Why a foreign language environment does not guarantee language acquisition

Immersion in a foreign language environment is often perceived as a necessary and sufficient condition for mastering a new language. It is believed that regular communication with native speakers will inevitably lead to excellent results. Inna Dulkina, a freelance writer for ForbesLife and Forbes Education, explained why this is not the case in her column for ForbesBelow we present the text in the first person.

Photo: Kiosea39 | Dreamstime.com

Experience shows that even years of living abroad do not guarantee either understanding the speech of foreigners or confident use of the language in everyday and professional communication.

I was lucky: my first contact with a foreign language environment occurred when I was fully prepared for it. I was in the ninth grade of a French special school, and our class went to France for the first time. I remember the feeling of joyful surprise: I understood everything that Eva, my peer, with whose family I live, told me. I had no difficulty in holding a conversation with her and her parents. The same was true for the other kids in our class: we had no difficulty expressing our thoughts or understanding. True, before that, for nine years we had been figuring out which models to use to talk about holidays, reading about the misadventures of Jean Valjean, and learning La Fontaine's fables. We were ready to go into space.

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The second contact with the environment was much less successful. When, after two years of English courses, I found myself in an international camp, I discovered that I only roughly understood my peers from Great Britain and Turkey, and there was no talk of participating in a conversation on an equal footing. After some time, I found myself in a Spanish-speaking country with the intention of spending several years there. Like many, I hoped that Spanish would simply stick to me like a tan. But, unfortunately, this never happened.

Perhaps this is the most ingrained of all the myths about learning foreign languages: we like to think that the language environment is a lake with magical water. It is enough to spend some time there for the language to be absorbed into our body and become a part of us. But if the environment really had these miraculous properties, we would not meet people who have lived in other countries for many years but still have not learned to speak the local dialect.

There are many such examples. My friend Lisa is married to a German and lives in Germany. She speaks English very well and works in an English-speaking company. Lisa speaks this language with her husband. And German is extremely difficult for her. She can explain herself in a cafe and a store, but it is very difficult for her to understand what her colleagues are talking about when they switch to German. Although she hears their conversations every day.

My good friend Pavel has been working as a hairdresser in Spain for several years now: he understands what kind of haircut his client wants at a glance, but it is not so easy for him to have a casual conversation with her about grandchildren, the weather and ever-increasing prices. Although he has the opportunity to practice Spanish every day, unfamiliar words remain unfamiliar, and it is not easy to pick them out in the flow of speech.

Unfortunately, Pavel, like Lisa, does not have the opportunity to take lessons and study how the language is structured from the inside. Therefore, there is no progress. The environment can serve as a wonderful addition to classes - a testing ground where you will hone your newly acquired skills. But simply being in it will not replace systematic study of the language. Moreover, the environment can become a source of stress and, on the contrary, destroy any desire to speak it. How to behave in the environment so that it helps, and does not interfere with mastering a new dialect?

How language works

First of all, it is necessary to recognize that language is not a set of stable expressions that are enough to learn. It is a complex and not always logically designed mechanism. Imagine a spaceship controlled by many astronauts who are forced to constantly repair it in flight. To join their team, ideally you should undergo training on Earth. But people are often deprived of this opportunity. They cannot spin in a centrifuge for years getting used to weightlessness and walk along the bottom of a pool in a hundred-kilogram spacesuit. Most often, they have to understand the structure of the aircraft directly on board. Once among them, first you carefully observe the work of the astronauts, then try to repeat simple operations, having mastered which, you move on to more complex ones.

Of course, you can pick out the necessary parts yourself, but things will go much faster if one of the experts explains to you what's what. This ship is a language that consists of many thousands of parts - words. They are combined according to whimsical rules set out in long instructions. Some of them have survived since the time of the first aeronauts, others have changed significantly during the flight. Deducing them independently from simple observations, trying to reproduce them by repetition is not completely impossible, but long and difficult. And there is a great chance of interpreting what you heard incorrectly.

To understand the 12 tenses of English (and all of them are used in speech, no matter what anyone says) or the system of French personal pronouns simply by listening to native speakers and repeating after them is a truly titanic task. Probably, someone managed to do it, but such people are few.

What can the environment give?

Most likely, simply being in the environment and not studying the language, you will master the most basic operations, that is, learn to use the most common words and expressions. You will be able to order lunch in a restaurant and ask for the bill, explain yourself to the butcher and the baker. Using a dictionary, you will tell the doctor what hurts you. And working in a foreign-language team, you will certainly learn expressions directly related to work. But talking about how you spent the weekend, if you were not specifically interested in what lexical and grammatical arsenal you will need for this, will be much more difficult.

It's a different matter when you take lessons and simultaneously practice the language in an environment - in this case, you can progress in learning it faster and more noticeably. Keep in mind: a teacher can be either a specially trained person with a diploma, or a close friend or a friendly colleague. It is important that he patiently listens to your still far from perfect language, has a conversation with you and, ideally, corrects mistakes.

Use the environment as a training ground: exchange more remarks with your usual interlocutors. Ask the greengrocer where the tomatoes are from and when dill will appear in his shop; when talking to the barista, praise the coffee; when you find yourself in the elevator with your neighbors, complain about the weather and express admiration for their dog. Master new territory gradually and record each act of successful communication as an asset.

But here too, the environment must be handled with care. Don't expect that simply coming into contact with it will magically "unlock" your language and you will simply begin to understand everything that previously eluded you. Most likely, by regularly applying what you have learned in practice, you will begin to construct meaning from context, guessing rather than understanding what is said - which is a valuable skill in itself.

But while your level is low, there is still a risk of misinterpreting what this lady in line wants from you, or why the vet thinks your cat is losing weight. It is important not to despair. After all, the myth of the omnipotence of the environment gives rise to inflated expectations. It would seem that you have been here for years - and still these locals sometimes come up with such things! Do not forget that your interlocutor has been familiar with the structure of the ship you are sailing on since childhood. He is at home here. You are getting used to it on board gradually, and each new compartment is not like the previous one. The more persistently you advance in exploring this device, the better you will begin to understand what these nice ladies in line to the dentist are talking about, and the more benefit you will be able to extract from being in the environment.

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