Is it worth learning a language abroad?

Updated: Jul 29, 2023

Photo by Guilherme Stecanella on Unsplash

By Federica Lupis, https://www.federicalupis.com/

Author of "Fluent On The First Try" and "Why You're Not Fluent and How To Fix It"

Language trainer, interpreter and translator.

During my fourth year of high school, I was offered the opportunity to join an internship in Bourbon Lancy, France.

The moment my parents gave me the green light to go, I was over the moon. At the time, I had limited speaking skills in French and was convinced that going abroad was what I needed to become fluent.

The first week in France was far from what I had imagined. At work, I sat at the computer all day, preparing the advertisement for Bourbon Lancy’s thermal baths. At home, I spoke Italian with my classmates with whom I shared the house.

I thought the internship was a total disaster and I was disappointed that, while working for the thermal baths, I didn’t even have a chance to try them! – as if it were a condition to accept the job…

My experience made me question the point of learning a language abroad. If working with a foreign language didn’t help, I thought language courses would be even less useful.

Obviously, I was wrong. With a few tweaks, my internship turned out to be very productive and taught me a lesson that influenced the way I approach and teach foreign languages.

Today, we’ll see how you can make the most of learning a language abroad.

The more you use the foreign language, the better.

It may seem obvious, but the first thing to do if you want to learn a foreign language abroad is to minimise the use of your own language.

For example, if you decide to enrol in a language course in another country, it is important that you speak to everyone in the language you are learning, including your classmates or the people you share your accommodation with.

In my case, after a week complaining about the internship, I decided to take things into my own hands. I realised that by speaking Italian, I was wasting an opportunity, so I asked my classmates if they were happy to speak French among us. Some of them accepted, and even though we didn’t speak French all the time, we learned a lot of vocabulary and got better at conversation.

Hang out with the locals

When we go abroad, we tend to stick with people from our country. Whether we signed up for a language course, are doing an internship or moved abroad, speaking our native language makes us feel safe and in control.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t help with our progress. When we learn a language in a foreign country, we need to cut ties with familiar things and get out there.

Hanging out with the locals can be as easy as going to a cafe or library by yourself. Ask for the best cake on the menu or the latest books, and I’m sure this will be the perfect start to a conversation in the foreign language.

If you’re more adventurous, you can visit Meetup.com and meet the locals in your area. This platform was created to allow people with the same interests, hobbies, and professions to get together. Wouldn’t it be great to discuss something you are passionate about in a foreign language?

Be realistic

Before leaving for my internship in France, I thought that after a week of work, I would speak flawless French. The reality was that when I went back home, I had improved, but I wasn’t fluent.

The fact that I started speaking French at home, realised that I was allowed to talk to my French colleagues in between jobs, and started hanging out with the locals definitively helped me improve, but not as much as I was expecting.

An experience abroad is sometimes a disappointment because we expect too much of ourselves or believe the urban legend that it is possible to become fluent in a month.

Setting small goals will help us enjoy learning a language abroad, and if we achieve more than we expected, so be it!

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To sum up, if you decide to learn a language abroad:

Use the foreign language as much as possible, including with your classmates or the people you share your accommodation with.
Hang out with the locals to reduce the chances of using your language and make more progress in a foreign language.
Be realistic about the outcome of your experience. Small goals are the way to go.

Thanks for reading!

I’ll catch you all next month.

If you enjoyed my article, you can discover my tried and tested language learning strategies in my books: