How to make friends in a new country: Finding connection when you barely speak the language
This advice column is a public service by me, Kat Vellos, author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships. I’m a certified connection coach and have been facilitating community groups for almost twenty years. I regularly speak and lead workshops on the topics of adult friendship and cultivating healthy work teams. If you’d like to work with me, reach out on my booking contact form. If you have a question that you’d like answered in a future blog post or newsletter, instructions are at the bottom of this post.
Q: I know you have some great suggestions for making friends when new in town, but how about for those who are new to a country, culture, and new language? Being in a new country has its own special challenges.
For example, I live in a traditional area near the pyramids in Giza, Egypt. Most expats settle near the Nile in Cairo in upscale neighborhoods that are about an hour away.
There are language barriers where I am, and moreover, many of the ideas for clubs, dog walking/dog parks, etc are not applicable here. They just don't have those sort of things yet.
Thanks in advance,
KR
A: Salām 'alaykum, KR! Thanks for your question. Living abroad as an expat can be an exciting and transformative experience that gives you the opportunity to learn about and embrace entirely new cultures, languages, and ways of being. But alongside the chance to try new flavors and live in a new culture, the flip side is the possibility of feeling hella intimidated and flummoxed about how to connect with folks in a new language (when connection can already be hard enough in your native language!)
Making friends in a new country is a lot like making friends in a new city. It might just take a little extra chutzpah, creativity, and perseverance to make those friends abroad, especially as you work to get a handle on the new language that surrounds you. To provide the most well-rounded answer for your question, I asked a few expat experts I know to weigh in. Check out their advice below, followed by my additional tips towards the end of this post.
Expat Expert #1: Christine Job
The first expat expert I brought on for this post is Christine Job, host of the popular Flourish in the Foreign podcast, a show that helps Black women learn how to thrive and find their best experience of wellness while living outside the United States.
Christine's been an expat since 2017, and has interviewed more than 100 Black women about their experience navigating life, love, friendship, and work abroad, so she really knows the ins and outs of living and thriving abroad. She recorded this entire
video of tips to keep in mind when making friends abroad.
A few nuggets of wisdom from Christine's video:
• Really try to learn and speak the local language, so you can express all the sides of your personality like your sense of humor and wit, with the locals around you. It makes a difference to local if they see you're trying to meet them on common ground speaking their language. (Side note: If you need to get 1-on-1 language tutoring, I highly recommend getting a tutor on the website Preply where I found my amazing Spanish tutor. Sign up with my referral link to save 70% off your first trial lesson)
• Accept that you might feel awkward as you're trying to get to know people for months. As Christine says, "You're gonna have to out and be the awkward kid, not just once or twice, but like 20 times!" Keep on doing it; put yourself out there for at least six months to a year.
• Cultivate community by cultivating a sense of reciprocity, not by focusing entirely on yourself. Pay attention to what you bring and what you have to offer.
• Try to share the things you like with others around you, such as cooking, wine, hikes or walks, fitness, and being a patron of or participant in the arts.
• Active, consistent participation is key! You're going to have to put yourself out there even more than you might have back at home
• Be intentional about practicing the local language if you want to make friends with nationals of the country you're in, since many expat communities will default to just speaking English together. This might be nice in the short run, but it won't help you make friends outside expat circles.
Expat Expert #2: Jed Lazar
I also asked my friend Jed Lazar, co-creator of the board game Cozy Juicy Real, to chime in because he's lived in a ton of different countries and is currently an expat living in Valencia, Spain where he had to start making friends from scratch.
A few of Jed’s key pieces of advice:
• Think about what you love to do and get involved in those activities locally, and make friends through work
• When you meet new people, ask them if they know about chat groups on Whatsapp, Signal, or Telegram. And ask them how they meet people and find out about events.
• Volunteer! When you see groups of people doing a project in the community, go over and introduce yourself and ask how you can get involved in it too.
• Host a meetup if you don’t see the kinds of events and groups you wish you could be a part of.
• Keep in touch with the friends you have back at home, either on Zoom calls or phone calls.
Expat Expert #3: Rachael Lynn
Rachael Lynn, author of At Home Anywhere: Feel At Home Anywhere Life Takes You
Another colleague of mine, Rachael Lynn moved from Toronto to Dubai, and she’s the author of the book At Home Anywhere: Feel at Home Wherever Life Takes You. When it comes to making friends in a new country, Rachael suggests that you put your attention on one or two friends to start with before branching out and trying to make a ton of new friends all at once.
She also recommends asking yourself what you want to get out of new friendships and a new community. Think about not only who you are in this moment, but who you want to be in the future. Think about choosing your new friends according to who you're trying to become. Get clear about who you want to be. Follow people like that on Instagram - and invite them to be real-life friends with you — and ask for introductions to people like that.
And don't be afraid to start something new! In her book she says, "I wanted to test my theory that there were other women in Dubai who were craving good friends. A few Instagram posts later, and our first Women Connect Abroad gathering at a local teahouse had fourteen women. At the second event a month later, I had to turn women away because the café was full. Some of the attendees said it was the best "networking" event they'd ever been to in their decades living in the city. It was clear that my desire for real friendships and my honesty about why I wanted them was something other women wanted too.”
More ideas for making friends in a new country
Tip #1: Be a big fish in a cozy pond
Since it sounds like you don't want to make the hour-long journey to the Nile region in Cairo where all the action is, I encourage you to be dive a lot more deeply into the things that are happening around you locally. It sounds like the part of Giza you’re in is smaller comparatively, though nothing to sneeze at with a population of over 8 million people!
While it can seem like success in friendship only happens in big, bustling, exciting places crammed full of people and buzzy events, the truth is that we can sometimes have even more success establishing and maintaining friendships when we're in smaller, more chill towns that don't have as many distractions to compete with.
In a smaller town, any event that you start, or participate in, will get more attention with locals than you'd experience in a bigger city with a lot more going on.
So take a look around you, and notice where you can become a familiar face. Are there cultural events you can meet people at or invite an acquaintance or neighbor to? Look for festivals, art exhibitions, music concerts, volunteer days, and other local gatherings. Anyone there will likely have that interest or passion in common with you.
Tip #2: Dive into the culture that surrounds you
Join expat communities but be mindful about how much you're using expat circles to insulate yourself from the local culture. Of course, spending time with expats will provide a feeling of familiarity and potentially serve as a support system. That's great! But also try to balance that with the time you spend embracing the local culture.
One way to connect with expats while also boosting your ability to connect with locals is to participate in virtual or in-person language practice meetups, so you can brush up on your ability to communicate with locals in their home language.
As always, any club or group that meets on a regularly-occuring schedule is going to be the best for easily forming friendships through repeated exposure.
If you need more ideas for things to do with expat or local friends, check out my blog post of free and cheap friend date ideas.
Tip #3: Look in conventional and unconventional places for gatherings and events
You mentioned that you haven't found any meetups in your area near Giza and you don’t want to make the hour-long journey to Cairo’s plentiful supply of Meetup events, so look for locally for events on Facebook Groups, Eventbrite, and BuzzArab. You can also try apps like BumbleBFF or Tinder, and make it clear in your profile that you’re only looking for friends.
Another awesome community to connect with is Couchsurfing.com, which also looks like it has a lot of events happening in your area. The cool thing about the Couchsurfing platform is that you can join as either a Host or a Visitor, and you can attend the events even if you're not actively hosting or visiting.
Two other great places to look for events are hostels and coworking spaces. Many of the events and group gatherings held at coworking spaces will be open to folks from the community even if you’re not a member of the coworking space.
Also take a look at the people that you’re friends or acquaintances with online — the people you’re already connected to on social media. With a little courage and creativity, it’s surprisingly easy to transform an online acquaintanceship into real-life friendship as I describe in this free guide. Take a look at who you follow, and who follows you, on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook etc that are also located in your area. Or start following accounts that are specifically based in your area, and then once you’ve established some rapport online, craft an appealing, easy-to-say-yes-to invitation.
Tip #4: If you can’t find a group you like, start one!
One option that I can speak to from personal experience: If there's a group or event that you wish existed in your area, and no one else is offering it to you, you can start it yourself! Chances are there are other people who are waiting around to have the chance to join, so consider starting and running a group yourself. You can modify the guide I published in Forbes to match your unique interests and priorities.
I want to emphasize here that you don't need to be an expert facilitator to begin pulling people together. As long as you're friendly, kind, and moderately organized, you can begin. Start small, maybe by just aiming to get 2-3 people together. You can keep it small or try to keep building your group through word of mouth, by asking each person who comes to invite 1-2 other people to join in too, then repeat.
If you focus on a theme or topic that you're personally interested in, it will help you maintain your enthusiasm and inspiration over time. What interests you: Reading and discussing books/films/articles? Making arts and crafts? Reading and discussing TEDx Talks and Pecha Kucha presentations? Creative writing? Pets and animals? Cultural exchange? Cooking and sharing food?
Check out my tips for starting a book club (or similar discussion-based recurring group).
If you’re feeling nervous about extending invitations, watch this for a pep talk on the magic that can unfold when you have the courage to create and extend purposeful invitations.
Tip #5: Be patient and persistent
As you can see, you have a lot of opportunities when it comes to making friends abroad. Whether you stay in Egypt or head somewhere new, you’ll use the same kinds of steps and practices to make friends in your new country or new city.
It might take a little longer to make close friendships abroad than it would if you were in a country where you can speak your own native language, but it’s still totally possible.
Friendships thrive when we let down our walls and welcome new experiences with open arms. By embracing this chapter of your life as an expat, you have the chance to create a new hometown, full of new life-long friendships.
Immerse yourself in the local culture, connect with fellow expats, dive into your shared interests, and practice keeping an open mind. You'll soon find yourself surrounded by a vibrant and growing circle of friends, which is by far the best kind of souvenir to carry with you as a reminder of your time abroad.
