Quote Originally Posted by Rtyom
Thank you, Анатолий. The experience of a Russian-turned-Australian is even better to know. So, it's the matter of "right place and right people" as it always has been with foreigners.

Could you tell me how were you adapting to the colloquial speech? I understand that it's really hard to get the hang of the subject. How it was for the first times?
It's not so bad when you are immersed in the foreign language, which was my hobby before, so I enjoyed it, although it was challenging and I felt uncomfortable if I couldn't follow. I gets better all the time.

If you ask me how - listening to TV and radio apart from the talking helped a lot. Quite difficult were place and people's names, addresses, especially on the phone and when they spelled them out I couldn't write fast enough It was a matter of survival - if you can't speak - you can't eat (can't get a job, rent a flat, etc.) but I was keen, so overcame initial difficulties. I know lots of people who came with almost zero English and they picked it up pretty quickly.