Name: How to become fluent: Do you need to move to another country?
Uploaded: 2018-04-07T03:03:07.000Z
Duration: 8 min 13 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Do you live in the country that speaks the
language you're trying to learn?

And if not, do you think it's hindering you
from learning that language?

It's Saturday again and I wanted to share
some of my personal language learning experiences

with you guys that has to do with living in
the country and learning the language in that

country versus learning the language here
in the United States.

A lot of people have told me that in order
to learn a language have to move to that country

where they speak the language, and you have
to be immersed in the language and then you're

just gonna learn it, and it's just gonna come
to you and supposedly that's the only way

Well I'm here to tell you guys today that
this is not true.

You can learn a language no matter what country
you live in, and moving to the country that

speaks that language is definitely not a guarantee
for learning that language.

And I'm telling you guys this from personal
experience because in the year 2012 I lived

in country called Djibouti which is a very
tiny country in Africa that speaks Arabic

Back then I was younger and I was stupid and
I just didn't have any interest in learning

I sort of had a little bit of an interest
in learning Spanish when I was in high school,

and I had taken a few classes and didn't really
try that hard and didn't really learn a lot

but as far as learning French or Arabic I
had no interest in it, and I just thought

it was useless I thought "When am I ever going
to use this skill?"

It's not worth my investment so I put no effort
into learning French while I was in the country

I could've learned a lot during that time
but I didn't.

I basically avoided contact with the natives
that lived in the area that didn't speak English

and the majority of the signs and everything
that were in the country were in French and

English so I basically have no motivation
for learning French.

I just sluffed it off and it wasn't something
that I was interested in.

And after spending six months in the country
that speaks French, I left the country without

I had been surrounded by French speakers every
day I had seen signs and all kinds of stuff

they were in French and I had every opportunity
to be exposed to language and I learned nothing.

Fast forward a few years from there, I am
now back in the United States in the state

of Wisconsin and this was during the summer
and I just decided out of the blue that I

I guess I was a little smarter and wiser and
I just realized that learning languages is

a valuable life skill and so I decided I was
gonna do it.

I didn't move to a French speaking country.

I stayed right here in Wisconsin and I used
Duolingo.

Several apps and stuff, and I found friends
online that speak French.

I know maybe two people here in the United
States that are fluent in French and I didn't

I found people online that are living in France,
living in Canada, living in Haiti, people

I started speaking with them and I just made
friends online.

I found on Interpals, on shared lingo and
Duolingo.

I made friends on Facebook, and on Instagram,
and I started chatting with these people in

I barely knew anything, like I said, I didn't
learn anything in the six months that I lived

But then when I started learning and I got
motivated for my own personal benefit to start

learning French, that's when it all started
to sink in.

I immersed myself in the French language here
in the United States.

So I made a rule for myself that I was never
gonna listen to English music.

When I was in the car it was always French
music.

It wasn't Spanish music, it wasn't Esperanto,
it was French.

So every time I'm in the car I'm immersing
myself in French and I'm getting exposure

to the French language and whenever I would
watch movies, preferably I would watch the

movies with the French dub or if I was watching
with other people I would just ask, can we

at least put the French subtitles on so I'm
getting exposure to French language through

I changed my Facebook to French I changed
the language of my computer to French, I changed

my phone to French, I wrote notes to myself
on my calendar in French, I got a bunch of

little sticky note and put them all around
my house and I wrote French words on the objects

that I was sticking them to so that way I
can learn the French words in context when

I'm using those objects and I would pronounce
them when I was using those objects that would

give me a little bit of a pronunciation practice
too.

So here I was in the United States, learning
French by myself, immersed in the French language

because I had built this French bubble all
around me and everything that I was doing

And even though I was in the United States
and no longer in the country that actually

spoke French I learned way more here in the
United States in my own little French immersion

program that I had created for myself here
than I ever did in the country that spoke

French when I was surrounded by native French
speakers and signs in French and all kinds

of french things in that country, but I didn't
put any effort into learning it, so all that

Now, I'm not gonna make the claim that moving
to the country is useless for your language

I mean obviously that makes it really easy
to submit yourself submerge yourself and immerse

yourself in the language if that's what you're
gonna do, and if you're motivated and dedicated

But if you're not, if you're like me, and
you don't put in the effort to learning the

language then it's gonna do you no good whatsoever.

And if you stay in the country that you grew
up in, it's still not possible to create yourself

and immersion environment in that country
because it all comes down to motivation and

Are you willing to put in the time effort
and energy to learn that language?

Are you willing to make sacrifices like giving
up all your English music or changing your

phone and your Facebook to friends or to whatever
language you're learning?

If you're willing to make these kind of sacrifices,
then you have an immersion environment and

you're gonna be learning that language a lot
faster than if you're just in the other country