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Immersion myths? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6594 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 1 of 5 20 May 2012 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Catchy title hehe. Just some observations, mostly from my recent trip to Poland.
Myth #1: Always Travel Alone. True, you want to be away from your native language. But I actually find I use English more when I'm alone and nobody's watching me :/ I'm also not very talkative in general, unless I already know the person and we have something to talk about. This also depends on the specific language. As a Russian, my mum already understood a lot of Polish, more and more by the end of the trip. She thought it was fun to learn some bits, she asked me a lot what something meant, she came up with things I'd not wonder about myself. And she's proud of her "polyglot" daughter so that's some nice pressure. Even though she'd not appreciate me less if I used English, this thought was still embarrassing, and I tried harder to stick to Polish. So basically, when travelling alone I get more passive input, but when I'm with mum I speak the language more. I suppose the ideal situation for me (and most other introverts?) would be travelling with a fellow language geek who's fluent in the local language (native or not). Someone who understands your desire to learn the language and helps you deal with the various situations - but who'll let you try if you want. After all, if you're not ready to try, this just means you're not good enough yet? It would be much more beneficial to watch a fluent speaker deal with the situation than to just use English or repeat phrasebook sentences without understanding them. A fellow language geek would also be able to explain what he or she said. And some stats. For the 6WC, I registered 54.3 hours of Polish during my 11 days in Poland. Almost 38 of them were "immersion" - but I made up for the native language contact by reading, listening to music, watching TV etc. Actually, I didn't even think of that as making up for anything - I just had fun with Polish the way I would at home, taking advantage of the opportunity to watch TV. (Possible) myth #2: If you're fluent your trip will be flawless. Vice versa in my case!!! Particularly with Finnish, it was as if teh Fate was ensuring I got more chances to practise. The more I improved, the more difficulties I had: -The net didn't work. (easy) -The net didn't work and I had to talk to a technician guy or some such. -The net didn't work, the reception desk was in another building so I had to make a call. -We did minor damage to the hotel room furniture (!!!). Very minor but we thought it was better to inform them. -Now in Poland, I was on a train with a VERY awkward numeration. My seat was 54 and the one next to it was 66! And they turned out to be in front of the ones we took. I'm MUCH better at numbers now, lol. My own myth #3: The moment you address someone in English, your chance to practice your target language is gone. Depends on the language! It's certainly true with Finnish, maybe unless you're Estonian or Karelian. But in Poland, even the reply was often in Polish, and even if I got one in English, most people were glad when I switched to Polish :) What about other countries, btw? I suppose this is also a problem in Scandinavia and the Netherlands (apart from the rural areas), but other than that? Edited by Serpent on 20 May 2012 at 6:23pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 5 21 May 2012 at 2:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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Myth #1: Always Travel Alone.
Not a myth - unless you want to learn the language of your travel companions. And if they intend to waste your time with smalltalk in your native language (or a language you know well) then the whole trip is spoiled. But sometimes your travel companions are even more eager to speak the local language, and then they only divert your attention when you are alone with them. Myth #2: If you're fluent your trip will be flawless. Mostly NOT a myth - no language skills can guarantee you a flawless holiday, but you have better chances of talking yourself out of problems (and dicovering them before they materialize) if you speak the local lingo. Of course you can talk yourself into problems using any language or no language at all. Myth #3: The moment you address someone in English, your chance to practice your target language is gone. Mostly NOT a myth. English is contagious and deadly for attempts to have conversations in any other language. You have to be fairly persistent (and skilled) to continue talking the local language to a local person who persists in speaking English to you. It can be done, but you shouldn't give such persons the impression that you are unsure of your foreignese skills. Thanks to cheap airtickets I do a fair number of short immersion trips (or monolingual trips as I prefer to call them) - 4 hours ago I came back from Portugal, last month I went four days to Sicily and I have also spent time in Germany twice this year. One of these trips was in the company of my sister, but as she has the habit of engaging the local population in conversations I got some compensation for missing out on my normal monolingual humdrum. This is however an exception to the general rule. Edited by Iversen on 21 May 2012 at 2:58am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6594 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 4 of 5 21 May 2012 at 3:21am | IP Logged | |||||
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I explained that it's mostly about introverts (or specifically shy people). The less I talk, the less I want to talk.
I'd love to hear about your experience with the third part, ie the specific countries where English is deadly (apart from those I mentioned) and where it isn't. I also haven't met ANYONE in Poland who'd persistently try to speak English. Typically, I'd use English for the most difficult part of the exchange, but if I knew how to say the rest I'd switch to Polish. Oh and did you ever feel that life was putting you into challenging situations so you got to practise the language? It's even listed as a separate skill here, "discussion in a difficult context". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 5 21 May 2012 at 10:16am | IP Logged | |||||
I answered in that spirit (as an introvert, though not particularly shy person). The problem is that bringing along travel companions would implicate that they spoke to me in Danish (or English for that matter), and this would disrupt my internal stream of babble in the foreign language. And therefore it is a choice between being social and friendly and all that AND getting the immersion I need.
Well, I remember one case where I yielded. It was in Moçambique, and midway through my stay in a hotel in the capital I was asked to leave because my agent at home had booked 2 nights instead of 4. But I had a prepaid voucher for 4 nights so they had to let me stay. I switched to English from Portuguese during that discussion in order not to leave the hotel staff with an advantage AND to stress that this wasn't normal smalltalk. But apart from that I stick to my languages - even when dealing with for instance car hire and airport personel. I have just written about the situation where people try to speak English to me in another thread so I won't repeat the same things here. Edited by Iversen on 21 May 2012 at 10:26am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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