I will not speak a word of English after 5:00pm everyday (the time I study) until I can converse in French.

At first when I read your (Benny) claim that you were mistaken for a native speaker, I thought, “That's BS!, won't ever happen!”

But I just remembered when I was working in the Japanese tourist industry and one day I had a client in front of me, and I was on the phone with a vendor.

I was asking the client questions in Japanese, and then translating to the vendor, i.e. having a back and forth conversation.

The vendor says to me, “Wow, your English is really good!” I laughed so hard…I grew up in Upstate NY, so I hope that my English is good!

Some comments from me on foreign language learning:

I learned to speak fluent Japanese without every living in Japan by first studying very hard and then getting a job at a Japanese tourist company (I was living in Hawaii at the time, kind of a big advantage!)

Every day at work I spoke Japanese with co-workers and our customers. I found out what peolpe ACTUALLY say in certain situations, instead of what the text books tell you to say. Text books and classroom instruction are always way too formal, especially in Japanese. If you study Japanese through a text book or in a classroom, you'll be ready to have a conversation with the Emperor, but be totally unprepared to have a conversation with a street vendor.

So I've been studying off an on for about 20 years. I'm trying to improve my vocabulary right now. Plus I started about a year ago studying Spanish again after 3 years in high school (in which I retained about 3 phrases and 20 words of vocabulary)

So what I've learned is:

DOs:

1. Find study methods that you enjoy. If it's boring, you won't study. Do you enjoy reading grammar textbooks? I sure don't, so I gave up on those. In fact I realized that with only a short period of time each day to study I'm concentrating on using mostly audio-conversation techniques.
2. Find native speakers to practice with. In Hawaii I learned a lot through language exchange partners. I helped them with English for a 1/2 hour, they helped me with Japanese for 1/2 hour. With lots of foreign students at American universities these days it's pretty easy to find native speakers to practice with.
3. Use a multi-media approach: Watch TV shows and movies, read newspapers, listen to internet podcasts and news broadcasts, etc.
4. Study every day, if even for a few minutes.
5. When speaking with native-speaking friends, practice partners, and tutors, etc. force yourself to speak in the foreign language. It will be EXTREMELY frustrating for quite a while, especially for someone like me who likes to talk a lot, but it conditions you to think in the foreign language.
6. Check the website meetup.com and find a foreign-language group that meets in your area.

DON'Ts:

1. Take a class at a school. You'll have 20 students in the class and never learn to speak.
2. Simply go to a foreign country and expect to pick up the language by osmosis. You have to actually speak it.
3. Buy CDs with mostly native-language content, i.e. if you're a native English speaker studying Spanish don't buy CDs that instruct in English with very little Spanish content. You can already understand English, right?
4. Use flashcards or try to learn vocabulary by reading lists of words. Very boring. You'll give up. You'll remember vocabulary much better if you learn it in context.
5. Don't believe Americans who tell you things like “Japanese is impossible to learn!” or “Wow, you speak Chinese, you must be a genius!” They're really backhanded compliments, and they're just saying that they're too lazy to learn a foreign language. If you have a good attitude and enjoy learning, it won't be very hard to learn any foreign language.

Some great resources that I've “discovered:”

The Assimil language series

The Berlitz Self-Teacher series

The “Subliminal Japanese” and “Subliminal Spanish” methods for learning vocabulary. Unfortunately only available in those two languages, although lucky for me.

The “Pronounce it Perfectly in….” series.

Ganbatte!

If you want to speak a language very quickly, sorry but you have to go to the country! I don't think that's such a hard thing to accept. You actually save money in a lot of situations. Going to India for 2 months this year was the best financial decision I ever made for example; since English speaking countries tend to be so expensive, the south of Europe, like Spain and Italy and Eastern Europe are so much cheaper in comparison. Travel has nothing to do with being rich, it's about opening your mind to another mentality that allows you to travel.

However you can reach a good level quickly without travelling. I'm writing a post about it now, so stay tuned

I’m an Australian living with his Estonian fiance in Estonia and have unfortunately been starting to slip into the hole of frustration and hostility that can come with living in a foreign country. A big part of this frustration I now understand comes from the isolation of not being able to easily talk with people at any time and in any way that you wish.

This I guess is how I ended up on your blog, and I’m glad that I did!

I’m currently learning Estonian as my first foreign language (which unfortunately/fortunately is one of the deeper ends of the language pool to jump into) and although I’ve actually been doing pretty well in learning and understanding it in class for the last month or so, I’ve been starting to feel pretty useless in social situations as my speaking and listening is so clunky and laborious.

One of the problems is that Estonian has enormously complicated grammar compared to English (but it’s the use of genitive and partitive cases that is causing me the most frustration at the moment!), but I think after reading your blog that my biggest hurdle is in fact letting go of the metaphorical ‘edge of the pool’ and just trying ‘to swim’ in the language. As I’m sure that my fiance would also love me to become fluent in her ‘emakeel’ (mother tongue) and helps where she can, then I actually have a fantastic opportunity to learn the language!

Also, I really do love english and the irrational part of me is scared to leave it behind, but considering how easy it is to find english and english language culture, I really have nothing to worry about!

So my main point really is to say ‘suur tänu’ (lit. big thanks) for sharing your experiences and ‘edu’ (good luck) in all your adventures that follow!

Tervitades (Good health/goodbye when writing letters)

Geoff

@Kritstine Thanks for sharing your positive story! I may have to get your advice whenever I take on Polish

@Julius Thanks for the detailed tips!!

@Zezinho Great encouragement there! You can see that I am making good progress in my current mission despite the discouragement I got in the Lonely Planet thorntree forum

@Pond I hope my advice and encouragement will help you to learn Croatian!! You can give me tips when I finally get around to it later