Language Learning: From Conversational To Fluent

Posted on 30. Jul, 2009 by Emmanuelle Archer in Blog, Expat Life, Relocation, Tools & Resources
1 comment

Congratulations! You’ve been studying diligently, and your language skills have tremendously improved. You can understand and be understood, hold a conversation, and go about most of your daily tasks without having to use English.

That’s already a pretty impressive achievement, and depending on your situation, this may be all you need to master. But if your goal is to become fluent, here are some tips that will help you get there faster:

Keep looking for opportunities to learn and practice

- Make sure to spend time with native speakers, not just expats – this is particularly important if you speak English at home with your family or roommates
- Get your news and entertainment (TV shows, magazines, movies) in the local language
- If you need a form or pamphlet, always pick up one in the local language, even if English is also available

Ask people to correct you

- Let your friends and co-workers know that you would welcome their corrections
- Remind them often that yes, it is OK to correct your mistakes! They may fear offending you, or be reluctant to interrupt the conversation to correct you. So give them a little reminder every now and then
- To make everyone’s life easier, you may want to ask people to focus on one point in particular – like a grammar rule that you can never get right. I ask my friends to point out my pronunciation mistakes, as I still trip over certain words

Learn more advanced vocabulary

- Read literary works or more technical pieces (many classics are available in a bilingual edition if you would like to follow along with the translation)
- Study the vocabulary used in the media – this is a great way to pick up idioms
- When you lean a new word, pay attention to the context – is it more casual or formal? Is the word associated with a particular field, such as politics or sports? What are other words that convey a similar meaning, but with different nuances?

You can get many more expat tips delivered right to your inbox by signing up for the newsletter. It goes without saying that you can unsubscribe whenever you want and that I will not do anything funny with your email address!

Emmanuelle

Images by Daffydil (top) and nicolacassa (bottom), both via Flickr Creative Commons