How to consistently practice a foreign language with your partner?
🎬 See this article as a prolonged interview here.
Is it possible to consistently practice a new language with a partner, friend or colleague, even though you share a more convenient language that you’d rather speak? The answer is yes, but the challenges are many. A common example is when you keep speaking English with your partner, even though you promised to practice Spanish so you could speak with his grandmother in Guatemala. Or maybe you have both moved to a new country, and become those expats who never integrate because speaking your mother tongue together is simply too comfortable.
Tainá and I speak six languages each, and after some effort, those happen to be the exact same ones. This means that we have encountered both of the examples above, and a lot more – and we have done so with both success and failure. In this article, I share our best tips for leaving your comfort zone to practice your second, third or fourth best language, until you make that language your new comfort zone.
Some background
When I met Tainá, we had our first date in Spanish. The day after, we ice skated and spoke French. After spending the third date struggling to make a good impression in Portuguese, I begged to switch to English. Since we were in in love, nervous and wanting to sound as clever, funny and interesting as humanly possible, sticking to English became just too convenient.
We spoke English for the next two weeks, until Tainá pointed out that we have endless opportunities to speak English, and should instead use our relationship to explore and nurture other languages. So English was banned, quickly resulting in my fluency in Portuguese and Tainá’s in Norwegian. However, this simultaneously gave rise to a new dilemma…
We became so fluent, that Norwegian and Portuguese became a convenient trap which prevented us from speaking our other languages. And day by day, our Spanish, French and German withered away. This time, we didn’t manage to ban our two new everyday languages. Instead, the three next years became a massive struggle where we tried everything to leave the comfort zone of our mother tongues. Here is what we’ve learned.
Don’t just speak – study!
Speaking a language with regularity may help you reach fluency, but not flawlessness (fluency is when you can say what you want to say, without struggling too much finding the right words). For many purposes, fluency is enough. However, in competition with a mother tongue, or high-level English, most of us will find that fluency is not sufficient to sustain daily use of the new language, when there are easier alternatives readily at hand.
Therefore, speaking the new language with a partner should be accompanied by dedicated study. Dedicated study means learning new words and grammar, and identifying and removing your repeated mistakes. With the right techniques, 20-30 minutes a day is enough to make your language learning skyrocket. This is beneficial beyond the mere rise in language level. In fact, in my experience, the subjective feeling of improvement is what has the greatest effect. Let me explain.
If you feel like your language level has stagnated (which it eventually will if all you do is practice speaking) it will probably feel unsatisfying and limiting to speak that language. If you, on the other hand, feel like you are improving noticeably, almost by the day, you will likely feel quite confident in your language, almost regardless of you level. There has been times when I have been more comfortable speaking Swahili or German at A2 and B1 levels than Spanish or even English at C1 and C2 levels, simply because my learning curve has been on the rise, rather than stagnated or even retroceding.
To sum up, structured studies will not only increase your actual language level, but also boost motivation and confidence, which are both essential for a sustained language immersion. Thus, speaking the language will only take you so far, structured studies will take you the rest 😊
Make the learning a common project
Sometimes it is hard to tell for whom the language learning is more challenging; The learner who struggles to be understood, or the learner’s girlfriend who has her patience tested to the limit. Either way, the language process can generate quite a lot of frustration and strain on the relation.
There are a number of ways to avoid boring your partner or best friend by turning them into your language teacher. You can find other people to practice with, enroll in a course, or be consistent with your self-studies. My favourite method, however, is inviting (or forcing) your partner to learn a new language with you. If you learn the language of your partner, your partner should also learn your language. (S)he already speaks your language? Pick another!
This way, you do not only get the joy of studying together, but you will both share an understanding of the experience and sufferings of being a language student. Break the student-teacher relationship, and become language partners instead!
Punishments and awards
Turning the language learning into a common project also makes it easy to introduce an element of competition and/or collaboration, which are two of our best tools for motivation. The idea is that you will compete or collaborate – whichever you prefer – for the right to obtain a reward, or to avoid a punishment. This could take a number of different forms. Here are just a few examples.
The person who has learned most new words during the week gets a massage on Sunday. Since everyone loves receiving-, and hates giving massages, you have elegantly covered both reward and a punishment in one.
Every day you speak your practice language for X amount of time together, you deposit Y amount of money in a fund, which you’ll use on a trip to the country of your language. You should make this fund as visual as possible. We add dry chickpeas to a jar to keep count. The subtle “cling” of a new chickpea joining the group is a wonderful sound.
Join a group or a regular activity in your target language (e.g. a sports team, or a quiz group). This way, you’ll feel pressured to practice the language in the days ahead, in order not to sound like a complete idiot in front of your new friends. This kind of pressure works great, because it tells your brain you need the language right now, and not only for an exam, too long into the future to feel urgent.
Set the rules
Creating and maintaining a habit is much easier if it is done within a framework of fixed rules and deadlines. Therefore, having a very clear agreement about where, when and how you are going to practice your language together, is paramount. Some examples of rules could be to:
Entirely ban any languages but the one you want to learn
Have a fixed day a week where you will only speak the language.
Set a fixed time for practicing your language and use a timer. E.g. only allowed to speak your target language around the dinner table.
Write all messages to each other in your target language (this is great, because writing gives you the time to think through the sentence, look up new words etc.).
It is not difficult to start a habit, but to maintain it. Therefore, you should establish a regular check-in to evaluate your compliance to your rules, and adjust your course. For example, every Sunday, or the first day of the month, and add this to your calendar.
Stick to it!
The difficulties of changing the language you speak together does not only have to do with convenience, but also habit. If you have built your entire relation or friendship upon one language, it may feel strange and awkward to suddenly change it. This will pass, but it might take some time. Therefore, the last advice is to be stubborn and stick to it! Maybe it takes a week, maybe a month, maybe even more, but eventually it will feel natural to speak your new language together.
Exactly how your path to success will look, is up to you to decide, and it will certainly be different from ours. Learning how to learn is a skill that needs practice in itself. The tips in this article might get you started, but in the end, it is up to you to figure out what works best in your case. Good luck! 😊
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