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| Psst... Everyone here either speaks English or wants to! |
Too often I see this mistakes particularly among Americans or native English speakers learning a foreign language. We study, we do the boring grammar exercises first and foremost, some useless exercises, maybe a few videos, all but the number one thing that will help us, speaking to native speakers. And of course, our solution is that when we travel to Mexico, or Japan, or wherever, we will only be speaking in that language when we arrive so we will be forced to learn the language and refine our linguistic skills. However after traveling through 50 plus countries now and studying 6 or so languages I can say with confidence this is not the case.
The first problem is that English is a universal language. When you land in the middle east at the airport, the pilot will announce in Arabic first, and then English. When you land in China, Chinese then English. I have dual citizenship, when I went to Eastern Europe on my Italian passport, do you think the customs agent addresses me in their native language, tries to speak Italian, or just uses English? Even when you are a fluent speaker, they will detect your accent (not necessarily a native English speaker accent, just the foreign accent) most times and may respond in English. Ok, so what about when I get into the country?
Most of the tourist things we do will be people who are multi-lingual, your hotel almost certainly will be. Bars, restaurants, again will be multi-lingual at least to some degree, and if they are not, conversing in these situations will only get you what I like to refer to as "Tourist Fluent". Where is the bathroom? Can I have the chicken dish? etc. Which if that is your ultimate goal, that's totally fine... But if you want to go deeper into the language?
Well of course if you are active learning, you went there for language school, you have a solid program speaking to native speakers, or it is one of the super rare cases where absolutely no English is spoken, you will learn. But don't just casually study at home and arrive thinking it will click, it will get better but the time to learn is long before you leave your home country.
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| All aboard! |
So.... the easiest way if you just want to be tourist fluent is just about anything, I've used most of the apps, and to get tourist fluent, most will work.
For more in depth:
- You want the native speaker, I use italki.com, they don't sponsor me or anything, but I enjoy the platform. I do at least one lesson a week talking to a native speaker.
- Set a solid study routine that works for you, 8 hours a day would be great, but we have jobs, kids, etc. What can you honestly do per week? My italki lessons half the time are done in my car between work shifts. Hellotalk is a great app, that I nickname the Tinder of languages, you want to learn Russian, he or she wants to learn English, you match and practice together.
- Make the language a part of your life, change your phones language to French, you will quickly learn how to say turn left at the sign when you've made a few wrong turns.
- Netflix, youtube, music etc, make the language a part of your life with them as well, but pick shows you would watch in English, the genre of music you already listen to in English, a book you would read, or even better already have read in English, so it's things you enjoy, and know you will enjoy in your target language.
- Grammar, I left grammar last, because we most times put it first, but it is so boring and mundane and to me kills the lust if you put it first. We need to learn grammar, but first start with basic speaking, making friends, making it a part of your life, as you get better, dive back into the boring stuff.
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