University of Sheffield

The most difficult thing was to communicate with English people in daily life, especially in very loud areas like the train station or in a cafe. The Sheffield accent is really hard to understand. Many English people speak accents, which are hard to understand for foreign people. If you as a foreign student try to read university magazines, you probably won´t understand a lot, because they are written in slang and most of the foreign students have been taught a high level of language.

It was hard to communicate with English students because they seemed not to have interest in foreign students. Since we were plenty of internationals it was essential to speak English all the time. But unfortunately the improvement is not as good as communicating with native speakers would have been.

As I wrote earlier, the exposure to local students was rather limited. The same is true for interaction with other locals. And since the Yorkshire accent is quite a challenge to master, I don't think I can claim to be fluid in Yorkshire slang. Otherwise I experienced no difficulties.

the language the professors spoke was very well understandable, and coping in everyday situations was quite easy, but having a deep conversation with a sheffielder was sometimes quite confusing, as the local dialect was rather difficult to understand.

Some local Yorshire accents difficult; British accents generally difficult at first; many international students learning English-speak clearer and slower than usual-some are more used to British accents than American accents.

The university life was easy, teaching staff spoked really clear and also the internationals were easy to understand. But the locals were a bit mumbling people to me(maybe the Yorkshire slang...)