"The best way to learn a language is to just go live there. You know, really immerse yourself".
This is something every language learner hears along that difficult road to speaking another tongue. Living abroad, these people claim, is the easiest and most sure fire way to learn a language.
Is it really that simple? From personal experience, I would say definitely not.
As most of you know, I decided to move to Prague earlier this year mainly because of my positive experience learning Czech at University. Two years ago I wanted to come here straight after graduating, aiming to build on what I'd learnt at Uni and head full steam towards total mastery of the Czech language. Two years later and I've reevaluated my goals somewhat.
A problem a lot of language learners (in particular language students) face is that unbearable pressure of achieving 'fluency'. Couple this with precious time spent in the target country and it can feel extremely stressful and in the end damage any language learning goals you might have. Of course it's a great opportunity, but it's not a guarantee of becoming 'fluent'. (Whatever that horrible, horrible word even means)
For anyone who spent a year abroad during their language degree, you'll be fully aware of the expectations placed on you to come back speaking like a native, having dived straight in from day one to the end of the year when you're chatting away in French slang with your mates Pierre and François, sipping St Emilion like you've never drunk anything else.
For most people, this doesn't happen.
What does ALWAYS (I'm willing to be challenged on this) happen when you're away is that you improve. Yes, you do, you ALWAYS improve, even if you might feel like you're regressing. You can find yourself thinking, "I've been here for [insert arbitrary length of time], I should be better than this", and you often overlook the progress you actually have made.
It's completely unrealistic to expect yourself to go from intermediate bumbler to Spanish God in 6 months. For some people it might happen, but not for the majority. And you know what? That's ok.
Unfortunately, and I've felt this way many times, the comments of "Oh you must be fluent by now" from people with no experience of learning languages, or "Yah, I just soaked it up whilst on the beach in Alicante" can make you feel rather inadequate and insecure. It can hit your confidence so hard that it's detrimental to your progress.
Spending time abroad doesn't turn you into a linguistic genius overnight for a variety of reasons. Reasons such as the truck load of people want to speak to you in English all the time, the annoying person who won't let you get a word in edgeways or the time when you go into the supermarket and ask for a waiter instead of garlic (they're very similar in Czech, trust me) and never want to speak to anybody again.
In short, it's tough and full of setbacks.
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| There's always a know-it-all that doesn't let you speak. |
What I hope that I've learnt from doing a languages degree and now living abroad is that you have to lower the pressure you put on yourself. Don't compare yourself to other people. Don't fret that you're not fluent after three weeks. It will come.
Most importantly, if you get laughed at, or patronised, or forget a word, or forget to speak, please don't lose heart. From my point of view, I've just decided to speak Czech as and when I can, to try my best to learn as much as possible, but not to expect miracles of myself. It's a completely different attitude to the one I had when I was in Spain and France on my Year Abroad, when I was continuously monitoring my progress, often using others as a yardstick.
Language learning is not a straight line to the finish, it's a wiggledy, piggledy slalom of embarrassments and humiliations, until one day you think, "You know what? I'm basically Marion Cotillard"!
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| This was definitely not just an excuse to use a Marion Cotillard GIF. |
By expecting the world, you set yourself up to fail. By accepting that progress will be slow but that you will get there in the end, you give yourself half a chance of succeeding.
I'm not saying don't try, I'm just saying don't cry if doesn't happen in a heartbeat.
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