Practicing A Foreign Language with Native Speakers

(Adapted from the book, Why You Need a Foreign Language & and How to Learn One by Edward Trimnell)

Although books, cassettes, and other study materials are all quite helpful, they are less demanding than active conversation. A conversation with a live human being requires you to simultaneously listen, process what you hear, and formulate responses. In order to become truly skilled at listening and responding “on the fly” in a foreign language, you will have to seek out live, unscripted conversation opportunities.

You should develop a network of native speakers of the language you are studying. These relationships might be structured as mutually beneficial “language exchanges.” Perhaps you can meet a native speaker of your target language who is himself studying English. Suggest that the two of you work out a deal: you will help him improve his English, if he will serve as a sounding board for your Russian.

These informal study exchanges can provide an invaluable boost to your independent study efforts. During one summer in college, my Japanese language abilities improved by leaps and bounds thanks to two women named Yuka and Sakiko.

Yuka and Sakiko were the wives of two graduate students at the University of Cincinnati. I was introduced to them by Donna, my aforementioned American friend who was herself studying Japanese. Throughout that summer, Yuka, Sakiko, and I met in the University of Cincinnati library practically everyday. One day we spoke only English, and the next day we spoke only Japanese.

These sessions gave me my first experiences using the Japanese language for extended periods of time. Prior to that, my use of the language had been limited to mini-conversations that consisted of introductions and exchanges of simple information. By the time I left the library on one of our “Japanese days,” my head would be aching, and I would have a notepad full of new Japanese words, or words in English that I couldn’t yet express in Japanese. Yuka and Sakiko gave me a tremendous incentive to advance in my Japanese studies. By the end of the summer, my Japanese skills were on par with their abilities in English. 

If you recruit a native speaker who is already living in the United States, Canada, or Britain, she will likely speak English better than you speak her language. Therefore, your initial exchanges may consist of you answering detailed questions about English usage, while she struggles to understand your stumbling attempts at basic communication. Don’t worry—you will erase this linguistic capability gap soon enough, if you are willing to hit the books (and the tapes, CDs, etc.) in between your practice meetings.

Although your practice meetings are informal study sessions, you should nonetheless introduce a bit of structure. Make sure that you don’t spend all your time discussing linguistically lightweight topics such as what you each ate for breakfast. Prepare a list of reasonably challenging topics to discuss, and do your homework before the practice session. If you have decided that you are going to discuss currency trading on a given day, you should learn the words for “floating exchange rate,” “monetary policy” etc. before the practice session.

Ask your practice partner to try to stump you (and do the same for her). It might be helpful for you to think of yourselves as athletes in training. When athletes train together, there is an element of friendly competition, and they thereby push each other to new levels of skill. You should each use language that you think might be just beyond the other person’s current repertoire, without overwhelming him.

Conversations that are made deliberately difficult can benefit you even after you have reached advanced levels in the language. I recently participated in a Japanese language “benchmarking” activity that was conducted by several Japanese Studies professors in the United States. The professors interviewed various Americans who had studied Japanese, and rated their abilities to describe physical objects, convey abstract ideas, and respond to complex arguments.

Even though I had been studying Japanese for more than a decade by this time, I was surprised at how intense the language workout was. To cite one example, the professor who interviewed me asked me to give a synopsis of the American Revolution, and the respective British and American positions (in Japanese). Then she asked me to compare the American Revolution to at least one other political upheaval that had since occurred somewhere in the world. That would have been a fair challenge for me even in English! 

Copyright © 2005 Beechmont Crest Publishing