Avoid get­ting tongue-tied dur­ing you next trip abroad

When I first set foot in Ukraine to begin my ser­vice as a Peace Corps Vol­un­teer, I spoke zero Ukrain­ian or Russ­ian, the country’s two dom­i­nant lan­guages.  When I arrived at my host family’s tiny apart­ment to begin my three month home-stay while in train­ing, the only way I could com­mu­ni­cate with them was through hand ges­tures and facial expres­sions, as they spoke no English.

The months that fol­lowed, dur­ing which I went from com­plete igno­rance of Ukrain­ian to near con­ver­sa­tional flu­ency in six months, were some of the most reward­ing and exhil­a­rat­ing of my life.  The sense of accom­plish­ment I felt in becom­ing com­fort­able in a lan­guage that ini­tially seemed so bizarre and con­vo­luted allowed me to con­fi­dently inter­act with Ukraini­ans, to under­stand their world views, and to relate to them in a way pos­si­ble to very few out­siders. If you are look­ing for some­thing excit­ing, stim­u­lat­ing, and reward­ing to add to your life, it’s time to start lan­guage study.

Learn What You Need and Ignore the Rest

Lan­guage is what we use to express our thoughts and ideas, and our use of a for­eign lan­guage is should be for the same pur­pose — in other words, for­eign lan­guage skills are used to talk about the things you’re inter­ested in, ask ques­tions about a cul­ture that fas­ci­nates you, and to enjoy the things you do with speak­ers of your own language.

For exam­ple, most for­eign lan­guage courses start off with top­ics like order­ing food in a restau­rant, or ask­ing for direc­tions in a city.  How­ever, what if you want to learn Span­ish because you teach in a school where a large per­cent­age of the stu­dents are Latino and speak only bro­ken Eng­lish?  Clearly, sign­ing up for a typ­i­cal lan­guage course will not allow you to quickly learn class­room com­mands, mod­ern slang, or rude jokes, the things you’re really inter­ested in.

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