Recognizing perspectives means working to understand the way that other people view the world. This is especially important when living in another country. My job while I’m here is not to try to get everyone to do things like Americans. Instead my job is to understand why and how our perspectives are different. I must also respect these differences and learn why people do things certain ways. A few areas of my life where I have learned how to recognize the perspectives of Slovaks include their views on learning other languages, the way they do laundry and the differences in meals.
Slovaks highly value the learning of a foreign language. There is an understanding that if they want to leave Slovakia at any point, they need to know how to speak at least one other language, because no other country speaks Slovak. Therefore students all study at least English, and most also study one other. They can typically choose from German, French, Spanish or Russian. English is the common language spoken among European countries. For example, everything on public transport is in Slovak and English. I am at a bilingual school where students have about twenty lessons a week in English. They usually take four different English classes (conversation, language, literature, grammar) and every subject at some point during high school is in English.
