Can you really learn a foreign languages just be living in a foreign country?

Question

And just listening to them speak. I have heard that you can, how long does it take to learn the language?

Answer 1

Yes, you can learn the language that way, and actually it is faster than trying to learn from a text book. It's called Full Submersion learning. Usually it takes 6 months to a year to be rather fluent. I would recommend following up with text studies though, since you will be mainly learning conversational and not grammatical. This will help you out in being fully rounded in the language, reading, writing and speaking fluently.

Answer 2

Yes. My ex-boyfriend lived in France for a few years. He couldn't speak French at all when he got there. I don't know how long it took him to speak it fluently, but I think he could speak it well in 2/3 years, and he just improved afeter that. I guess it depends on the person and the circumstances.

He was living in a small village where no one spoke English. And he went to school to learn to be a plumber. After 5 years, he would still make mistakes, but the ones he often made, he would ask for the correct way to say it. He really didn't make that many mistakes, anyway. And he didn't have much of an acent. You wouldn't have known he was English.

However, he wouldn't read very fast and couldn't really write properly. So, if you're going to live in a foreign country (or someone you know is going to), I would advise you to bring a grammar book and a conjugation book as well. And a dictionary. Maybe not use it at the beginning. But after a while, you might find it necessary to want to be more precise and to read and write in that language.

Answer 3

Yes, but It's more than just listening. It's watching and getting the cues. If you are in Germany and someone holds a cup up to you and says, "tasse" you'd get that tasse means cup. But unfortunately, most of what people say isn't associated with something you can see physically. That's why taking a language course while living in a foreign country is the best way to learn it. Or even taking it before you go. When I was a child, I lived in a place where another language was spoken. I didn't have the benefit of a course. And the adults that spoke this language, didn't speak it to me. They spoke English to me. But I lived there for a year, and I watched while they spoke, so that I began to pick up words on my own. Had I lived there maybe another year, I would have had it. If someone took the time to tutor me in that language, and if all they spoke to me was that language, I probably would have gotten it earlier.

Answer 4

Sure you can, I speak 5 different language , the only language that I learn at school was French, my mother language is Italian, third language is English ,I learned english here in the USA 7 years ago,I speak Spanish and German also. If you don't want to be isolate and like socialize I believe that the best is to put some effort in learn and not be afraid to make mistake. You wil be good to go.......

Answer 5

yes you can when I took French in high school it wasn't a popular language so our teacher told us if we heard it more often we could pick it up faster like if you take Spanish and you watch Spanish tv same concept so if you are over there then you hear it all the time and you have no chioce but to learn it you see it all around you so it is much easier I saw a lady say that she was in Iran and picked up Farsi in a year which is really pretty good I speak 8 different languages and how fast you pick them up depends on you but that fastest one I learned would be French b/c I took it in school and saw it more then the others good luck and if you want to learn one start with a Latin base language so that way in the future if you want to learn another you will pick it up so much easier

Answer 6

Yes very much so! It is by far the best way because you get to live it. There is also the fact that the written and spoken form/standard of the same language are two different things. Imagine being taught "Good Morning, How are you?" and actually being greeted by a native as "whats up?, doin good?". (I've come across people actually looking upwards :-) .. So for a full live colored 3D expereince spend sometime with the locals.

Answer 7

Yes, so long as you live in that place or country for a considerable period of time(about a month or so), however there can never be a guarantee as to if you have thoroughly learned the language or that you incur the same accent as that of the natives that live there.

Answer 8

Definitely yes, if you follow few pointers:

1) "Dont be shy, make mistakes and enjoy your funny accent",
2) "Learn from your mistakes, BEST-make a note book of frequently used words",
3) "First learn easy and lovely words like-TASTY, I LOVE YOU, HELLO, BYE, WHERE IS.....”,
4) "Take interest and like the new culture you are in"
5) Last but certainly not least in any sense, infact-Most effective & BEST idea- "Get a BF/GF" , and then you'll be surprised how fast u go abt learning lang. to impress/express feelings.

It wont too long, a year at Max.**
Enjoy yr stay&keep smiling(language less emotion)

Answer 9

You can, but you still have to work to learn it. It doesn't just happen by osmosis. I went to a German class while in Germany, and a middle aged man from Turkey had lived there for 3 years, but could not even understand when the teacher said "This class is too hard for you" (in German, of course).
You need to practice using the language. I learned a lot by watching t.v. shows from home that had been translated.

Answer 10

Yep. I have been living in Korea now for about two years and I haven't done any formal studying of the language, but I have basic communication skills. My environment has English interspersed throughout it though, so I am sure I haven't learned as much as I could if I had to rely totally on communicating through Korean. They say if you are immersed in a language it takes about two years to have decent communication and five years to become fluent.