Mindful Expat, With Dana Nelson, Ph.d.

Today’s Mindful Expat Guest is Claire Handscombe! Claire is a freelance writer, blogger, and fellow-podcaster (host of The Brit Lit Podcast) living in Washington, DC. Born in London to a British father and French mother, Claire then spent much of her early adolescence in Belgium before returning to the UK at the age of 12. She later returned to Belgium as a young adult, before moving to DC to do her MFA in Creative Writing at American University. From 2005-2012, Claire taught English, French, and Spanish to adults of all levels in both London and Brussels. In 2011, she published a book called Conquering Babel: A Practical Guide to Learning a Language. What you’ll hear in this episode: • Claire's experiences of moving abroad to countries where she spoke the language, but where subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle!) language differences still impacted her cultural adaptation. • We discuss the interplay of language and culture, including some metalinguistic cultural differences that can lead to misunderstandings.