Immersion is more effective and faster for learning a language than sitting in a class.
However, most people make some key mistakes when trying to learn a language while travelling.

Learning By Immersion

Problem Solving

When you land in a country, you usually don't feel confident speaking, so you might decide to start in your native language until you get your bearings.
But you might meet peers and other people speaking in your native language, and if this bubble sticks, you can end up living in a country for decades without ever learning the local language.

Creating a Native Language Bubble

To learn the basics, find a tool that fulfils the two basic requirements for memorizing: repetition and recall.
<ul>
<li>You need to practice saying something more than once to master it, and then it is best to space those times out over days or weeks.</li>
<li>Recalling phrases is less common, but it is vital. Find phrases, and practice saying it correctly.</li>
</ul>
Starting phrases include: 
<ul>
<li>I would like...? </li>
<li>Where is ...? </li>
<li>How do you say ...? </li>
<li>What is that? </li>
<li>What is your name? </li>
<li>Where are you from? </li>
<li>What do you do for work?</li>
</ul>

Mastering Basic Phrases at Home First

Socialising is essential for immersion.
In European countries, a younger person can go to meetups through meetup.com. In Asia, it is best to hire a couple of private tutors around your age and tell them you're looking to make friends to learn the language. They will usually facilitate introductions.

Making Native-Language Friends

A tutor is a dedicated person who can answer questions, explain how the language works and be an opportunity to practice speaking while you're still trying to make friends.
<ul>
<li>Native people don't really have a high understanding of how their language works. They cannot explain the nuances of grammar or vocabulary. Professional teachers get this instruction and can often help.</li>
<li>If costs are too high, you can also settle for a dedicated language partner such as a fellow learner or native speaker.</li>
</ul>

Getting a Tutor

A strategic advantage is to work on pronunciation, as you want to convince people to speak with you in the language, instead of "helping you out" by speaking in your native tongue.
A simple way is to look at diagrams of tongue positions so you can mimic them when you're trying to speak. The goal is understandability so that native speakers don't struggle to understand the phrases you already know.

Learning Phonology Properly

If you want to learn a particular language, pick a place and stay put for a while. Then plan some travel after you've reached a moderate level of fluency.
Also, attempt to stop speaking your own language entirely during your trip. It will help avoid the temptation to fall into the bubble and will make practising much easier.

Moving Around Too Much

<a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com">Scott H Young </a>

<ul><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/">Recent </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/">Ultralearning </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/articles/">Articles </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/my-projects/">Challenges </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/books-courses/">Products </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/podcast/">Podcast </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/newsletter/">Free Newsletter </a> </li> </ul>

My new book, ULTRALEARNING is now available.

Want to Learn a Language on Your Next Trip? Avoid These Six Mistakes.

Immersion is the best way to learn a language. You can learn much faster than sitting in class. It feels exciting and useful, not just a stale list of grammatical rules and vocabulary words.

However, most people make some key mistakes when trying to learn a language while traveling. I’ve made these mistakes, so I want to help you avoid repeating them on your next trip.

My first experience learning another language was studying abroad in France. I spent a year there, and after a year of hard work, I was able to speak some French. Although I was happy with this, I noticed how so much of my effort was pushing uphill. If I had made choices differently, I could have learned much faster.

Flash forward four years. I’m now attempting, with a friend, a much more ambitious project. <a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/the-year-without-english-2/">One year, four different languages. </a>Instead of a year to learn each, we’d only have three months.

The difference, however, was that I didn’t make the mistakes of my first trip. The outcome was that I ended up learning Spanish better in three months than I did over a year learning French in France. Same opportunity, different strategy, completely different results.

Side note: In case you’re wondering whether my French unduly helped my Spanish, my traveling partner also learned Spanish exceptionally well and he didn’t know any other Romance language before we started. You can see our <a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/the-year-without-english-2/#spain">full progress here </a>.

The Six Mistakes When Learning a Language While Traveling

Below are the six biggest mistakes I made on my first trip (and which are painfully common amongst travelers and expats). If you can avoid them, you’ll learn much faster, regardless of whether you’re a linguistic genius or if you failed high-school Spanish class.

Mistake #1: Creating an English-Speaking Bubble

Or, if English isn’t your first language, then a bubble of whichever language you feel most comfortable with.

Immersion is something that sounds easy on paper. Go to the country that speaks the language you want to learn. Live there. Voila!

Except it usually doesn’t work that way. Instead, you land in the country not feeling confident speaking, so you decide to start in English, just until you get your bearings. You meet your new landlord, some peers, maybe make a friend or two at a party—all in your native language.

Soon enough, you’re three months in and you’ve spent all your time talking in English, except for the occasional restaurant order or taxicab instructions.

The bubble is your number-one enemy to fluency when traveling to learn a language. If you can successfully avoid making a bubble, you’ll end up having massive amounts of practice and you’ll be almost guaranteed to learn something.

On the other hand, if your bubble sticks, you can end up living in a country for decades without ever learning the local language. I met expats in China who had lived there for over twenty years, and could barely say anything above a simple, “Ni hao.” Pop the bubble early and you’ll avoid being one of them.

Mistake #2: Not Mastering Basic Phrases at Home First

Immersion is great for facilitating a language. But to speak to others (without forming the dreaded bubble I mentioned earlier) you need to have some basics. These are core sentence patterns that let you make basic requests, including those that help you expand your ability to speak.

There are many ways you can acquire these basic phrases. Unfortunately a lot of language learning tools out there are absolutely terrible at this initial requirement for immersive learning.

Of all the tools I’ve tried, the best (even if it feels a bit antiquated) is still <a href="https://www.pimsleur.com/">Pimsleur </a>. The reason why is that it fulfills the two basic requirements for memorizing: repetition and recall.

<ol><li>You need to practice saying something more than once to master it. Probably a dozen times, at least. And you’ll remember it better if those times were spaced out over days or weeks, rather than all occurring back-to-back. Many apps today specialize in repetition, but that’s not worth anything unless you have recall. </li><li>Recall is also essential, but unlike spaced repetition, it’s a lot less common. Apps like DuoLingo help you learn phrases by choosing words from a word-bank. Unfortunately, from a cognitive perspective, speaking is nothing like this, so it doesn’t help much in being able to utter those phrases. Pimsleur, with their full-English prompts, followed by a pause for saying the matching phrase, get it right. </li> </ol>

Pimsleur is expensive, unfortunately, and I don’t recommend going beyond level one month. If you’re going to travel to learn, you just need enough to get started.

If you’re on a budget, a good alternative is to create a list of basic phrases and put them in a free-to-use app like <a href="https://apps.ankiweb.net/">Anki </a>, along with asking a native speaker to record them spoken aloud, so you don’t mess up the pronunciation.

A good list of starting phrases should include:

<ul><li>I would like ____ </li><li>Where is ____? </li><li>How do you say _____? </li><li>What is that? </li><li>How much is it? </li><li>What is your name? // My name is ____. </li><li>Where are you from? // I am from _____. </li><li>What do you do for work? // I am a _____. </li> </ul>

In our intensive language immersion trip, we also had another phrase memorized, “We’re doing a project to learn [the language] by not speaking English.” This avoided issues when someone was curious why someone whose language ability wasn’t that good would nonetheless insist on practicing.

Mistake #3: Not Making Native-Language Friends

Socializing is an essential ingredient to immersion. In some immersion situations, this will be easy for you. Maybe your traveling to meet faraway relatives and want to learn their language? Maybe you’re going as part of a study-abroad program and events with your classmates are guaranteed?

However, in other circumstances, making friends isn’t so easy—especially if you want to avoid the bubble.

In our trip, we were confronted with this problem, constantly. We were living for three months at a time, working from home and not attending any classes or social events. How could we meet friends who were either native speakers of the language we wanted to learn, or were fluent enough that they could speak with us in the language?

In European countries, if you’re a younger person, the easiest solution is often just to go out. Go to meetups through <a href="http://www.meetup.com">meetup.com </a>. Join activities. Go to parties. Say hello to people in coffee shops. If you can add some enthusiasm to your delivery, you’ll eventually make some friends. Just don’t give up early if you feel like switching back to English.

In Asia, the different culture meant randomly approaching strangers was often a no-no. In these cases, we opted for a different tactic. Hire a couple private tutors who were roughly our age, and tell them that you’re looking to make friends and need to socialize to learn the language. In most cases, this allowed us to get introductions which started the process of building a social circle without having to awkwardly approach random strangers for conversation practice.

Ultimately the key is to not give up and try different tactics. If you don’t feel comfortable approaching strangers, try going to meetups. If you need introductions, try leveraging the few people you do meet and asking them if they can introduce you to others.

Mistake #4: Not Getting a Tutor (or Dedicated Language Partner)

Most people see the role of tutors as a kind of academic facilitator. The tutor is someone who helps you study and pass classes, for languages or something else.

In reality, the role of the tutor shouldn’t be to lecture while you take notes. Instead, it should be a dedicated person who can answer questions, explain how the language works and, at the very least, be an early opportunity to practice speaking while you’re still trying to make friends.

I suggest getting a professional teacher if you’re not a seasoned language learner for your first time. This is because many native people don’t actually have a high degree of understanding of how their language works. They can speak it, but they cannot explain nuances of grammar or vocabulary. Professional teachers get this instruction and so can often help.

If you’re from a Western country and you’re traveling to a developing country or country where tutoring costs are low, this solution may be fine. But what if you’re going in the reverse direction? Or you’re trying to learn in a country that has exorbitantly high costs?

In that case, you may want to settle for a dedicated language partner. This person doesn’t even need to be a native speaker of the language. Rather you just want someone that you can put in at least an hour a day talking with them to make sure you can practice the things you do understand. They could be a fellow learner, or a native speaker who is willing to swap practice in your language in exchange for the one you’re trying to learn.

Mistake #5: Not Learning the Phonology Properly

The biggest thing that will hold back your perceived fluency is vocabulary. Lacking the right word is a huge problem. Unfortunately, learning words is also the most time-intensive part of language learning. To be properly fluent in a language, you may need upwards of 50,000 words, especially once you include proper nouns, names and cultural knowledge.

Pronunciation, on the other hand, is a much easier win, and it can often leverage an initially low level into a slightly higher perceived level. This is a strategic advantage early on, when you want to convince people to speak with you in the language, rather than “help you out” by speaking in English.

The technical way to do this would be to master the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet">IPA </a>and study linguistic texts for the language you’re trying to learn. A much easier way, however, is simply to look at diagrams of tongue positions so you can mimic them when you’re trying to speak. For reference, here’s <a href="http://www.sinosplice.com/learn-chinese/pronunciation-of-mandarin-chinese/4">one I used </a>for learning to pronounce Mandarin properly.

Keep in mind that the goal, especially early on, shouldn’t be perfection but understandability. You don’t need to trick someone into thinking you’re a native speaker. But you should be articulate enough so that native speakers don’t struggle to understand the words and phrases you do actually know.

If your goal is to learn a language, pick a place and then stay put.

Moving around, hopping from city to city, within a linguistic environment, often breaks the social connections you might have been tenuously forming in a given place. By breaking those connections, you’ll find it harder to sustain interactions with tutors, friends or language partners.

If you want to travel around and not stay cooped up your whole trip, I recommend picking a base to start at, staying there for awhile (this can correspond with a work or study term), and planning some travel after once you’ve reached a moderate level of fluency.

If you’ve already planned to travel a lot on your trip, you can still practice, but the ability to go deep will be more restricted. It’s a trade-off you’ll have to consider if you’re planning to travel or live abroad primarily for sightseeing or for language learning.

If you can avoid the above six mistakes, then you’re already off to a very good start learning a language while traveling. A final, bonus suggestion I would like to give is that you attempt to stop speaking English (or whichever languages you already speak) completely during your trip. This may sound impossibly difficult, but this was the basis of my four-language experiment around the world and it actually made things a lot easier.

Even if you have requirements from work, school or life that require some speaking of your mother tongue, putting strict “No English” boundaries on your life can help avoid the temptation to fall into the bubble and makes practicing much easier.

Learning a language while traveling can be one of the most rewarding things you’ll do in your life. There’s nothing quite like being able to participate in another culture, and language learning is one of the best ways to do that.

<ul><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/07/03/best-learning/">Best Learning </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/06/04/best-habits/">Best Habits </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/06/10/best-goals/">Best Goal Setting </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/07/23/best-life-philosophy/">Best Life Philosophy </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/06/24/best-career/">Best Career </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/07/26/best-feeling-better/">Best Feeling Better </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/07/25/best-thinking-better/">Best Thinking Better </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/06/18/best-productivity/">Best Productivity </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/10/14/best-books/">Best Books </a> </li> </ul>

Filed Under: <a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/category/personal-development/">General </a>

<ul><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/">Recent </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/ultralearning/">Ultralearning </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/articles/">Articles </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/my-projects/">Challenges </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/books-courses/">Products </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/podcast/">Podcast </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/newsletter/">Free Newsletter </a> </li> </ul>

Bite‑sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Want to Learn a Language on Your Next Trip? Avoid These Six Mistakes. | Scott H Young

Learning By Immersion

Creating a Native Language Bubble

Mastering Basic Phrases at Home First

Making Native-Language Friends

Getting a Tutor

Learning Phonology Properly

Moving Around Too Much

Does Speaking Another Language Change How You Think? | Scott H Young

How to Memorize a Speech | Scott H Young

Should You Use Flashcards to Learn? | Scott H Young

Bite‑sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Want to Learn a Language on Your Next Trip? Avoid These Six Mistakes. | Scott H Young

Learning By Immersion

Creating a Native Language Bubble

Mastering Basic Phrases at Home First

Making Native-Language Friends

Getting a Tutor

Learning Phonology Properly

Moving Around Too Much

Does Speaking Another Language Change How You Think? | Scott H Young

How to Memorize a Speech | Scott H Young

Should You Use Flashcards to Learn? | Scott H Young

Bite‑sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career