I hitchhiked China for 3 months in 2018 after studying Chinese for 2 semesters of college beforehand.
Hitchhiking is by far one of the best ways to learn a new language. Long hours with a wide variety of individuals, mostly one-on-one. If you're young, and you're reading this, go hitchhike. It's not as safe as staying home with mom, but it's not as dangerous as people who have never done it say it is.
I "achieved intermediate fluency" during that time. But it's gone now. If you don't use it, you lose it.
> Hitchhiking is by far one of the best ways to learn a new language.
Another way is moving to another country. You'll learn quicker than you think, and no need to learn the language beforehand, it'll be great fun to try to understand something completely foreign, and gets a lot easier when you see people's faces and hands :)
If you're young, you still have time to move to another country, and move back home if you get bored/scared. It's not as difficult or dangerous as most people think.
I've done it this way and didn't learn much, I learned more by self-studying after I left. Thinking that I would just learn my target language just by being there was my biggest mistake.
Sure, if your target language isn't too far from your native one, learning it on the go probably works fine. But you aren't going to get from English to Chinese casually by picking up stuff though, you'll end up knowing a hundred words tops for your daily life and that's it.
Yes agree. I lived in Colombia for 4 years. But hitchhiking is learning on overdrive. Not just language, but what they like to call "agency".
I slightly disagree that you don't need to learn the language beforehand. You don't NEED to, but I would actually recommend getting a 4 week crash course beforehand.
Because I've seen so many expats that don't even know where to start so they just hang out with other expats and that's how you end up living in a foreign country for 10 years and you can't speak the language.
The most minimal thing is you need to learn how to point at a thing and say "How do you say?" and refuse to revert to your native language.
Or go teach. Barrier to entry to becoming an ESL teacher particularly in southeast Asia is relatively low, and its the best way to integrate into the culture.
I don't have first hand experience with that, but it seems that might actually be a poor way to learn, because everyone will want to speak English to you. I've had to selfishly refuse to speak English to people many times.
Everyone in your class of course, but its not like you're wearing a tag that say "English Teacher" when you're just walking around.
I also bypassed this pretty easily, my extended family / name is Italian, so I would always respond back in Italian, and then we'd revert to Chinese pretty quickly because NOBODY speaks Italian over there.
Further since you're there on a work visa, you can eventually transition into translation work / etc. to really refine your language mastery. 3 months isn't bad, but I'd recommend a solid year. Following my time in Asia, I lived in Russia where I basically didn't use my Chinese for a couple years, but on a quick business trip to Taipei my fluency was there when I needed it.
I'd say to master any language there is no period of time that is sufficient. I've even gotten worse at speaking my native language since I speak Spanish all day.
Like with exercise, or brushing your teeth, once you stop doing it, it will get worse and you will lose "it".
Hitchhiking is by far one of the best ways to learn a new language. Long hours with a wide variety of individuals, mostly one-on-one. If you're young, and you're reading this, go hitchhike. It's not as safe as staying home with mom, but it's not as dangerous as people who have never done it say it is.
I "achieved intermediate fluency" during that time. But it's gone now. If you don't use it, you lose it.