First Month at Work Abroad: The English Nobody Teaches You
The interview is over, which means the hard part starts. A first month in a job abroad is a stream of small language problems: names you did not catch, instructions given at speed while somebody walks away, and the constant question of whether asking again makes you look careless. Most of it is solved by about forty phrases, and none of them are above B1.
This one sits at B1 rather than B2 because the sentences are short. What makes a first month difficult is not complexity, it is speed and the social cost of interrupting. Everything below is built to be said quickly and to sound like a colleague rather than a student.
The general layer is in the free B1 vocabulary list. What follows is only the part that appears in the first four weeks.
Week one: names and rooms
You will be introduced to more people in two days than you can possibly remember, and pretending otherwise creates a problem that grows. Ask twice in the first week, and it costs nothing.
- Sorry, I did not catch your name.
- Say that again for me? I want to get it right.
- I am still learning who does what. What is your part of this?
- Which of you should I ask about holiday?
- Where do people usually have lunch?
- Is there a plan of the building somewhere?
- I am new, so I will probably ask you this twice.
- Nice to meet you properly at last.
Asking for help without sounding lost
There is a difference between a question that sounds capable and one that sounds panicked, and it lies almost entirely in structure. A capable question names what you already know before it names what you do not.
| Sounds lost | Sounds capable |
|---|---|
| I do not understand this. | I understand the first part. It is the approval step I am not sure about. |
| How do I do this? | I was going to do it this way. Does that sound right to you? |
| Sorry, my English. | Sorry, could you say the last part again? |
| I cannot finish today. | I can have most of it by five. Which part do you need first? |
| Is this ok? | Before I send it, is there anything you would change? |
| I did not know that. | Good to know. Where would I have found that? |
The verbs meetings actually run on
Meeting English is repetitive and therefore learnable. These are the ones that carry most of the meaning, and getting them into your own speech is what moves you from following a meeting to being in one.
- to follow up on something
- to run something past somebody
- to loop somebody in
- to push something back to next week
- to pick something up where we left it
- to take something offline, meaning discuss it later
- to flag an issue early
- to hand something over before you leave
Saying no and saying not yet
The single most useful workplace skill in a second language is declining without damage. New arrivals over-accept, because refusing feels rude and because the polite formulas are unfamiliar, and then the first month becomes a month of quiet overload.
Each of these accepts the person while limiting the work, which is the whole trick.
- I can do that, but it will move the other thing to Thursday. Is that fine?
- Not today, honestly. Could it wait until Monday?
- I would rather do it properly next week than badly tonight.
- That is a bit outside what I know. Who normally handles it?
- Happy to help, but I will need somebody to check it after me.
- Can we agree what good enough looks like before I start?
Messages and email
Written English is where a new colleague is judged most, because it lasts and gets forwarded. It is also the easiest part to get right, since you have time and nobody sees you use it.
Keep messages short, put the ask in the first line, and keep the apologies out. There is a fuller set of ready-made lines in phrases for work emails.
- Quick one: do you have five minutes today?
- Just to confirm what we agreed:
- No rush on this.
- Following up on the below.
- I have attached the file. Shout if anything is missing.
- Thanks for the quick turnaround.
The small talk you cannot avoid
You will be asked about your country, your accent and whether you like it here, several times a week, by people being friendly rather than nosy. Having two prepared answers each removes the tiredness from this entirely.
One short answer for the corridor, one longer one for lunch, and you never have to invent either again.
Where MindDory fits
A first month generates more new language per day than any course, and nearly all of it is lost by Friday. The reason is not difficulty, it is that nothing brings it back.
MindDory is built for that gap. You keep the phrase you heard in the meeting and meet it again several times over the following weeks. The page for people who moved to a new country explains the rest.