Do You Have to Go Abroad to Get Fluent? NO WAY!

Study Abroad to Get Fluent?

Each week that I talk to someone about getting fluent in Spanish, they say to me, “I know. I know. I have to move to Mexico if I really want to learn the language.”

This is 100% NOT true.

1. It’s easy not to learn a language in another country.
2. It’s hard to learn a language even if you’re in another country. and
3. You will only learn, no matter where you are, if you want to learn and you speak with someone in the other language.

Let me tell you my tale of woe about becoming fluent in Spanish.

Becoming Fluent in Spanish Is Not About Semesters Abroad

I remember when I first moved to Mexico. I had taken over 15 semesters of Spanish, including a semester abroad in Spain. Everyone had told me that if I moved there, then I would magically learn the language. They were so, so, so wrong. It turns out if you aren’t speaking the language one-on-one in a meaningful and comprehensive way, then you won’t learn the language whether you’re living in another country or not.

I learned this the hard way in Spain.

I spent five months of living in beautiful Madrid, and every moment outside of class was spent with a gorgeous Hawaiian boy with crystal green eyes. I didn’t learn crap that semester except for the many different colors of green that I had fallen in love with. Bad Micah. Four years later, even worse at Spanish after four years of living and working in Boston, I decided to move to Mexico and finally solidify my fluency in this language that I had now spent over 8 years trying to learn.

Don’t get me wrong, I could say a lot in Spanish, but I didn’t feel like I was where I should have been after so many years of formal Spanish lessons! Formal lessons are where I went wrong. Where we all go wrong, actually. It’s not about how many hours you spend behind a desk or a computer, memorizing vocabulary and phrases. Now I know better; you have to practice and speak, and then practice and speak some more. You have to invest hours and hours of actually speaking the language to become fluent. Is it hard? Yes. But this is the only way to true fluency.

Fluency is Possible

Let me tell you, as a current speaker who is fluent in three languages and working on my fourth, learning a language DOES NOT have to take 10 years, nor do you have to move to another country to become fluent.

How I finally learned: Let’s go back to those first few months in Mexico in 2008. I met a boy, and, surprise, surprise, he was not Hawaiian at all. Even better, he didn’t speak a lick of English. THIS is how you learn a new language (no, not by getting a Mexican boyfriend), but by simply speaking with someone for many hours every week over a long period of time. This is the only formula you need for true language acquisition, for becoming truly fluent. No conjugating, No memorizing. Just TALKING!

This one-on-one time and patience (which a private instructor will have) will give you fluency new language. Think about when you talk to a baby or a small child. You speak simply, you show the baby things, you repeat things, you try to help the baby say things. This is how it is when you learn a new language with a private instructor each week.

Now, think 2013, just back to the U.S. from Mexico, had just opened up my language school in Dallas. Now that I knew HOW to learn a new language, any language (2 hours (at least) or more a week with someone one-on-one speaking the target language), I decided to try French as well, but I decided to learn it in the OPPOSITE WAY that I had learned Spanish. No grammar, no memorizing, just soaking it in.

I signed up for a conversation class. Yes, I know, seems ridiculous seeing as I didn’t know any French, but by the end of the 6-month class, I could finally say a few sentences. Yes, it was confusing. Yes, it was a bit frustrating at times, because I started to understand, even though I still couldn’t put a good sentence together. But sitting there, listening, putting 2 and 2 together as I watched the teacher talk and draw and write on the board and show us things, I began to understand.

After about two years (YES! It still takes time!) of 2-3 hours weekly of one-on-one lessons in French, I could speak well. After the 1-year mark, the sentences started to flow out of me. Just like a baby suddenly starts speaking after listening for years.

Speaking = Fluency

Was I Ph.D. material? Of course not. But could I have a conversation about any topic? Absolutely. This is the definition of fluent: speaking accurately and easily in a language. I had become fluent, really fluent, by SPEAKING the language with a private instructor.

So, my point being made again. You DO NOT have to go abroad to become fluent, but you DO have to have comprehensible input coming at you, preferably in a one-on-one situation for optimal results. What are you waiting for? In two years (less if you take more hours per week) you could be fluent in Spanish. Or any language you want! What language should you learn? Do it.

P.S. You only become fluent if you want to and if you spend hours and hours trying to speak to someone in the target language. Think about all the people living in the U.S. that are not fluent in English. It’s the same for you in another country. Just because your feet are on the soil, doesn’t mean you’ll soak up the language. I knew a girl that lived in Mexico for over a year and never learned Spanish. Why? She didn’t want to.

This is the bottom line. How do you become fluent in English? How do you become fluent in Spanish? How do you become fluent in any other language? Get instruction or a class that allows you the time and opportunity to speak with others. If you want to learn a language even more quickly, here are other ways you can practice every day.

Do you Speak with an Accent?

Do you Speak with an Accent

Huh? The what factor
Do you speak with an accent?

What we believe: accents are beautiful, quirky, tell a story and endear us to people.

What we also believe: difficult-to-understand accents can detract from what we’re trying to convey. Accents can also hold us back in our careers if it is hard for people to communicate with us or understand us. And they can make us feel self-conscious to the point that we do not say as much as we want to say.

Skills You Need states that, “[Accents] may…, however, in some situations, create potential barriers to communication. For example, if you have a very strong accent, people from another area or country may find it harder to understand what you are saying. You may therefore need to slow down your speech to ensure that they have time to process what you are saying.”

 

Accents Impact Your Communication

We know that our clients can be more successful in their careers and in their personal lives if people can understand them more easily. We also know from personal experience, work experience and hearing from other professionals in multilingual regions like Silicon Valley, that ‘accents were dramatically influencing the quality of interaction for foreign-born team members.”Now, our business is to equip our clients with effective communication in their non-native languages, but it’s also our business to help people who do speak with an accent develop the ability to communicate clearly.

This doesn’t mean that we want everyone to sound like an American, rather, we want others to understand you well and we want you to succeed in all things you want to be successful in. There are specific accent reduction tricks you can learn that will make your speech understood better by an American ear.

You Can Be Fluent and Have a Strong Accent

I remember when I lived in Mexico, and every time I ordered, the waiter said politely, “Excuse me, but what did you say?” I was embarrassed and frustrated. To make matters worse, I was completely fluent in Spanish.

Accents are more than just pronouncing words. It’s the rhythm, the cadence, the tone, the linking of the words (depending on the language), as opposed to saying. Each. Word. In. di. vi. dually. Native speakers don’t do this in English. You probably don’t do this in your first language either.

When you’re fluent, but you have an accent, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to improve it so that you can work more effectively, or, make your coworkers feel more confident about working with you.

Are People Struggling to Understand You?

I have a client who has a strong accent and is in charge of selling his company’s product – he’s the spokesperson at conferences. I’ve seen him give presentations, and I’ve seen the crowd lean toward him and focus intently – trying to understand him. Now, you might say, “That’s great! He’s getting their attention!” But not in a good way.

We want them to be able to relax, sit back, and listen to his important message, not crane their necks and scrunch their foreheads trying to understand. The audience should be able to focus on the content of what he’s saying, not trying to figure out the words and their meanings.

Dianne Markley, a professor at the University of North Texas at Denton (UNT) whose graduate research focused on how accents affect the hiring process, says, unfortunately, “sometimes an accent leads to the perception that that person can’t perform this job,” she adds. “In fact, it is legal to not hire someone whose accent materially affects his ability to perform key aspects of a job.”

Point is: if people are asking you ‘what?’ on the phone or in person, if you can see some confusion on their face or struggle to understand you, you might want to consider accent reduction lessons. It won’t take away from the unique way that you speak, and most likely everyone will still know where you come from, but there will be clarity to your speech, which will only benefit you, your confidence, career, and personal relationships.

I reduced my accent in Spanish, and now I can order in a restaurant without the ‘What?’ questions.
If you would like a free consultation about your accent, please email getfluent@fluencycorp.com.