Depending on which country you come from, television and film abroad can be riotous.

Alternatively, they can leave you flabberghasted, wondering, “Do people actually watch this stuff?” I often wonder how anyone can enjoy a TV film when there is a commercial break that lasts up to 25 minutes half way through. 25 minutes!!!

But one of the brilliant things about being abroad, from a lanugage perspective, is that you have such ample opportunity to listen and practise the foreign tongue.

You can relax at home in the house of your exchange partner, with a deliciously home-cooked dinner, bursting with freshly picked out local ingredients… and the simple exercise of watching TV at home will be transformed into a new cultural experience.

In the same vein, if you’re a lover of cinema, there are plenty of international picture houses across Europe. You can treat yourself to a genuine romantic cinema experience in a foreign country, in a foreign world.

Another great idea is going to a film festival during the summer. If you’re a cinema fan, there is no greater pleasure than sipping a chilled beer on your deck-chair, surrounded by palm trees gently swaying in the night-time breeze, absorbing to your heart’s content 7 varieties of short films from all across the world.

Films and television are a couple of the many media through which you can practise and learn a new language. All made that little bit easier through home exchange.

When we think of all of the tremendously impressive architecture we have imprinting ourselves on our own selves on our natural environment, or the advances we have made in medicine over the centuries (transplants, genetic screening), it would seem that we are pretty smart. So… washing machines… shouldn’t be that perplexing.

Yet they are! And how!

There are some things in life that are sent to test us. Setting the video is one of those. Working out how to use a foreign washing machine is another.

So one of the things that we can do for our exchange partners, to make everything run a lot smoother (and not least to put our minds at rest about things getting broken) is to leave out some instructions of how the main house-hold gismos work. If you’re doing exchanges with people where there is no common language, then why not try a couple of diagrams? Biro sketches.

So what should we bear in mind for instructions, technology wise?

The washing machine.

The dishwasher.

The shower.

The heating.

The hot-water.

The television.

The VCR.

The radio.

The computer.

The internet/Wifi.

There may be more, depending on how technologically advanced your house is. But some things to bear in mind.