But I tried harder at Vietnamese, phrase book and listening and listening to
material for a few weeks and stuff, but still in Vietnam, it was unusable.
Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here.
Today I want to talk about language, immersion and travel and how
that affects language learning.
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Uh, also I decided today, you know, I always have my door closed and people
are interested in my book collection.
And sometimes in behind I also have my CD collection, uh, which no longer is
relevant because you can download so much audio content from the internet, but there
was a period when I would be, you know, I'd go to Riga, Latvia to buy Russian CDs.
I would buy Swedish CDs in Sweden and Chinese CDsinn Beijing and,
and, and Czech CDs in Prague.
Uh, whenever I traveled, one of my goals was to stock up on books or, or CDs that
weren't available at home so that I can then go and listen and read and I'd have,
you know, available reading material that was also available in audio format.
All of that has changed now because we can get digital content, uh, to read, import
into LingQ, uh, look up words and phrases and we can get the audio content, which
we can download and we can merge with it.
So there's so many more ways to get that contact with the language, but
getting back to my door being open, uh, sometimes people comment on my books.
I just wanted to show you that there are bookshelves in the
next sort of area, corridor area.
There's a guest bedroom over there that's got more books.
Downstairs there are four more bookshelves with books on various subjects.
So books are a big part of my life.
Always have been.
I enjoy going back and discovering old friends and books are also a part of,
sort of immersing myself in the language.
I also do read in English, but if I'm reading in a foreign language, I've
always found that reading a book is just, it's just getting that language in you.
It's just immersing yourself in the language and, and,
uh, audio books do that.
And books that we read do that because actually to improve in the
language, you just have to get it in.
You expose yourself to it.
Now, obviously a great way to immerse yourself in the language is to go to
the country where the language, or to a country where the language is spoken.
And how does that best work?
Well, my experience has been that to take full advantage of doing that
you have to have a certain level.
I would almost say like a B1 on the European scale.
You have to have put in at least six, three to six months with the language so
that you can take advantage of being in the country where the language is spoken.
So you can actually immerse yourself in that.
So let's take the example of a, of a country where, uh, you know,
I visited and had no language preparation let's say or minimal.
So that would be say in my recent travels, Myanmar and Vietnam.
So I tried, I bought a little book on learning Burmese and
I had essentially nothing.
Uh, and, and I came away with the, uh, gosh, I can't even remember
it, uh, the word for thank you and hello, but that was about it.
But I tried harder and Vietnamese phrase, book and listening and listening to
material for a few weeks and stuff, but still in Vietnam, it was unusable.
Uh, I could use my phone to dictate something in English and out comes the
Vietnamese and show it to the person.
But essentially it was not enough.
And so being in Vietnam, listening to Vietnamese on television or being
surrounded by people speaking Vietnamese essentially did nothing for me.
I would have been better off staying at home and listening to material
for which I had some texts, maybe beginner material, even phrasebooks
hearing them over and over again in sort of a concentrated fashion.
Being in the country, it didn't do anything for me.
Okay.
Now let's step up a bit and let's go for example...
no, and I could add to that, uh, Israel, when I visited Israel, I had even put more
effort into my Hebrew and it was hopeless.
I just wasn't at a level where I could use it or take advantage
of the Hebrew around me.
And in Israel you can speak...
if it, if it isn't Russian, first of all, English, and if they don't
speak English, they'll speak Russian.
And in some cases they speak French.
So there was no need to use it.
It only became a problem when I was trying to get my car out of a parking
garage and all the instructions were only in Hebrew and I was lost.
I had to ask someone, but not in Hebrew, I have to ask them in
English or Russian or something.
So that was, uh, and then of course from Israel, I went into Jordan where
again, I didn't have Arabic, but if I went there now I would be better off.
I could perhaps take advantage, even though I learned standard Arabic,
I would be picking up on some things from their I guess Jordan,
Jordanian or Leventine Arabic.
So that's better, uh, before going to Romania and before going to
Greece, I put quite a bit of time.
Uh, Romanian of course, was a lot easier than Greek because Romanian
is written with a Latin alphabet.
Romanian is 70% identifiable, very similar to other romance
languages in particular, Italian, uh, has some 20% Slavic type words.
Uh, so it's a lot easier.
So two months of Romanian was, you know, helped me a lot and I
was able to organize in Romania.
First of all, I met with, we do business in Romania, so I met
with people there who didn't...
some would either humor me in Romanian cause they thought it was
kinda strange that, uh, you know, a Canadian was learning Romanian and
they were very kind and humor me.
Or...
I rented a car and for five Euro a day in Romania, when I went there three,
four years ago, uh, you got a driver.
So I, I didn't want to be driving in Romanian and run into a horse
drawn cart or something and had a driver for five Euro a day.
For five Euro a day, I had a driver, a guide and a teacher.
So we spoke Romanian for five, six hours a day.
As I drove around the countryside.
That was wonderful.
In Greece, in Crete, which is where we were.
I had enough Greek that I could actually speak to people.
I could speak to people in restaurants, not a lot.
I couldn't engage in profound conversations, but I was able to kind
of take advantage of being there.
But it wasn't, I wouldn't say that my Greek improved tremendously,
uh, just by being there because I didn't have enough of it.
And Greek is more difficult because there are fewer, you know,
recognizable cognates if you want.
So it wasn't enough to really immerse myself to really take advantage.
Now let's go to some other languages where I have combined learning
with then going to the country.
So, uh, Czech, I spend a lot of time with Czech.
Czech was, you know, I did Czech after Russian.
Oh, I did go to Russia after my, you know, exposure to Russian.
I went to Russia and I had, uh, LingQ members there that I met up with in St.
Petersburg and in Moscow.
And I communicated with, I stayed in these converted communal flats.
And so I communicated with, with, uh, the lady, you know, the heavyset
lady that ran the places, both in St.
Petersburg and in Moscow.
Uh, and so I was using it and I was operating and, and I remember going to St.
Petersburg train station to, to buy a ticket, to go to where I had a LingQ
member that I was going to meet up with.
And, and again, buying a ticket, I know how to ask to buy a ticket.
I know how to, I knew how to tell her where I wanted to go, but of course she
said something that I hadn't anticipated.
So I was kind of thrown by that, but eventually I was able to get
across what it is that I wanted and I got my ticket and that was good.
So those 12 days in Russia helped my Russian.
So after Russian was Czech.
So I worked on my Czech.
I did a lot of listening...
and other great material on...
And then I had a tutor online.
In fact, I had two online tutors and I deliberately set up with
them that every day, first thing in the morning, I jumped on a tram.
I went to see the one tutor, Andre.
And we were the, I spoke for an hour and then I had another tutor in the afternoon.
So that gave me sort of additional...
because you can't just approach random people.
I do that.
I did that.
I sat in the restaurant, there was these two middle-aged ladies and I
kind of struck up a conversation, but if there's a limit to how much of that
you can do, I also have some friends that I could meet up with in Prague.
So I kind of had between them, my two tutors and being a little brazen about
speaking to people, I did create some speaking opportunities and of course I
could read the newspaper and I could, uh, if I'm listening or watching television, I
would have enough Czech to take advantage of that as an immersion environment.
Uh, so that was Prague.
I set that up, uh, when I went to, uh, Leviev I had an online
tutor and I set it up with her.
That, uh, we would meet every morning.
So this is actually a phenomenal thing to do.
If you can do it in any city that you want to meet or visit, and...
I was an excellent tutor.
And so she would meet me first thing in the morning for coffee
at nine o'clock at this cafe.
And they, uh, the square there, uh, And then we go to her, we'd go to a
church or a cathedral, or if, you know, there was a famous historical cemetery
or whatever it is, we visited for five days, three hours in the morning, three
hours in the afternoon, she had her iPhone or Android, whatever she had, and
she would write down all of the words and phrases that I had trouble with.
I'd go back to my little room at night.
And I'd get her email, which I would import into LingQ and I would study
those words and phrases and we'd go back out again in the afternoon.
And I did that for five days.
So I had a guide and a teacher, and not only a teacher, but a person who
was giving me the words and phrases that I struggled with so that I
could then learn them again on LingQ.
And I think I can imagine, you know, I tried to do that when I went to Kiev.
I couldn't find anyone, but if you can have a guide like that, who was
also a language teacher, I think that's another great way to, you
know, make that immersion opportunity in the country even more effective.
And then the second time I went to Ukraine, uh, I have people
that I was meeting both in Eastern Ukraine and Western Ukraine.
So I was in situations where I was speaking Russian and Ukrainian a lot.
So again, there, because there were people in place that were gonna
help make that immersion experience, you know, genuinely valuable.
And, and I think I often hear people say, well, you know, I went to Germany
and people only spoke to me in English.
And of course, this is going to depend on which country you go to.
In Romania that's less of a problem.
Although the English level is not bad there, but if you go to Germany or
Holland, a lot of people speak English.
So you have to have a fairly strong level in the language.
Otherwise people are not necessarily going to humor you.
People don't want to be your language teacher.
They have things to do.
If you go into a store and they sense that you don't communicate
very well in Dutch or German, they will speak to you in English.
Most people, some people may humour you, but you kind of expect it.
So I've always taken the approach that if I traveled to a country, just, just
to summarize this sort of rant here, uh, I should mention to be realistic
about how much you're going to benefit.
If you don't have a sufficient level in the language, even if you have
a sufficient level, it's worthwhile trying to set up people you can talk to.
Uh, and as, as I did in, in Lviv and someone said, by the way, as a comment
on one of my YouTube videos where I was not so positive on language schools,
and this person said, well, you were very positive about your experience
at the Lviv language and cultural centers, language school in Lviv.
And of course I was because...
accommodated my way of life.
I don't think I would have been as happy just sitting in a
classroom for six hours a day.
So we got to make sure that we structure that time in the say
theoretically, the immersion environment in a way that works for you.
So for some people it might mean going to a school.
Because you'll meet people and the teachers will certainly speak to
you in the target language and maybe some of the other learners will.
So that's also a matter of how you structure it for yourself, but there
has to be some planning put into it.
You can't just go there and assume that by being in the country, you're going
to come away, uh, fluent in the language that has certainly not been my experience.
So I hope that's useful on this whole subject of immersion and traveling to
the country where the language is spoken.