Richard Rhys Jones

Richard Rhys Jones	Richard Rhys Jones doing what he does best!

Next week I will be moving to Dresden in Germany to join the Semperoper Ballet Company which is a well known company in the ballet world. This will be the first professional company I will be dancing with after graduating from The Royal Ballet School in Covent Garden. Although it is an international company with many people speaking English, I am keen to learn German as I want to embrace the culture and integrate with the local community. I'm hoping to learn a lot of the language from being amongst German people but I also intend to take evening classes to help with the learning process. I have always thoroughly enjoyed languages. I studied French at school and I can now speak the language with confidence which is important in my career, as ballet terminology is universally French. I am lucky enough to have a job that allows me to travel, so I hope I can use this to my advantage in the future to encourage me to learn languages of lots of different countries.

I've always thought it's important to speak the local dialect when abroad and not just English because even if your language is limited, it builds your confidence really quickly. A foreigner visiting the UK would always speak English to us so we should return the favour when we are in their country. We'd feel much better for doing it and I also think that people really appreciate it when we make the effort.