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Ask HN: How to get bilingual in a country where the language is not used?

by corderop on 4/12/22, 5:33 PM with 14 comments

• by skydhash on 4/12/22, 7:02 PM

  Haitian here. I basically had no face to face interaction with English native speaker. What I do is immersing. I only read English book, set up all my accounts in English, consume English youtube video, and write in English - docs and the like. While I still have difficulties with pronunciation and spelling mistake, I had a few people say that my vocabulary was quite extensive (most of it comes from Fantasy books).

• by coward123 on 4/12/22, 6:31 PM

  Assuming you wrote the above Ask HN question, your English is probably better than you realize. Seems like you may have more than one goal, as moving to another country is a different matter than just wanting to learn a language. If you really want to improve your English, the key as you already know is immersion and practice. Read everything - the news, novels, reference materials - whatever interests you try to read it in your target learning language. There are lots of online learning groups out there, paid and free, to practice speaking. Finally, when you talk about fluency - I've come to the conclusion that fluency is a flexible concept. I meet native English speakers every day that I would call barely capable in their own language. If you are being understood and can basically function in society in a language, then you are de facto fluent whether you feel like it or otherwise. Maybe you'll want to pick some areas of study and do vocabulary deep dive to help you feel more comfortable?

• by jchallis on 4/12/22, 5:57 PM

  The only proven way is to speak regularly with native speakers. Standard approach is find a native speaker tutoring application like Preply. Pro approach is to get an English speaking significant other and kick into high gear.

  My 79 year old mother taught English as a Second Language for 20 years in Kentucky and is pretty bored. She would be happy to help you level up .

• by briga on 4/12/22, 6:03 PM

  I assume you already consume a lot of English-language media? Try doing it without Spanish subtitles, or at least, only with English subtitles. Even if you don't understand everything you can pick up a lot passively and it will help you start thinking in English. Same with books, although constantly looking up words in the dictionary is pretty tedious.

  For spoken language practice there's no substitute for just living in a different country for an extended period. Since you're in Europe it seems like this might be possible for you?

  Your written English already seems passable. If you hadn't mentioned you were not a native speaker I probably wouldn't have noticed.

• by agmand on 4/13/22, 9:11 AM

  As others hace commented, tour written english looks pretty good, so don't worry on that front. As a fellow Spaniard (hola!), I used to be in a similar situation. The way I remediated it was by getting to work with international teammates and no Spanish people around, so that you are forces to so no code-switching at all over working hours. Code-switching (changing languagea often) can make full immersion hard to achieve. Some companies in Madrid and Barcelona are fully international, but not many - in my case I found myself in that situation in a research position, but I realize those are exceptional circumstances.

• by tucaz on 4/13/22, 1:03 AM

  It took me around 4 years of speaking it daily to get from advanced/fluent to feeling as comfortable as I feel with my native language. These things take time. Just relax and keep using it and you’ll get there. No need to rush.

• by exolymph on 4/12/22, 5:52 PM

  As you said, there's no secret but practice. Since you're already doing that, maybe the thing is to step up the volume? Find a native English speaker to hang out with, or talk to via video call — I think there are sites for this. You could exchange sessions with an English speaker who's learning Spanish. I think there are sites for finding people like this, maybe some other commenter will have a link handy.

  By the way, allow me to compliment your written English! In this medium you are certainly fluent!

  > Europa

  In my experience, people learning a language want to be corrected, so I hope this is kosher, but in English we spell it Europe, with an e at the end.

• by donnythecroc on 4/12/22, 7:41 PM

  Radio (or podcasts) but ideally radio news. Why - it's fast paced. Get the bbc sounds app and start with radio 4 (easier) then move to radio 5 (harder). I learnt Spanish this way through RTVE.

• by ifokiedoke on 4/12/22, 6:21 PM

  As a language enthusiast who speaks ~5 languages at varying levels, I can relate to the feeling of "I am fully capable to have conversations about almost anything, but I don’t feel fluent at all". What I'd ask is: what exactly do you mean by fluent? In my opinion and experience, fluency is contextual. It's very hard to apply it in a generalized manner.

  I'll give an example. I studied German in college, got to C1, and am comfortable reading/discussing the news, my hobbies, going out, day-to-day affairs. I learned a lot of my vocabulary by reading newspapers, and was regularly discussing geopolitics. I had no problem making friends in Germany, and I did not feel anxious speaking German. However, I would have trouble watching TV kids shows or spending time with a child in German. I have no idea what a lot of animals are called, or vegetables I don't usually buy. I've never learned how to say "You have sleep eyes" (or the local equivalent) or "Your shoelaces are untied" because it was never relevant to me.

  On the other hand, growing up in an English-speaking country in a Cantonese household, I can say all those things in Cantonese. I'm very accustomed to a domestic setting in Cantonese. But politics? News? As if.

  Folks often equate "Fluency" with "Speaking/understanding the language like a native", and I think this is a very unhelpful false equivalence. Comfort in a language across all situations and aspects are simply a function of luck and time, and folks in their native languages have simply had more time and more chances to be lucky. You can absolutely be fluent without equalling a native speaker, and honestly if you can have a conversation about almost anything, you're fluent in my books.

  If you're looking for actionable items though, I'd advise thinking about why you feel non-fluent and being more focused. Is it humour? Watch comedies. Is it domestic conversations that won't come up by watching the news? Kids books, children's shows, parenting podcasts. Is it politics and general affairs? Newspapers. "Just speak with natives" is good advice in general, but it's not going to address your pain points unless you make intentional efforts.

  You will get these things over (a long period of) time, but these are ways you can be more specific.

  ===

  EDIT: I'll add one last thing. In some ways, fluency is confidence. Even native speakers will reach the age of 50 and not know the meaning of common words. The difference is, they'll have the confident response of just shrugging it off and learning it (or not!) because they feel ownership of the language. Meanwhile, a non-native learner might think it's their fault and something they HAVE to learn. I think this is why a lot of non-native speakers actually have much larger vocabularies than a lot of my Canadian friends :P