Questions to Ask a Foreign Exchange Student
Good questions to ask a foreign exchange student, for host families, classmates and teachers. They start with the easy ones (their name, their town, why they came), then move through life back home, school, food, the work of settling in, and what happens when the stay ends. Most ask about their house, their school and their week instead of asking one teenager to explain a whole country, and each has a note on what the answer tells you or when to ask it.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Openers
How is your name said at home, and has anyone here got it right yet?
Why ask it
Plenty of exchange students accept a mangled version of their name in the first week and then never correct anybody. Asking gives them permission to correct you, so say it back until they stop being polite about it.
What is your hometown like, and what would you show me first if I came to visit?
Why ask it
Asking for the first stop turns a geography answer into a personal one: a bakery, a football pitch, a grandmother's flat. Find the town on a map together afterwards, because seeing where it sits usually corrects a guess or two of yours.
How long have you been here, and how much time do you have left?
Why ask it
Where they are in the stay changes which questions fit. The first weeks are jet lag and logistics, the middle of a long stay is often flatter than the start, and the last month is goodbyes. Knowing the leaving date also stops you planning something for a week when they will already be gone.
What made you want to go on exchange, and how did you end up here of all places?
Why ask it
With many programs a student picks the country and is then matched with a family, so the town can be one they had never heard of and the second half is often a funny story. The first half tells you what they came for, a language, some independence, a sport, and that is what the stay should make room for.
What has surprised you most since you got here?
Why ask it
It asks for something they noticed, not a verdict on your country, so an honest answer costs them nothing. Early on it tends to be small and physical: how far apart everything is, shoes worn indoors, how loud or quiet a classroom is. Ask again a few months in and the answer is more likely to be about people.
What do you do at home when you have a free afternoon?
Why ask it
Hobbies asked about in the abstract get a one-word answer, while an afternoon gets a description. If it involves other people, a team or a band or a regular game, that is the thing to help them find here first.
What are you listening to or watching at the moment, and is it from home or from here?
Why ask it
Music and shows are quick common ground between teenagers, and half of what they name can be playing in the car the same day. A student who watches only things from home is resting, which is fine some evenings and worth noticing if it is all of them.
Do you play or follow a sport, and is it one anyone here cares about?
Why ask it
A shared sport gives a new student something to do with people before the language is ready for conversation. If theirs is unknown here, get them to explain the rules with whatever is on the table. If it is played here, a team is their quickest way into a group.
How many languages do you speak, and which one do you think in when you are tired?
Why ask it
The language they are using with you may be their second or third, and nobody asks about the others. Counting them lets a student who feels slow all day be the most capable person at the table for a minute. The one they think in when tired is the one to let them go back to at the end of a long day.
How do you say hello and thank you in your language, and which word will I get wrong?
Why ask it
Two words are enough, provided you use them again the next morning. Being bad at their language in front of them evens things out a little, since they are being imperfect at yours all day.
What did you picture this place being like before you came?
Why ask it
If the picture came from films and television, the gap between it and the real place is usually funny. The answer can also bring out disappointments they have been too polite to mention: a smaller town, longer distances, quieter weekends.
What did you pack that you are glad you brought?
Why ask it
Expect something small: a pillow, photos, a jar of the right spice, a brand of tea. It shows what comfort looks like for them, and now and then it reveals something they could not find here and have quietly gone without.
Back Home
Who is in your family, and who lives in the house with you?
Why ask it
Households vary more than people expect: grandparents down the hall, a sibling already abroad, parents in two homes. Learn the names and use them later, because asking after a brother by name lands very differently from asking how the family is.
Do you have a pet at home, and who is looking after it while you are away?
Why ask it
A dog or a cat can be easier to admit to missing than a person, and it cannot come to the phone. Ask for a photo and the name. If there is an animal in your house, this is also the moment to find out whether they are at ease around it.
What does your family do together on an ordinary Sunday?
Why ask it
The ordinary day says more than the holidays do. A long lunch, a walk, a service, everyone on a separate screen: whichever it is, that slot in the week is where they are most likely to feel the gap here.
What is a rule in your house at home that we do not have here?
Why ask it
This brings out the mismatches that cause quiet friction: shoes, doors open or closed, food in bedrooms, what time counts as late. Students seldom raise these themselves, because they assume they are the ones who have to adapt.
Who at home are you closest to, and what do you tell them about this place?
Why ask it
They are already describing this place to somebody, and that report is worth hearing. What they choose to pass on, the food, the dog, how early everyone goes to bed, shows you your household from the outside.
Which holiday at home do you look forward to most, and what happens on the day?
Why ask it
Ask for the order of the day, who cooks, who turns up, what is eaten when, and you get a story instead of a definition. Note the date as well. If it falls during the stay, marking it here, even clumsily, shows that somebody was listening.
Is there anything you observe at home, such as prayers, a fast or a day of rest, that we should make room for?
Why ask it
Put as a practical matter, this is easy to answer and nobody is being quizzed about belief. Some students will say no, and some have spent weeks wondering how to mention a fast or a place of worship. Leave the theology alone unless they bring it up.
What do people your age do on a Friday night where you live?
Why ask it
How much freedom a sixteen-year-old has depends on where they grew up: how late people stay out, whether they cross a city alone by train, how much parents expect to be told. Their answer explains why a curfew, or needing a lift everywhere, can feel like a step backward, so give the reason for your rules and not only the rules.
What does everyone your age at home know by heart that nobody here has heard of?
Why ask it
A song, a show, a snack, a line from an advert. It tends to get real laughter, and for a few minutes they are the expert in the room instead of the person catching up.
What do people assume about where you are from that is not true?
Why ask it
Exchange students collect a set of lazy assumptions about their country, some flattering and some not. Asking lets them set the record straight without seeming prickly, and you will hear the particular one they have had enough of.
What questions are you tired of being asked?
Why ask it
Answered honestly, this saves you from repeating them. The usual candidates are whether their country has some ordinary object, and being asked to sum up a whole nation in a sentence. Ask what they would rather be asked, and then ask that.
What do you miss most about home that you did not expect to miss?
Why ask it
Everyone expects to miss family and friends, so the surprise is the interesting part: noise from the street, walking everywhere, proper bread, their own bed. Some of these can be approximated here and some cannot, and it helps to know which kind you are dealing with.
School
What is a normal school day like at home: when does it start, and when are you finished?
Why ask it
Start with the timetable and the rest follows: whether the class stays in one room while the teachers move, whether there is a uniform, whether school runs on Saturday. If they are used to finishing at lunchtime and your school runs into the afternoon, some of their tiredness has nothing to do with the language.
Which subject are you best at, and which one are you just getting through?
Why ask it
The strong subject is where they can look capable in a classroom before their vocabulary catches up, often maths, art, music or sport. If you are hosting, tell their teachers, because a student who is ahead in one class and lost in another tends to be misjudged in both.
How do students and teachers talk to each other at your school at home?
Why ask it
In some schools you stand when the teacher walks in and never query a mark; in others you use first names and argue. A student from the first kind can seem disengaged here when they are being polite, and one from the second can seem rude.
Will the classes you take here count when you go back, or will you have to make the year up?
Why ask it
This differs by country and by school, and some students go home to repeat the year or sit catch-up exams. If they are not sure, help them ask their school at home early. The answer decides whether grades here are a worry or whether the year is free for trying things.
What happens after the last class at home: clubs, sport, a job, or straight home?
Why ask it
In plenty of places sport and music belong to clubs in town and the school building empties at the bell, so a school with its own teams, band and theatre is new territory. Walk them through how joining works where you are, including the sign-up deadlines nobody announces twice.
Which class here is hardest to follow, and is it the subject or the speed of the talking?
Why ask it
The two problems need different help. Fast speech is eased by written notes, a seat near the front or a copy of the slides; an unfamiliar subject, national history for one, needs somebody to fill in what everyone else learned at ten.
Have you found people to eat lunch with, or is that still the hard part of the day?
Why ask it
Lunch has no seating plan and no task, so it is where being new shows most. Ask one to one, never across a full dinner table. If the answer is not yet, a single invitation from a classmate does more than anything an adult can arrange.
Food
What is the best thing you have eaten since you got here?
Why ask it
An easy one for the first fortnight, and the answer is seldom the dish the cook was proudest of. If it turns out to be a boxed cereal or the pizza from the school cafeteria, buy it again without comment. You now have one safe thing to put on the table on a day when everything else has been strange.
What food here have you not been able to make sense of?
Why ask it
Easier than asking what they dislike, because being puzzled is not rude. Depending on where you are, you may hear about the sweetness of the bread, a cold breakfast, ice in every drink or the size of a plate. Explain how it is meant to be eaten before you defend it.
What do you eat at home that you cannot find here?
Why ask it
It usually comes down to one ingredient or one brand, not a whole cuisine. Tracking it down, or taking them to a shop that stocks it, can do more for homesickness than several conversations about how they are settling in.
What does a normal dinner look like at home, and what time is it on the table?
Why ask it
Meal times explain a good deal of early discomfort: a student used to eating at nine is not hungry at half past five and is starving by bedtime. You also hear which meal is the main one, and whether dinner is a long sit-down or something quick.
Is there anything you do not eat, or would just rather not be served again?
Why ask it
The first half covers allergies and religious or ethical limits, which you need before the first shared meal. The second half is the kinder one: a guest will finish a plate of something they dislike every week for a year unless somebody makes it safe to say so.
Do you want to come food shopping this week and pick a few things for the house?
Why ask it
A supermarket is a quick tour of a country, and they will stop at things you no longer see. Letting them choose three or four items also gets round the problem of a guest who never asks for anything.
Is there something you would like to cook or show us, done your way?
Why ask it
Cooking moves them from being hosted to contributing, and a guest who has fed the household sits differently at the table afterwards. Offer to shop for the ingredients together, since finding the right ones is usually the obstacle, not willingness.
Settling In
What has been hardest to work out here that nobody thought to explain?
Why ask it
A practical one for the first month. Expect washing machines, bus transfers, tipping, how to ask a teacher for help, how much food you can take without asking. Whatever they name, you can usually fix it the same afternoon.
What is the biggest difference between an ordinary Tuesday at home and one here?
Why ask it
The usual version asks them to compare two countries, which is too big to answer. A single weekday gets you the real differences: who wakes them, how they get to school, when they are first alone, what time the house goes dark. Pick whichever part they linger on and ask about that.
What is something you still have to translate in your head every day?
Why ask it
Running a second language all day is work nobody else can see. The answers are concrete: prices, temperatures, dates written the other way round, distances, shoe sizes. Once you know which, give both versions for a while, the temperature in their scale as well as yours.
What do people here say that you had to learn was not literal?
Why ask it
Idioms and jokes are where otherwise fluent speakers get stranded. This one is light, and it lets them show how much they have worked out, which is welcome for someone who spends much of the day a beat behind the joke. Trade them an expression from their language that makes no sense in yours.
How tiring is it to speak another language all day?
Why ask it
Naming the fatigue tends to come as a relief. It is also useful information: a student who is silent at dinner may be exhausted rather than unhappy, and from the outside those two look identical.
Do you want me to correct your mistakes in the language, or only when you ask?
Why ask it
Some students came precisely to be corrected and feel short-changed when everyone is too polite to do it. Others lose their nerve after the third interruption. Agree a rule, perhaps only at home or only when a mistake changes the meaning, and check it again after a couple of months.
When do you call home, and what time is it there when you do?
Why ask it
The time difference decides more of their week than you would guess. Someone getting up at five to catch the family at dinner is carrying a tiredness the household cannot see. You also learn which evenings they would like left free.
When does homesickness usually hit you, and what actually helps?
Why ask it
Asking when and not whether treats it as normal, which makes it answerable. Listen for their own remedy, a phone call, a walk, being left alone, cooking something, before you offer yours.
Is anything big happening at home this year that you will not be there for?
Why ask it
A stay abroad overlaps with birthdays, a wedding, a new baby, a sibling's last year in the house. Saying it aloud can make it lighter to carry, and it tells you which weeks are likely to be hard. Offer to mark the day here, or to leave them in peace for it, whichever they pick.
When you need an hour to yourself, how would you like us to know?
Why ask it
A guest who shuts a bedroom door worries about seeming rude, and a host who sees a shut door worries that something is wrong. A stated signal, headphones on, door closed, gone for a walk, takes the guesswork out for both sides.
What is something you know how to do that nobody here has thought to ask you about?
Why ask it
Exchange students get treated as visitors more often than as people with skills. Someone who repairs bicycles, plays piano, cooks well or swims competitively can go the whole stay without doing it, simply because nobody knew. Ask, then make room for it.
Is there anything you have been pretending to be fine with?
Why ask it
Keep this for a private moment and leave a real pause after it. Guests default to politeness, and a small unspoken thing, a cold room, a bus route, a nickname, can grind on for months. If the answer is nothing, ask again in a few weeks.
What has been your best day here so far, and what made it good?
Why ask it
The day they pick is seldom the big outing you planned. More often something ordinary went right: a joke landed, they got somewhere alone, an invitation came without an adult arranging it. Whatever made it good can be repeated on purpose.
Looking Ahead
What would you like to do while you are here that has not been arranged yet?
Why ask it
There is nearly always an unspoken list: see the ocean, go to a live game, visit a city three hours away. Many students will not raise it because they already feel they are asking a lot, so ask outright, and early enough that the bigger things can still be planned.
What do you want to be able to do by the time you go home?
Why ask it
This makes the stay their own project and not just a placement they were handed. Whatever they name, a language level, a place on a team, a friendship, a trip, is something concrete you can help with.
What have you changed your mind about since you arrived?
Why ask it
Best asked after a couple of months, when there is something to report. The answer may be about this place or about home, and a changed view of home is the one to ask more about, because nobody there has heard it yet.
What do you want to study or work at after school, and has being here changed the plan?
Why ask it
Early in the stay this is small talk. Near the end it is a real question, because time away can move the plan: a language to keep up, a different university, a wish to leave home again. Do not press for an answer they have not got yet.
What do you think will feel strange about going home?
Why ask it
Going back can be harder than arriving, partly because nobody expects their own house to feel foreign. Talking it through beforehand, that friends have had months without them, that they have changed in ways nobody at home watched happen, makes the return less of a shock.
What would you take back with you, and what will you be glad to leave behind?
Why ask it
Asking for both halves keeps the answer honest. What they would take is usually a habit rather than a place, and what they are glad to leave gives you an unusually frank view of your own home.
What would you tell next year's exchange student before they got on the plane?
Why ask it
Advice to a stranger is the politest way anyone can say what they wish had gone differently. Listen for what it says about your town, school or household, and pass the useful parts to the program or the next host family.
How would you like to keep in touch once you are home?
Why ask it
Promises to write forever are made at every airport and thin out within months. Something small and fixed holds better: a call on a birthday, a group chat that already exists, a rough date for a visit in either direction.
Hosting the conversation
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Which questions to ask when
- In the first few days, stay with the openers, plus the one in the food group about what they do not eat. Everything is new and the language is at its most tiring, so short answers are normal.
- Over the first month, the questions about life back home and about school do the work. One or two at a meal is plenty: ten in a row turns dinner into an interview.
- Save the heavier settling-in questions, homesickness and what they are pretending to be fine with, for a car ride or a walk with nobody else listening.
- Most of the last group belongs to the final weeks. The exceptions are what they would like to do and what they want to be able to do, which are worth asking early while there is still time to arrange things.
- Classmates need far fewer. A handful of openers, the school questions and an actual invitation will do more than the whole list.
The first two weeks
- Explain the things too obvious to explain: whether food in the kitchen is available without asking, how long a shower is normal, whether doors get locked, what time the house goes quiet. Guessing wrong at these is a common source of early awkwardness.
- Write the address, the wifi password, and two phone numbers on paper and hand it over. Phones die, and a student who cannot say where they live will not go anywhere alone.
- Make the trip to school and to one shop with them once, by whatever means they will be using. Independence arrives faster after a single guided trip than after any amount of reassurance.
- Expect politeness to hide problems for the first month. Yes and it is fine are often placeholders, so ask narrow questions rather than how are you settling in.
The middle of the stay
Somewhere in the middle of a long stay, many exchange students hit a flat stretch. The novelty has worn off, the language is still tiring, friendships at school have settled into groups, and going home is still months away. It does not always look like sadness. It can look like a student staying in their room, sleeping a great deal, or being on the phone to home every evening. What helps is small and structural: a standing weekly thing they are expected at, a job in the household that is theirs alone, and one trip on the calendar to look forward to. Asking directly whether this is a hard stretch often gets an honest answer, because by then they know you well enough. If it goes on, or you are worried, tell the exchange program's local contact, since that is what they are there for.
Asking without making them a spokesperson
- Ask about their house, their school, their town. Questions about their country ask one seventeen-year-old to represent millions of people, and the answers get vague because they have to.
- Do not open with politics, religion, or conflict. If they raise it, listen and do not argue the point with someone who has nowhere else to go that evening.
- Mix in questions about what they make of things here. A long run of what is it like where you are from turns them into an exhibit, while asking what they have noticed makes them the observer.
- Let them be funny about your country. Defensiveness at the first joke closes off months of honest conversation.
Where hosts and classmates get it wrong
- Treating the stay as a hosting performance. Ordinary evenings, chores, and being left alone matter more than outings, and being treated as one of the household is what tends to be remembered.
- Correcting every mistake in their speech without asking first. Some students want exactly that, and many others speak less each week because of it, so ask which they are.
- Assuming silence means unhappiness. It often means the language ran out for the day.
- Forgetting they have a second set of parents watching from a distance. A short message or photo to the family at home costs nothing and eases a lot of worry.