I show you how I use fun and interesting Spanish media like music videos, TV shows, and movies to learn Spanish.
Random header image... Refresh for more!

A Quick Tip on Learning a Language In-Country

by admin

learn spanish in countryStay out of capitals and especially stay the hell away from the touristy areas.  I understand that you may need or want to go to those areas for a short period of time, but as soon as you can you need to get out of there if one of the primary purposes of your trip is to learn the language.

Why? Because people in major cities that get a lot of tourists (London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, etc.) will, first of all, be quite capable of speaking English, and secondly: they deal with tourists all day long, their first inclination upon realizing that you’re foreign (which will likely happen before or as soon as you open your mouth) is to switch to English.  The primary reason they do this is not what you think: they do it because it makes it easier on them and allows them to deal with the situation as quickly as possible, as opposed to fumbling around with you in their own language.  They have had hordes of tourists approach them and attempt to awkwardly speak to them in their native language using phrases which that person memorized out of (or is reading out of) a phrasebook.  They speak fluent, or near fluent, English.  It will be far more efficient, faster, easier on them, and easier on you if they just switched to English, so they do.  Not only is this easiest for them but they also perceive it as doing you a favor, they’re being polite to you.

You could ask them to speak to you in their native language, but they will often not want to do this because they have other customers they’re waiting on, they’re in a hurry to go somewhere, or whatever, and they know that the easiest and fastest way to get through this conversation is going to be to speak English.  The Parisians, especially, are notorious for being like this, making it very, very difficult to learn French in Paris, ironically.

In short, you need to stay out of the major capital cities, and especially out of the touristy areas.  Doing this makes it far more likely that you’re going to meet people who:

A) Don’t speak English, and therefore have no choice but to muddle through it with you in their native langauge, or…

B) Do speak English but don’t have a line of tourists they’re waiting on, aren’t used to dealing with foreigners, and are therefore going to be much, much more inclined to patiently humor you and help you learn their language.

A special note about France

The French get bashed for this especially badly, but I must say that, having talked to several non-French people who went to France to practice their French, as well as a couple of French people, I’ve learned something very important: it’s not the French, it’s just the Parisians.  Almost all other French people are very nice and more than happy to listen to you butcher their language and help you along if you’re doing so for the purpose of trying to learn it and get better at it, and “hating the Parisians is a national sport in France”, so everyone else is with you on that one (yes, a French person actually said this to me, and another one confirmed it: the rest of France hates the Parisians as well, it’s not just the foreigners, so don’t worry about it :D ).

If you’re interested in seeing a 10 page long debate about this, there’s a fascinating thread over at HTLAL that you really should have a look at.

How I learned Spanish on my own, from home, using free online resources in 6 months despite failing Spanish AND Russian in school

I've just put a very long post up on the front page with the whole sorted story about how I taught myself Spanish in 6 months using free online resources like music videos and TV shows, despite hating every language class I ever took and even failing two of them, and I tell you exactly how you can do the same, be sure to check it out HERE.

Also, if you like what you see here PLEASE SUBSCRIBE to my Twitter feed and/or RSS feed so you can be updated any time there’s a new post.

Cheers,

Andrew

Related Posts:

  • I couldn't find any :( - Try checking the 'Most Popular Posts' list in the upper-right-hand side of the page, you might find something there you like!
  • http://mlnlanguages.blogspot.com/ Jim Morrison

    I am English but have lived in Paris for a year.
    Luckily I have to speak French at work but if it wasn’t for that, you are right that it would be very difficult to learn French here. One thing I noticed is that now that I have got above a certain level, they don’t switch to English as much. You have to speak to them confidently in French. Also, if they ask you ‘Parlez vous francais?’, don’t say ‘err… oui, un peu’. Say ‘Oui bien sur’. Then they will be more likely to carry on with you in French. The problem is that you need to get above a certain level before you can get that confidence and as you say, that is very hard to get in Paris.
    I regulary go to my grilfriends village in Catalonia where everyone speaks Catalan and almost no-one can speak English. I learn more Catalan there in a week than I learn French in a month in Paris.

    One way, you can make it work in a big city (Paris included) is to go the Polyglot club. They usually meet in a pub once a week and there are people from everywhere wanting to exchange their languages with eachother. I have been a few times and it is very good.

  • admin

    I’ve heard this before as well, Jim, that is if you’re at or above a certain proficiency level they won’t switch to English, I think it’s just an issue of them not wanting to waste time trying to wade through it with you in French when they know they could get whatever needs to be done, done, faster in English since they speak better English than you do French (if that’s the case, if not then they’ll stick with French, like I said above).

    Thanks for stopping by!

    Cheers,
    Andrew