While I am sitting here slightly stressing out about the
amount of work I still need to do before I leave to far away northern paradises,
I thought to myself I ought to relax, drink a cup of tea(decaffeinated, for
which I ought to thank my friend an pupil Astrid.) In the meantime sharing with
you some of my views on the importance of travelling abroad as an aid to
language learning.
Before I do this however, I ought to apologize for my absence
recently to those of you that are eagerly following my blog. (Oddly enough, there
are quite some of you. For which many thanks.)
And apologize in advance for my upcoming absence. Northern
paradises, you see…
There won’t be many blog posts here this summer, since I
will be travelling to Norway and Sweden for two months. There will be, however,
a second blog (also in English) for just my travel stories. (ambitious, as
always! ;) ) A link to that blog soon.
Now, the importance of travelling. People always tell me
that it’s crucial to travel to the country, or countries, where they speak the
language you are trying to learn. Well, yes and no.
Yes; it is important to indulge yourself in the language you
are learning.
No; travelling is not the only way to do so.
No; travelling is not the only way to do so.
Travelling is a good way to do so for sure, you’ll meet many
new people and have good everyday practice in the language you are trying to
learn. But for those of you that aren’t so keen on travelling for whatever
reason, all hope is not lost.
When you’re learning a language it is important that you get
as much practice as possible and really get into the language. Do as much as
you can in the language from as early as possible. There really is no other
way. It’s tiresome at first, but really, it gets a lot easier very fast if you
stick it out.
Travelling does help, you are in a country where people
speak a language you want to learn and obviously there will be contact with the
language maybe a lot more than if you’d stay home. But it’s not enough. You can
live in a country for years and never really learn the language of the people
there if you’re not actually trying. Social interaction is key, but it’s not
everything. When you come home you’ll still have to work on your language
skills, they don’t grow overnight. (Actually, they sort of do, more on that in
another article, perhaps.)
The opposite is true as well. If you stay home chances are
you’ll pick up on the language a lot slower. But there are alternatives to
travelling. For example, you can look up a community in your town/country for
the language you are trying to learn. You’ll find a lot of natives there. E.g.:
I visit the Norwegian community here in Antwerp and I get a lot of practice for
free.
Another alternative is the internet. You can easily find a
language partner online on a language exchange website and voice chat with him
or her on Skype. Win-win situation, you can help each other learn a language. (interpals.net,
sharedtalk.com are my favourite.)
So, there you have the importance of travelling. Important?
Yes. Mandatory? Definitely not.
