Language Learning for Lonewolves?

March 21, 2006 10:16 AM

What is the most efficient way to learn the native language of a country while traveling there on your own?

My friend gone from beginner to fluent in Italian in about a month in Italy, but his situation was very favourable: He was in a church community oriented to dialogue and integration, living with foreigners, working, and having a lot of social interaction with Italian as lingua franca.

What I want to know is: in the lone backpacker situation, not previously knowing anyone around, and with no organized group activity, how to maximize social interaction in the local language? Staying in a hotel and watch TV all day won't do it, and placing orders in restaurants is not enough.

Is it better to stay in the same city/hostel or vagabond around all the country? (consider a country like France, Italy or Germany, with lots of dialects)
Is it common for groups of lone backpackers staying in the same hostel to band together and talk in the local language? (most cross-language interaction I've seen in hostels has been in english instead of the local language)
Is there some protocol for traveling people to meet local slackers to talk and walk around? (If you know a place to do this, in any country, please list it)
For someone with beginner knowledge of the language, is it smart to take a course about some subject (not about the language) just to meet people?
How about using some local relationship site to setup casual dates?

posted by qvantamon to travel & transportation (16 comments total)

A lot of people combine a vacation in a foreign country with conversational schools. If you are going to be staying in one city for a week-long trip, then it makes a lot of sense.
posted by JJ86 at 10:49 AM on March 21, 2006

It depends on how far along you are in the target language (let's say Italian, for instance), but one trick might be to take an introductory class in a third language, such as French taught in Italian. Your classmates will probably speak Italian among themselves before and after class, and the teacher may explain some concepts in Italian. Note that there may be differences depending on whatever language it is you're trying to learn. I took Dutch in French-speaking Belgium, and there were lots of classes offered at all levels because Belgium is bilingual (ok, yes, there's a little German there too). In other areas there might not be a non-English third language that's so popular.
posted by komilnefopa at 10:54 AM on March 21, 2006

1. Well, strictly from a language learning perspective, staying in one place is probably the best idea. You get to know people and speak in situations that wouldn't arise from casual interactions on the street. But if your aim is travel, it doesn't quite jibe with that.

2. I've backpacked a lot, and I've never seen anything like this.

3. Couchsurfing?

4&5. I have no idea about these two.

In Europe at least, you'll meet a lot of young Europeans in hostels just traveling for a week or whatever. A lot of times, if you'll be going through their country after they get home, you can arrange to meet up and go have a night out or whatever.

I've always just written down/remembered all the exchanges I had to conduct in English, and then later figured out how I would have said it in the local language. You'll be repeating a lot of them ("Where is x?", "How much is this?", etc), so you'll get plenty of practice. Phrasebooks are good for this, but don't offer much in the way of grammar.

Really though, I don't think you'll ever become entirely fluent in a "backpacking" type situation, but you can get well on your way.
posted by borkingchikapa at 10:56 AM on March 21, 2006

He probably went from beginner to "Chatting" in one month, not fluent. Be realistic about what you can achieve.
You could do the same but only in the same circumstances, total immersion. This would require you to stay in one place, preferably with a family or young couple who may want some help in English. You may be able to advertise your willingness to exchange English lessons for accomodation somewhere.
Try to stay off the beaten track, hostels and places for back-packers have English as a first language. I would go somewhere out of the way ( if your choice is Italy a small village within travel distance of Siena, or Florence, e.g.). Go to the same place every day for breakfast and try to talk to whomever is behind the bar. See if there is an internet cafe and hook up with the local nerd. Hope he (or if you are lucky She) invites you home to Mamma! Shop at the same small place for essentials, any local corner store will do, and talk to the owner. Have a few phrases ready which show how much you love Italy, your Mamma, X type of home cooking, etc., etc.,and don't be embarrassed to use them.

You may find this boring but it will be much more sucessful than travelling around the back-packing routes.

Of course the seriously fast way to accquire a second or third language is to fall in love. Bon Chance, Boa Sorte, Suerte, Viel gluck! and do tell us how you get on.
posted by Wilder at 11:07 AM on March 21, 2006

JJ86: I've become a bit skeptical about language schools: I'll usually read the textbook in an idle day, understand the grammar, fix the vocabulary, and then get bored in a couple more classes until I just drop out. I just extended this to any language school, but perhaps I'm wrong about conversational ones.

Basically, I wouldn't enjoy anything without a formal programme, or theoretical classes, or anything like this. What I want is simply a group of like-minded people to walk around and talk (not be locked inside a campus 4 hours a day). There are probably schools like that, but, then, I am a cheap bastard, and want to skip the middleman. I also get a feeling that even in an "open" conversational school the people I'd meet would be a bit too touristish.

By the way, I am talking about more time than a week -- perhaps a month or even more.
posted by qvantamon at 11:13 AM on March 21, 2006

Carry a good language instruction book with you, I always like the "Colloquial XXlangauge nameXX" series by Routledge publishers. "Teach Yourself" series less so. Forget phrase books like berlitz - they are crutches. Avoid downtown tourist areas, and go to places where monolingualism will prevail: outer parts of towns, cafes with old people, etc. Order a coffee and open your book. If people are curtous to who you are and why you are there, you hold up your book and answer "I want to learn your language." although it will come out sounding like "wanting me your langooge larn" everybody will laugh, ice broken, they will often sit down with you and help you through some pronounciation and maybe a few verb conjugations.

It's worked for me all over the Balkans.

A month is not enough - you may get chatty, but comprehension is important. Set a daily goal: new vocabulary, mastering a conjugation. If the local TV station shows films with subtitles (original english language programs subtitled in local language) get a notebook and a pen and jot down everything you can decipher from the subtitles. This really helps me in Turkey and Holland.

Don't worry about dialects. If that is what the locals speak, that's what you will learn. Everybody in Romania is charmed when my Japanese girlfriend speaks Romanian with a hard core northern mountaineer accent. She learned it... in the northern mountains...
posted by zaelic at 11:24 AM on March 21, 2006

Oops on double negative on second paragraph: I wouldn't enjoy anything with a formal programme, or theoretical classes, or anything like this.

As for couchsurfing, I was under the impression that, in general, people that offer their couches have dayjobs/school, so wouldn't be available to slack around...

On beginner to fluent: Ok, not beginner in the "know basic grammar and some words" sense, but in the "grammar psycho who knows and/or is interested in the most bizarre rules of the language, has read a couple of books (novels, poetry, etc), and just never had a conversation, so is very bad at forming coherent phrases". And Brazilian Portuguese is quite close to Italian (grammar and vocabulary-wise), so, it's easier. Fluent is fluent with an accent which can make natives' ears bleed, but speaking grammatically correct phrases.
posted by qvantamon at 11:37 AM on March 21, 2006

Where are you planning to travel, roughly? Some places are more gleefully monolingual (Italy, Spain, Hungary) others much less so (Holland, Portugal, Serbia.)
posted by zaelic at 12:33 PM on March 21, 2006

Before I flew to Europe in 2000, I picked up an old (1950's) German grammar book at a used book store, purely on a lark. I read it on the plane, on trains, and whenever I had down time.

When I arrived in Austria a few months later, I could say a few things very poorly in German. I ended up finding a job in Austria, and am still here (and fluent, although far from perfect). However, if you want to learn German, Germany's a better place to do it. I've found that the Austrians tend to be much more likely to speak English than the Germans. I got stuck helping my friends and coworkers improve their English while my German improved at what felt like a snail's pace. Today, most Austrians I meet guess that I'm from Holland because of my facility with their language and the absence of a stereotypical US-American accent. I often have to pull out a driver's license to prove to people that I'm from Texas.

Watching TV in the local language helps with conprehension.

When I'm backpacking, I usually pick up a book about the local language where I'll be travelling and study it during down time. Also, brush up on any foreign languages you already speak before you travel. In my experience, the more languages one already knows, the more easily one will learn a new language (lots of things to compare to and similarities to be found).

I would imagine that Croatia, Serbia, Italy, Spain, Germany and France are good places to learn the native languages in Europe, as people in those countries seem (in my experience) to be less likely to speak English than in Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Holland, Slovenia and Scandinavia. The more locals who speak English, the harder it's going to be to pick up the local language.
posted by syzygy at 12:52 PM on March 21, 2006

You might want to make friends with the people who *work* in the hostels. They're more likely to have native friends (or be natives themselves).

I also use to go to weekday church services in Italy. It was a great way to see the churches from a non-touristy standpoint, and they provide you with the written call-and-response so that you can practice your language (and read along with what the priest is saying). It was a nice low-pressure way to work on my accent and comprehension.
posted by occhiblu at 1:03 PM on March 21, 2006

zaelic:
France and Germany, basically.
posted by qvantamon at 1:04 PM on March 21, 2006

Work on French - outside of Paris if possible. The French always prefer to speak French, making using it easy even if you speak cave-man French. They can be affectingly pedantic about their language, so the trick of getting bar patrons to run you through the verb changes works well. In the countryside, they may even find you tres amusant.

Germans... either they will speak primitive Euro-English to you or ignore you.

Either way, don't worry about dialects.
posted by zaelic at 1:39 PM on March 21, 2006

You can also do what I did about 10 years ago in Denmark and offer to volunteer in the hostels themselves. I wrote an e-mail to the staff at a hostel in Denmark and asked to volunteer there for a few months. Once there, I just worked with all the Danes in the hostel and spoke Danish all day long. It was precisely the right solution for me, plus I ended up getting free housing while I worked there.

And if your goal is fluency, read the newspaper and watch television in the target language while you're there. It helped me enormously.
posted by yellowcandy at 2:11 PM on March 21, 2006

I've heard that the best thing an adult can do to learn a new language is hang out in a bar, drink moderately, and engage in discussions.

Drinking lowers you inhibitions, which is important, because in order to learn a language, you have to make a lot of mistakes.
posted by Good Brain at 3:41 PM on March 21, 2006

Dialects in France? There aren't any. There are some accents, none of which is at all a big deal.
posted by Wolof at 8:54 PM on March 21, 2006

Having had a good spanish language learning experience and a bad french learning experience, let me tell you what worked for me.

(1) Watch TV in that language.

(2) Live outside major cities - whether to suburbs of a big city or small town, might not seem as glamorous, but you will talk more.

(3) Do a sport if you are decent at anything. You make friends and language is pretty basic. And if you aren't super friendly, not a real big deal.

(4) Get a "long haired dictionary".
posted by BigBrownBear at 7:18 AM on March 22, 2006