Make the most of your trip: Use it to improve your Foreign Language – Best Way of Killing two birds with one Stone mostly for Students.
If you’re a foreign language student and you want to plan a trip abroad, you can kill two birds with one stone: travel to the country where your second language is natively spoken and combine second language naturalization with vacations.
When seeking to learn Italian London students count on the advantage of the geographical nearness between Italy and England. However, if you were studying a language like Spanish, you’d have a wider range of travel opportunities.
You can go to Spain in Europe, to Mexico in north Latin America, Venezuela in central Latin America, or Argentina, at the very bottom of the continent.
These countries are very different one from another, and you should do research and choose the one that you’re more interested in, as the Spanish language is one thing they all have in common.
Once you’re off on your trip, you’re going to experience things that sometimes are not even taught at language schools. For that reason, it’s better to be prepared. Here are some suggestions so that you take advantage of your trip to improve your second language skills. Of course, you need some previous knowledge of the second language.
Talk to Natives
If you are, say, learning Spanish…what better than Spain to talk to people? In general, natives are more than friendly with foreign people who visit their country; especially if they see you have a genuine interest for their culture and language as well. Try to start a conversation in their language, and you’ll possibly end up with a new friend.
Keep a Notebook with You
There are some words that are not formally taught in language schools (just think of ‘deli’, ‘ATM’, ‘carpool’; or some expressions related to daily life). Write them down, and make your second language more native-like.
Record Conversations
Even though I’ve been studying English ever since I can recall, it was not until I traveled to San Francisco, California, that I overheard a conversation at a music store and learned two new expressions.
When I learned vocabulary related to shopping, these two sentences were never even mentioned to us. Of course, I could tell what they meant by the context, but if I had never overheard this conversations, I’d try to say the same thing in a different non-natural way.
