Problems practicing your target language

This is a video to answer a point raised on the LingQ website in response to the interview I did with Luca. The person could not seem to understand why anyone would want to speak to me in anything but English, as I am a native English speaker. In this video I try to address this and give my experience on the matter. :)

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• LingQ
• forum
• english
• gringo
• native
• speaker
• foreign
• language
• languages
• practice
• country
• speaking
• refuse
• refusing
• polyglot
• hyperpolyglot
• richard
• simcott

[calumgolspie1]

Hello from the Highlands of Scotland. Your videos are a true insperation. You say in some of your videos that you spoke Swedish in relation to your work. Just out of curiostry what line of work are/were you in and have you spoke any other languages to do with work? Thanks.

[maximepaquin1]

Nobody says "gringo" in Europe.

[cek128]

lol i think gringo is an overall saying for all white people : ).........and i think Liface has a point when you have to imitate the accent in order for them to feel comfortable....i struggle with the english accent for a couple of years and now i'm better at it..people feels more comfortable BUT people will still talk to you in english to help you out...and because they feel more comfortable to speak english than your native language since most of them dont know it. : )

[Liface]

Guys, it's all about your accent and your mannerisms! If you want people to reply to you in their language, you need to imitate their accent, their mannerisms, and the little words and fillers they use.

This will make people SO much more comfortable speaking to you in their language, because it makes you more like one of "them". I've traveled in France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany using this technique without any problems.

[MrScotchpie]

@yallkn0w

Why not post some YouTube videos of yourself speaking the language you are learning? I posted my first video in Dutch last week. Granted I've only been learning for two months and probably making lots of mistakes, but even so, I have found making the video very liberating. I feel I am no longer learning the language but using it too.

I'm planning more videos where I speak Dutch, as well as videos in Japanese which I am also learning.

[MrScotchpie]

I agree with the Dutch attitude to speaking Dutch versus speaking English to foreigners.

When I visited Amsterdam last year if I began a conversation in Dutch, no matter how "phrasebook" my ability was/is, they responded in Dutch. Only when I began in English, or was really struggling to express myself in Dutch, did they convert to English, or asked if I preferred to speak in English.

[yallkn0w]

Interesting piece of advice, curiously though how does one go from learning the language and wanting to advance their skills but feels hindered by the fact that they probably don't speak or write enough of the target language to communicate efficiently with native speakers for the target language, so you're either communicating in english all the time.

[Imyirtshashem]

I finally found someone to speak Dutch with after 2 1/2 years of studying! It's amazing, hey? This is a possible problem for those of us who can't go traveling, for whatever reason. Hopefully, I'll be able to overcome my limitation or work within them and eventually go over to those countries speaking the languages I'm learning. In the meantime, I'll work and enjoy the languages I love so much! :)

[xalesd2]

@igorcism If you'll get to a point where you make very little grammar errors then probably your pronounciation will be close to native, of course if you'll put enough effort. Just listen a lot, and the most important: focus on one accent. Decide right away which accent you want to imitate and don't change your decision, that will be a big help.

[xalesd2]

@igorcism Noone's gonna answer that question but yourself. It's all up to you, go ahead and start now! :) The only advice I would give to you is to NOT study more than 2 languages from one family, you'd end up code-switching a lot. Speaking with no accent is very hard to achieve, my advice would be don't care about sounding like a native because other things, like using wrong tenses or translating things literally will betray you anyway.