A completely unscientific insight into acculturation

When you spend a lot of time in Ireland, you change in many ways without even noticing it. There are certain Irish characteristics, phrases, words and habits you simply adapt to. The truth is that at first you make fun of these things until you suddenly realise that you’re becoming more and more like your Irish friends. This acculturation takes place on many levels. Here are the results of my experience-based on, completely unscientific research.

Foremost among the changes, you will find modifications in the way you talk. Personally, I noticed a certain change in terms of pronunciation and an adoption of all sorts of slang words to my vocabulary. Here are a few examples about what you do (language-wise) when you go to Dublin:

• You start pronouncing “three” and “through” like “tree” and “true” and go back to RP as soon as you’re back at your home university because your lecturers don’t approve of it
• You start using “grand” for a wide variety of adjectives: cool, great, okay, nothing-to-worry-about, etc.
• If you had a good night out you answer the question “How was your night?” with “Aww, it was great craic!”
• If you had an unbelievably great night out you answer the question “How was your night?” with “It was gas!”
• You stop making fun of people and start slaggin’ them.
• You start using the f-word to make up your own similes (e.g. crazy as f***, etc.)
• You don’t get drunk anymore; you get “pissed”, “hammered”, “wasted” and all sorts of other things.
• You “win” every argument because of your thorough education in the art of swearing
• You start wishing you lived in As Seirbhis when you’re waiting for a bus until you realise that it means Out of Service.
• You know what is meant when people are referred to as “knackers”.
• You start hoping that you won’t have a Tallaght accent by the end of your stay.
• You start hoping that you’ll sound as sexy as Colin Farrell by the end of your stay.
• You start referring to people who are “hooking up” as people who are “meet’n”
• You get used to being called “love” or “darling” by people you barely know
• You exchange the sound /ʌ/ in a word with the letter “u”, like “strut”, “but” and "public" for a /ʊ/ sound.
• You start pronouncing “dirty” as “durrty”
• You start referring to cops as “guards”
• You start saying “sláinte” instead of “cheers”

Enough talk about pronunciation and language. Let’s move on to characteristics. The Irish are a friendly folk of huggers. Thus, when you are a person who does not like to be touched, I can assure you – you’re going to have a problem! They always hug. In the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, and in between. If they haven’t seen you in a while they hug you until you’re gasping for breath. This seems really weird at first, but due to acculturation, you start to adapt to this habit and start giving out free hugs yourself. You embrace the hug, so to speak.

The Irish are also a nation of what I would term hyperbolical amicability. They apologise to you and thank you for every little thing, something that is not common everywhere. If you are (like me) a native speaker of German you are most likely to feel annoyed whereas the Irish feel offended because they are not used to your “rudeness”. By “rudeness”, I mean your initial incompetence in applying the Irish rules of politeness appropriately. People can obviously change their culturally predetermined habits. After just two months I found myself thanking the bus driver for doing his job and apologising to a person in the hallway for ALMOST bumping into him or her. Moreover, I started ignoring people’s refusals of my offers. This phenomenon is illustrated hilariously in the sitcom Father Ted, where this has become sort of a running gag.

The term “procrastination” is something every student is familiar with. Just imagine exams are coming up and suddenly everything appears to be more exciting than what is in your course folders. When you’re tired of watching that little spider in the corner of your bedroom, you usually turn on your laptop or the TV. The Internet seems to be omniscient because it knows where you are and shows you advertisements or videos promoted in your area. This way (and of course also thanks to fellow students) you get to know a wide variety of Irish musicians and hence have to listen to them compulsively. Artists who have become indispensible for me are for example The Pogues, The Script, Rubberbandits and my all-time favourite: Ryan Sheridan. Furthermore, I’ve got to know the Irish National Anthem and the Irish Rugby Anthem which I consider very important when staying in a foreign country.

The same goes for TV. You simply become addicted to Irish films like Adam & Paul, Intermission and Kisses, as well as English TV shows like The Inbetweeners, This is England ’86 and Eastenders. Although I believe that Eastenders is one of the crappiest shows that has ever entered our living rooms, many other Erasmi have reported that they are suffering from Eastenders-withdrawal and are considering rehab.

For me, Erasmus wasn’t only about studying at a foreign college to improve my English skills. It was about experiencing a different culture, noticing all the little things about it and finally becoming a part of it – for better or for worse.

Of course, you don’t change as a person while you’re abroad and you don’t entirely embrace Irish characteristics, because no matter what, you will always find something ridiculously absurd that you just couldn’t do (e.g. going outside in winter without a jacket, not being on time, etc.). You might want to refer to it as time of personal growth. You get to know the country and the people and in case you like it as much as I did, you will bring a bit of “Irishness” home with you.