues and my friends speak in English, and when I had questions, I ask

what does it mean or asked them to repeat again for me.

- Ah, that's good. So, most of your colleagues perhaps are native English speakers.

- Yes, yeah. They are native English speakers, or they've been here for a long, so they're

using the local language fluently.

- Right, and they know things like idioms.

- Correct.

- And so on, what does that mean? That sort of, I don't know if you can think of an idiom

that might be used in the building industry that you might not have understood at first?

- Um, in the industry. I had a meeting with a contractor before, and he said, “Don't

worry, Chong, everything is honky-dory”.

- Ah, it's honky-dory, it's honky-dory.

- Honky-dory. So, I didn't understand what does it mean.

- No.

- So, that is kind of things that are a bit difficult. I don't' know what does it mean.

- Yes, so you asked your colleagues, what does honky-dory mean? And do you remember

what answer?

- Yes, they will be done in a very perfect way.

- Yes, yes, so it means everything will be nice, perfect. So, strangely I think honky-dory

comes possibly from Japanese, I'm not sure.

- I see.

- But it's a bit unclear. I remember looking it up once to find out where does that term

come from, and it's not really definite. But it's possibly Japanese, so.

- Yeah.

- Honky-dory being used in the London area.

- Honky-dory, yeah. And there's metaphor which is quite difficult for me to understand as

well. For example, we talk about certain subjects for cars, certain things in construction industry

or in my work, and my colleagues say, “Oh, don't worry about that. We'll cross that bridge

when we come to it.”

- Oh yes, that's a good one. Cross that bridge when we come to it, yes.

- I didn't know what they were saying.

- So, you thought he was asking you to go over a bridge, literally?

- Yes.

- Rather than just say, when we get to that point, we will deal with it then, later. We

don't need to think of it now.

- Yes, yes.

- So, that's good. Lovely, okay. And so, do you feel that that's a few years now that

you've been working in London, in the building industry. So, do you feel your English skills

have progressed in that time?

- Yes, definitely, definitely. It's because we can learn in a good environment, English-speaking

environment. So, I learn it from like, from listening.

- Yes.

- On a day-to-day basis.

- Yes.

- And then I speak as – I speak as many as I can.

- Yes, and I think maybe you also have to write reports.

- Yes, definitely.

- Or documents as well.

- Yes, yes. It helps. So, we have to – I have to use a lot more local way to describe

and write things, writing things down.

- Yes, and then maybe dealing with clients and building people and so, all sorts of different

people you have to deal with?

- Yes, correct.

- So, coping with everybody's different accents and ways of speaking.

- Yeah.

- And all of that?

- Yes, yes, that's correct. Especially like, speaking and listening to them as well is

one of – actually one of the challenges for me.

- Yes, because I mean, people do sometimes speak very quickly.

- Yes.

- And even a native speaker like me, sometimes I don't catch what somebody's said and I have

to ask them to repeat. So, if I as a native speaker have difficulty with another native

speaker, you know, I'm sure, you know, when it's not your first language, you'll find

it difficult.

- Yes, yes. But I – I start, I feel quite difficult to catch up with the language when

I first came back. I gradually improved, because… we have a lot of English friends and colleagues,

so it really helps.

- That's great. So, being in an English-speaking environment really helps with colleagues and

friends.

- Yes, yes.

- So, that's good. Okay. And going back to the weather. I'm just thinking, if you're

from a tropical country, you would never see snow there, would you? So, can you remember

when you first saw snow in the UK?

- Ah yeah, I think it was between 2007–2008. We never had any snow in Malaysia.

- No.

- And then in the UK, the forecast, there was snow and then… and then I went to sleep,

and the day after, in the morning, I saw everything just white. And then outside the window it

was snowing, and we are so exciting.

- Yes.

- I'm very excited. And I went out, without changing, without brushing my teeth, I just

went out and start playing with the snow.

- Oh wow, so you just went straight out.

- Yes.

- Into the snow. I think an English person might think, “Ooh, it's snowing, it's cold.”

But for the first time when you see it, you just wanted to go out into it and…

- Yes, and I do a snowball.

- Do some snowballs.

- And I throw…

- With somebody and throwing snowballs at each other.

- Yes.

- Which is the tradition. Who were you snowballing with?

- I was snowballing with my wife.

- Oh, with your wife. Was it the first time she had seen snow as well?

- Yes, yes.

- So, it was really exciting for both of you to see the snow.

- Yes, both of us are very excited.

- And you have a little daughter, I think.

- Yes, I do.

- Has she seen the snow yet?

- Yes, she has. And she's very excited as well.

- Yes.

- She's “Daddy, look: snow!”

- Oh wow!

- And she asks me to build a snowman for her.

- Oh wow, so you built a snowman for your daughter?

- Yes.

- Yes, wow. So, how old is she at the moment?

- Oh, she is five.

- Five.

- Five.

- So, what has it been like for her with her parents both from Malaysia and was she born

here?

- Yeah, she was born here.

- Yes.

- And she studies in primary school now. She's in her reception year.

- Right.

- I have to say, she's using English language as a mother tongue language, because she doesn't

speak Chinese to us.

- No.

- We always ask her questions, let me speak to her in Chinese Cantonese, she will respond

back in English.

- Oh wow, so she's been learning English, really, as she's been growing up. But do you

and your wife speak in Chinese to each other, or?

- Yes, we speak Cantonese to each other.

- Right.

- And we try to speak our language to my daughter.

- So that she grows up at least knowing another language.

- Yes.

- And so, she's going to an English-speaking school?

- Yes.

- And she's learning probably a lot of – a lot of phrases, a lot of ways of saying things.

- Yes, she does.

- So, is she learning things that you and your wife don't know? So, maybe you're learning

other – another part of English from your five-year-old daughter, maybe?

- Yeah, that's correct. Because she learns – I think she – session of, what I call

it, phonics. So she learns phonics now so she can pronounce more accurately.

- Oh, I see. So, at school, the teachers are teaching her pronunciation.

- Yes.

- Phonics.

- Phonics, yeah.

- So, they're teaching how to speak in a nice, clear.

- Nice, clear.

- English accent.

- That is correct.

- Wow, so, so can you think of any examples of things that your daughter has said which

you thought that you didn't recognize? Unusual words or phrases? Maybe she's learnt from

other children?

- Um, let me think. There's quite a lot. For example, when I say “Tesco”, she says,

“No Daddy, it's not correct. It's Tesco, Tesco”.

- Tesco.

- Tesco, yeah.

- Tesco.

- Because I speak very flat.

- Oh! So, the intonation. If you say “Tesco” in a very sort of level intonation.

- Yeah, intonation.

- And she tells you to say it “TES-co”.

- Yeah.

- So, you've got to raise your voice and make it fall again.

- Yes, it sounds better.

- So, she's – she's correcting your…

- Yes, she does.

- Your pronunciation. Oh, that's funny. So, Tesco, for anyone who doesn't know Tesco.

It's a big supermarket chain in the UK. So, everybody's heard of Tesco in the UK. Okay.

Oh, that's great. Amazing. So, okay. And then, is there still something about English, I

mean, learning another language, it's always, you know, nobody ever stops learning another

language. Is there something about English that you still find difficult?

- I have improved quite a lot compared to me like, when I first arrived in the UK. I'm

still learning to listen and how to speak to English people because, obviously, they

are – there's a manner of language they use a lot more than me, and…

- Yes, yes, so people who, they have an advantage, really. When you're speaking with maybe a

client or customer.

- Yes, a customer.

- Who is a native English speaker, and you're having to deal with them on an equal level.

- Correct.

- And maybe negotiate and things like that.

- Yes.

- So, that's quite tough, isn't it, to do in – when it's not your native language.

- Yes, it's quite challenging.

- Yes.

- So, I'm still learning, but it's better compared to years before.

- Right.

- And I'll keep continuing to learn.

- Yeah, that's great. Lovely, okay. So, just finally, I wonder if you have any advice for

the people watching on www.engvid.com who are maybe in another country, not in the UK,

but maybe thinking of coming here to live and work or study. Do you have any particular

advice for the viewers?

- Yeah, yeah. I advise the viewers to watch as much BBC as you could. Again, watch as

much www.engvid.com as you could. And then immerse yourself in English speaking environments

and make friends with English speaking friends.

- Right.

- So that – that would be wise.

- Okay, that's brilliant. Thank you very much, Chong.

- You're welcome, Gill, you're welcome.

- Okay, thank you for coming. It's been really interesting hearing about your experiences.

- Thank you.

- And we'd like to wish you all the very best with your ongoing job and your life here.

- Thank you.

- Okay, thank you, thank you.