One of the many joys and struggles of traveling lies in learning languages while on the road. Whether you’re just picking up a few phrases to help you get by or aiming towards fluency, keeping up with your studies while traveling can be a daunting task. This week, I’m sharing my own experiences with taking on a new language while abroad and looking deeper into what it takes to become a polyglot.
Learning languages has been a personal challenge for me throughout my adult life. Aside from a mediocre performance in High School Spanish class, my first pass at mastering a foreign language happened in Asia, shortly after graduating college. I spent four years of my life in rural Japan, studying flashcards, reading children’s books at my grammar level, and politely shunning every English speaker I encountered—almost successfully. I surrounded myself with genuine friends who couldn’t give a damn about English and just wanted to surf with me and hang out.
On top of building these genuine relationships, I studied intensively throughout the day. Many methods didn’t work at first, leading to a year of frustration, self sabotage, and feelings of throwing in the towel and returning to California defeated. Fortunately, every time my unhealthy obsessiveness and imposter syndrome got the best of me, a friend would knock on my door and drag me to another dinner party or surf session where I would either have to use my broken Japanese or not communicate at all. Thankfully, I progressed really quickly using this leave-your-comfort-zone approach. My lifestyle developed around Japanese. It was almost total immersion, and it worked.
The Necessity of Routines
Last year I picked up a new language, Spanish. And again, I’m taking on full immersion after moving to Latin America. I’m sure many people who travel wonder the same thing. How do I keep up with language learning while traveling? I’m a creature of habit and I need to make and complete to-do-lists in order for my Capricorn noggin to function, especially with all the distractions of a new environment. My morning tasks include a 30-minute session on Duolingo, 30 minutes reading literary classics in Spanish with the help of an app called EWA, online news articles, podcasts at normal speed, and two Spanish classes a week. Fortunately, I enjoy the busy work and knocking these tasks off makes my brain fill with endorphins, allowing me to absorb the material effectively.
PC: Samantha Demangate
Even with my daily Spanish studies, I must stay up to date with my Japanese. To do so, I read two long Japanese magazine articles a day, journal in Japanese, and have weekly language conversation exchanges with a friend in Okinawa. Naturally, I enjoy mixing the languages of the media I consume. Movies and documentaries like Netflix’s Midnight Diner and Taco Chronicles become evening TV binges.
I also listen to lots of music in both languages; hip hop, to be specific. Every time I’m on a bus or a long taxi ride, I play artists like K Dub Shine, Vico-C, DJ Krush, Canserbero, etc. I get swept away by the prose and stories, the attitude and wit, and the old-school beats driving each song. I even go so far as learning Japanese and Spanish songs on guitar to perform for my girlfriend, poorly serenading her with Manu Chao and Tsunekichi Suzuki until she nicely asks me to stop. My methods are my methods and won’t work for everyone. What makes me so attached to them is that I actually enjoy every single one and can’t imagine my day without them.
The Research Says, Have fun!
Recently, I checked out the TED Talk presented by Lydia Machova called: The Secrets of Learning a New Language. According to Lydia, there’s a correlation between language learning and having fun with the process. Every polyglot has their own method that they love every moment of. After watching it, I realized that every person I know who has successfully learned a foreign language has a method they love the most. The key principles according to Lydia are enjoyment, methods that work for you, creating a learning system, and by having patience. I know from experience that you don’t have to be intelligent to master a language, you just have to enjoy the process and have a bit of discipline.
Language acquisition should be fun. It should also be a part of your life and something you look forward to. In the past I dabbled in Indonesian and Thai. I spent a lot of time in those countries and tried my best to order food, greet my neighbors, and introduce myself. I was actually doing fairly well, yet after returning home, my motivation dwindled and studying became an unwanted chore, especially because I still had to keep up with Japanese. Not only did I lose the fun of learning these languages, I bit off more than I could chew. According to many linguists, learning one language at a time and enjoying the language you are learning is fundamental. Unfortunately, I had to learn this the hard way.
Currently, I’m in Mexico, one of the planet’s hotspots for language diversity. Walking on the streets, I hear Mayan, Nahuatl, Spanish, and other native languages being spoken casually. I feel inspired to use Spanish every day, in every situation, no matter how confused I am.
What’s more is I love checking in with friends who are taking on foreign languages themselves. Some are polyglots and others are chipping away at their first foreign language. We share our successes and failures openly and discuss our goals, methods, and inhibitions. Nothing makes me happier than hearing about someone’s victories, and every time a friend or I get closer to achieving fluency, the more palpable and contagious our studious energy gets.
My goal this year is to master Spanish as I did Japanese and then on to a new challenge, most likely Portuguese. I’m now living in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Here, I’m surrounded by Spanish and I use it every day. Emersion, routine, and having fun are my daily tasks and so far these methods are working well.
If you like this article, check out https://www.ted.com/talks/lydia_machova_the_secrets_of_learning_a_new_language?language=en