How to achieve fluency in a foreign language is a perennial hot topic in the language groups and forums that I visit. It's also a marketing hook - "fluent in 10 days" - as you've probably seen.
But what does "fluency" really mean? How do you get there? And, how long does it really take?
To most people, being "fluent" means that you can speak a language easily and freely. In other words, you're not speaking in fits and starts, and for sure you're not constantly groping for words.
Everyone gets to fluency a little differently. But for most, these steps are key: 1) Begin speaking the language as soon as you know how to say a few words. 2) Focus more on communicating and less on grammar. 3) Improve your pronunciation as you go along.
SPEAKING RIGHT FROM THE START
If your goal is "conversational fluency" in a foreign language, you'll want to start practicing your new skill right from day one. Whatever words and expressions you're learning, start using them whenever you can.
Until you find a conversation partner, you may be limited to repeating aloud or talking to yourself. In addition, use a language program that lets you repeat and record words and phrases.
You need to train your ear as well as master the right mouth mechanics. Whatever you do, it's crucial that you move your mouth to form the words and say them out ALOUD.
COMMUNICATING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN GRAMMAR
From other language learners, I often hear: "Talk, don't care about correctness. ... If it's close enough it's good enough."
Being a language teacher, I'm surprised that I don't balk at this. But that's what the real world looks like: If you're not speaking your native language, you're bound to make mistakes.
Look at me. I'm fluent in Dutch. When I'm in the Netherlands, people are surprised at how well I speak Dutch. Yet, when I post on a site for learning Dutch, I get corrected on details.
For example, I'm told that you say: "ik zat in school" (I sat in school) instead of "ik was in school" (I was in school) - to mean that I went to school in the Netherlands, which I actually did for a couple of years.
I like these corrections, and I'm learning a lot. But the bottom line is that I have absolutely no problem communicating in Dutch, even though I do make mistakes.
IMPROVING YOUR PRONUNCIATION GRADUALLY
A perfect pronunciation is not a requirement for fluency. There, I've said it. I know plenty of people who are fluent in a language and who still have a foreign accent. A German friend of mine has lived in French Switzerland for quite a few years. She has family there and runs a successful business. French is the language of her daily life and she navigates through French easily - with a delightful German accent. It's clear that her foreign accent in no way impedes her fluency in French and that it doesn't affect her business nor her friendships in a negative way.
So, accent is not something you need to worry about - unless people can't understand what you're saying. What we do know, though, is that you can work on your accent to make it sound closer to that of a native speaker. Sounds are produced by the way you move your mouth. With practice - by repeating and recording your own voice - you can learn to say sounds that are not part of your native language. If you're really serious, you can take accent reduction training online, or with a professional in your own neighborhood. (My German husband did this and can now pronounce the American "w," a difficult sound to learn for German speakers.) But most of us find that our pronunciation can get better by practicing on our own.
HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE YOU TO BECOME FLUENT?
The part I haven't mentioned yet is that you'll want to have lots of vocabulary. In order to talk about various subjects, you need enough words to cover them. The most powerful way to acquire vocabulary is to read. I enjoy novels because they give me information about levels of language (also called "registers") and about the culture of a country where the language is spoken. My husband, on the other hand, prefers to keep his languages current by reading online foreign newspapers every day.
How long does it take you to get to fluency? It's up to you and the time and effort you are willing to put into your language learning. Benny Lewis, a popular blogger on language learning, likes to aim for 3 months. Is that a challenge you want to take?
I think there's something to the three-months time frame. When my family moved to the Netherlands and I got plunked into school there, it took me close to three months until I felt comfortable enough to give a talk in front of the class. Similarly, when I moved to Canada, it was after about three months that people stopped asking me where I was from. But clearly, total immersion is different from learning online on your own. But if you can stay motivated, fluency is bound to be within reach.
I recently looked at a New York Times Trivia Quiz and was amazed at how esoteric some of the questions were.
As the new GamesforLanguage Trivia Quizzes are beginning to attract some followers, I wondered about the origin of "trivia" and "trivial", both words that connote a lack of importance.
The Etymology of "Trivia"
Italian speakers will easily discover an original meaning: "tri" "via," based on the Latin neuter noun "trivium" - plural "trivia" means "a place where three ways meet."
In ancient Rome it meant a junction of three roads, but also the three "Artes Liberales": grammar, logic, rhetoric, which - in medieval Latin became the lower division of the Artes Liberales.
The Wikipedia entry "Trivia" explains further how the adjective "trivial" was introduced: - A 15th century English translation of Ranulf Higdon mentions the arte trivialle, referring to the trivium of the Liberal Arts.[1] - The same work also calls a "triuialle distinccion" a threefold division. This is due to an application of the term by Arnobius, and was never common either in Latin or English.[2] - The meaning "trite, commonplace, unimportant, slight" occurs from the late 16th century, notably in the works of Shakespeare.[3]
Today, Merriam-Webster defines "Trivia" as: - unimportant facts or details - facts about people, events that are not well-known
Why are we interested in "Trivia Quizzes"?
The Webster definition may give a clue: Although the facts, which Trivia Quizzes often ask, are indeed "unimportant" per se, they may also not be well-known. And, what is well-known to some, may not be well-known to others.
A foreign language is a case in point: For all those who know what the Italian word "via" means, asking for the translation of road/street indeed appears appears trivial. But, if you don't know, or are not sure, finding the answer will satisfy your curiosity - assuming that you are interested in Italian in the first place.
Therefore, for those who are curious about the Italian language and facts, even if those appear trivial to Italian speakers, playing Italian Trivia quizzes can be both rewarding and entertaining for those who still need to learn the language!
For those who are generally curious about "unimportant facts or details," the New York Times Trivia Quiz certainly challenges you to discover the "facts about people, events that are not well-known".
Babbel.com(see Disclosure below) is a fee-based online language learning site, with apps for all major mobile devices. At this time, Babbel offers 13 languages: Dutch, Danish, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.
To prepare for a short stay in Stockholm, I signed up for a one-month subscription of Beginning Swedish. I enjoyed creating my own schedule and liked the online experience as a whole. In fact, I motored through the three beginning courses (60 lessons) within 30 days, all in plenty of time to cancel the automatic renewal.
Beginning Swedish starts out with lessons on "greetings, making introductions, talking about your nationality and where you're from, ordering in a café, asking for directions," etc. Each lesson has a flashcard exercise, where you are asked to "Study the words and their spelling." That is followed by a combination of writing, reading, listening, speaking, and basic grammar exercises.
In the past, I had done a lot of audio-only language learning and found it hard to build up my writing and reading skills later. Reading and writing Swedish right from the start was a welcome change. In fact, writing became a good memory tool for me. Whatever I spelled out, I remembered well. The dictation exercises ("Write what you hear") turned out to be particularly effective.
In general - and I'm assuming that the set up of the others is similar to Swedish - Babbel's courses are a fun and effective way to get your feet wet in a language. One lesson builds on the other, the vocabulary is useful and presented in context, and on the whole, grammar exercises are relevant and to the point.
The question I'm facing now is what next for Swedish. I want to be able to read Stieg Larsson's novel "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" in Swedish ("Män som hatar kvinnor"). The three beginning courses are not enough for that. Any suggestions?
Disclosure: Gamesforlanguage.com has no business relationship with Babbel.com other than having purchased a 1-month subscription for the Swedish courses. See our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for further details.
Digital Dialects is a free to use site with beginning to low-intermediate online games for 60 languages - from Afrikaans to Zazaki.
The various, colorful games use the Macromedia Flash Player. Updates to any of the sections are regularly announced and there is a "links" page for more learning materials that are mostly free, such as online newspapers, etc. The look of the site is uncluttered and appealing.
I tried out Swedish (see above), which is one of the languages I'm learning at the moment. For Swedish, there are six games (without audio), typically set up so that you can first memorize a list, then play a game to practice what you memorized.
There's a matching game for "phrases and greetings," three math games for "numbers," a game to learn "colors," and one to learn the words for "fruits and vegetables."
Russian, a language that I'll start next year, has 11 games (with audio), most of whichinclude versions in Cyrillic script and in transliteration.The "animals" game has you click on an image after you hear the Russian word.
The "fruits and vegetables" game (see right) can be played as audio, or in Cyrillic. You pick the correct items out of a bowl until the bowl is empty. The "numbers" games have Cyrillic versions that allow for "slow," "medium," or "fast" speed.
I'm guessing that these games will provide me with an easy, unhurried entry into the world of Cyrillic letters and of Russian pronunciation.
Persian (listed as Farsi) - a language I'm dabbling in right now - has nine games. The writing system of Persian is based on the Arabic script. So far, the games (numbers, fruits and vegetables, animals, various vocabulary groups) are in transliteration only, and there is no audio. Still, it's a start, and the games are an enjoyable way to memorize basics.
Some of the other languages have many more games and full audio. You'll just have to check and see for whatever language(s) you're interested in.
Digital Dialects is a popular site, in part because it gives beginning learners easy and fun access to many languages. Where else can you learn 1-10 in 60 languages at one place?
Disclosure: Gamesforlanguage.com and I have no business relationship with Digital Dialects other than learning and practicing Swedish, Russian, and Persian with its free online games.
On our hike down from the village of Schönried to the picturesque resort town of Gstaad, we enjoyed our friend Ursel's Swiss German Language Lessons. She also told us about the surprising revival of Swiss German in written form through SMS/Texting and Social Media.
Ursel is from Bern, and it was fun to practice with her some Swiss German words in the her dialect of Bärndütsch. [see also our previous blog post: Language Lessons in Gstaad (1)]
Once in Gstaad, we do a little window shopping and people ogling, on the pedestrian way called Promenade.
From there we also have a great view of the famous Palace Hotel (picture). And, walking towards the ice rink (which, in the spring, converts back to tennis courts for the Gstaad Open in June each year), we end up at Charly's Gstaad, a "Konditorei and Confiseri" for coffee and delicious pastries.
While observing the young and old skaters as they make their rounds, we learn and practice in Berndeutsch, various greetings, the words excuse me and thanks, as well as the terms for meal times and snack breaks.
1. Greetings, Excuse Me, Thanks
• Grüessdi (Grüß dich - informal Hello, singular) • Grüessech (Grüß euch - informal Hello, plural) • Grüessi mitenand (Hello - all of you) • Exgüsee (Entschuldigung - excuse me) • Uf Widerluege (Auf Wiedersehen - Good-bye) • Adiemerssi (Danke und auf Wiedersehen - Thanks and good-bye, said by shopkeepers)
2. Meal and Snack Times
The Swiss day is nicely organized around meal times and snack breaks: • Zmorge (Frühstück - breakfast) • Znüni (Imbiss am Vormittag - midmorning snack, usually around 9 a.m.) • Zmittag (Mittagessen - lunch) • Zvieri (Imbiss am Nachmittag - mid-afternoon snack, usually around 4 p.m.) • Znacht (Abendessen - dinner, supper)
Kindergardners bring their mid-morning snack to school, it's called "Znünitaschl" (nine o'clock bag). They also bring along "Finken" (slippers) to wear inside.
Even though we're always on the lookout, we did not recognize any famous people on our visit to Gstaadt this time. But we certainly had fun learning about Bärndütsch expressions and pronunciation from Ursel, a native of Bern.
(Updated February 2, 2017) During our recent stay in Fribourg, Switzerland, we were again amazed by the mixture of languages we heard spoken in this small Swiss town of about 40,000.
Upper Town And Lower Town
Fribourg, (in German, called “Freiburg im Uechtland” to distinguish it from its German Black Forest cousin “Freiburg im Breisgau“) is the capital of the Canton Fribourg and located on the cultural border between German and French Switzerland. (see above picture of upper and lower town)
In the past, the language lines were drawn rather clearly: In the lower town, people spoke mostly a Swiss German dialect, in the upper town mostly French.
And while German was the prevailing language until around 1800, French gradually became more influential. By the year 2000 nearly 64% spoke French, only 21% German as their first language (Italian was third with about 4%).
An Impression: More Bilingual German Than French Speakers
In restaurants, cafes, and shops, etc. you hear a mixture of French, Swiss German, “Schriftdeutsch” (see also our previous blog post: Language Lessons in Gstaad), and other languages.
Swiss German children start to learn “Schriftdeutsch” in first grade, and French a couple of years later. That's about the same time that French children learn “Schriftdeutsch” as a second language. (We also understand that in many schools English is taught already in fourth grade.)
From discussions with acquaintances, friends, and relatives in Fribourg, we've gained the impression that there are more German speakers who are fluent in French, than French speakers who are also fluent in German.
This is due to the fact that French speakers are now the majority in Fribourg, or whether learning French as a third language (after “Schriftdeutsch) is “easier” for Swiss German speakers, or whether Swiss Germans feel a more personal or economic need to be bilingual than their French speaking compatriots, we just don't know.
A visit of the local market provided a (not representative) sample, as most of the Swiss German speaking farmers did easily switch to French, while the French speaking bakers and butchers had more difficulty in speaking German (see picture above).
Language still a divisive issue
While the casual observer may be pleasantly surprised by the the city's apparent bilingualism, language in Fribourg - as in other Swiss cities and towns that are located on a language and cultural fault line - is often still a divisive issue.
Not much has changed since swissinfo.ch covered this issue in in 2004, citing both Biel (where French speakers are the minority of the population, with 28 %) and Fribourg as examples. Family connections, social status, school locations, etc. all influence parents' decisions which language path their children should pursue.
It certainly seems that in a small country like Switzerland (about 8 million inhabitants) being bilingual, or at least fluent, in two of the major languages, German and French, should have great professional and personal benefits.
Postscript
Just as we were leaving Fribourg, the local Newspaper, La Liberté, reported that local film makers had adapted Pharrell Williams' song "Happy" from the movie "Despicable Me 2" to Fribourg, similar to what other Swiss cities have done. You can watch the YouTube video which shows many images of Fribourg.
How to achieve fluency in a foreign language is a perennial hot topic in the language groups and forums that I visit. It's also a marketing hook - "fluent in 10 days" - as you've probably seen. 
If it's close enough it's good enough." 
A perfect pronunciation is not a requirement for fluency. There, I've said it. 
