Immersion abroad can boost language learning, and travelling where the language is spoken can help too. Yet how much you benefit depends on your attitude. To truly learn, stop being a tourist!
As I’ve shown in two other articles, living in China does not guarantee that you learn much Chinese, and travelling is not nearly as good a method for language learning as people think.
This is because it’s possible to both live and travel abroad without engaging with the local environment and people around you. Travelling with other foreigners to see the sights or working in a company where English is spoken won’t improve your Chinese much.
It’s not about where you are located geographically, but how much you engage with the language.
Tourists don’t learn much Chinese
For the purpose of this article, I define a tourist as follows:
“A tourist is someone who, when travelling abroad, brings a bubble of home with them and stays within it.”
The core idea here is that tourists stay in a bubble. Inside the bubble, most things work the way they do at home. You think and act the way you normally do, you talk to friends and family you travel with and you keep most habits from home.
When you have a minute to spare, you check the same social media channels on your phone, listen to the same music and watch the same shows.
It doesn’t matter much what the environment is like outside the bubble. Yes, there will be pretty things to see and tasty things to eat, but this is not closely tied to the exchange of information and experience between people. It’s fundamentally not about language.
For example, most people in Northern Europe who go to the Mediterranean on holiday (including myself) don’t go primarily because they are interested in the countries they visit. They want sunshine, good food, and a pleasant week of relaxation, not deep cultural exchanges with new people.
To be clear, I’m not saying that tourism is bad, at least not for tourists, but I am saying that if you go to China as a tourist, you won’t learn much Chinese.
Being a tourist while living abroad
Being a tourist is about attitude, not how long you stay. Thus, you can live in a foreign country for years and still be a tourist. You can also visit China for one week without being a tourist.
The more insulated your bubble is and the less you engage with local people around you, the less you will learn. I mentioned working in English above, but there are many other examples of this.
For example, I see this often with exchange students at the university here in Sweden. The French students almost exclusively socialise with other French students, the Spanish with other Spaniards, and so on. There is almost no interaction with locals. At best, people hang out with exchange students from other countries.
Naturally, these students are not in Sweden to learn Swedish (their courses are in English), so from a language-learning perspective, this is not necessarily a problem.
The comfort of familiarity and the convenience trap
I think the reason for this kind of behaviour is simple enough: convenience and safety. Going abroad is, in itself, quite an overwhelming experience and might not be easy to handle for some people, at least not in the beginning.
I have personal experience of this, and was close to abandoning my journey and going home after some initial setbacks during my second year in Taiwan. Popping the bubble completely can lead to feelings of being adrift and deeply unsettling.
Clinging to friends who speak the same language (including online) is a good way to survive, and continuing to do things the same way as at home lends a sense of stability to life. This is only natural and should only be fought if you think you’re up to it.
Learning Chinese is not a race; take things at your own pace. The important thing is that you realise that there is a convenience trap and that you slowly work your way out of it. Read more about the convenience trap here.
Breaking out of the bubble to engage more with Chinese
While the bubble brings safety and convenience, it’s still a barrier between you and your local environment, which effectively hinders you from learning as much as you could.
If you want to learn the language, you can’t stay in the bubble forever. It’s time to break out of the bubble, although you don’t have to pop it all at once.
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably not the kind of person who immerses yourself in a new society without second thoughts or worries, so let’s have a look at how you can engage more with your environment.
For more general learning tips for introverted students, check: 8 tips for learning Chinese as an introverted student.
Taking small steps toward engagement and immersion
As usual, I think being aware of a problem is the first step in solving it. We’ve done that now, so what’s next? Baby steps towards engagement and immersion. Take small steps and make efforts to change parts of your life to be less about staying comfortable and more about engaging with people.
Abandon some activities you don’t really like anyway and replace them with others that naturally bring you into contact with the society in which you live. Stop watching TV series that aren’t in Chinese and generally try to limit your input in other languages. Shift focus from hobbies that keep you insulated to those that bring you into contact with others.
For a more comprehensive discussion about how you can drastically increase the amount of Chinese you engage with without making radical life changes, see The forking path: A human approach to learning Chinese.
It’s okay to be a tourist (sometimes)
It’s perfectly fine to be a tourist too.
If learning the language isn’t your primary goal, visiting China as a tourist can be an enriching and enjoyable experience. Exploring a new country, tasting its cuisine, and seeing its sights are valid and worthwhile reasons to travel. Just remember that being a tourist comes with a different set of expectations, and that’s completely okay.
While you won’t learn much Chinese by simply being in the country, this can still have a powerful indirect effect on long-term motivation. I’ve talked to many students whose motivation to learn the language has skyrocketed after visiting China, regardless of how much Chinese they learnt during the trip itself.
Travelling in China without being a tourist
As mentioned, you can be a tourist even if you’ve lived in the country for ten years, but the opposite is also true: you can go on a week-long trip without being a tourist!
I discussed how to make the most out of travelling to learn Chinese in a separate article, but here are some key takeaways:
- Prepare before you go – The more Chinese you know before you go, the more you will learn. This doesn’t mean you should delay your trip by ten years, but it means that you should try to learn as much as possible before leaving for China.
- Travel alone – This forces or at least encourages you to engage as much as possible with people around you. Naturally, this is out of the question for many people for various reasons. Personally, I’m way too introverted to enjoy this type of travel.
- Travel with non-Chinese speakers – This is a less scary alternative. Travelling with family and friends who don’t speak any Chinese means that you need to take care of most conversations with natives. This includes being a mediator and interpreting what your companions want to say.
- Travel with Chinese-speaking friends – This depends entirely on what kind of friends you have, but if you’re lucky, you will get to see many things you would never have seen otherwise. Native speakers may also function as guides, both to language and culture. Of course, speak Chinese with your friends.
- Consolidate when you get back home – Travelling will expose you to a wide range of new language and culture, usually too wide to take in all at once. This is why you should try to consolidate what you have learnt once you get home. Use the motivation you feel to follow up on interesting things you noted about language and culture.
You can read more about travelling to learn Chinese here: Why travelling isn’t the best method to learn Chinese.
If you want to learn Chinese, don’t be a tourist
So, if you want to learn Chinese, don’t be a tourist. If you want to achieve something other than learning the language, being a tourist is fine.
Travelling where Mandarin is spoken, engaging with locals and exploring the culture is one of the best ways to learn, but it requires you to step out of your bubble.
8 comments
My mother has often noted that much of the population of San Francisco consists of long-term tourists (they live in San Francisco for a few years and then return to their home town or go to wherever they will settle down).
I consider myself to be a long-term tourist in Taiwan – I know I will return to the United States, so I don’t want to put my roots down too deeply here. But I am also learning Chinese (which is why I am reading this blog). And learning Chinese is definitely one of the reasons I moved out of Taipei – I am learning much more quickly now that I am in a location where, in order to get basic daily stuff done, I have to use Chinese, and I have a lot less support from the expat community (I found the expat community essential when I first arrived, but now I do not need that support as much). Of course, my spoken Chinese is now good enough that I can meet my daily needs, so as far as speaking skills I am treading water rather than advancing. However, I am now focused on my listening and reading skills, so I OK with the fact that I am not progressing in speaking skills right now. Once I have attained my goals vis-a-vis listening and reading, I will go back to working on my speaking skills.
I realise that most people can’t or won’t simply throw themselves into a new society with no lifeline at all. I’m actually a rather cautious and shy person myself, even though I went to Taiwan on my own and didn’t know anyone when I arrived. It was quite tough at times, but I still managed. Once my Chinese started improving, things became a lot easier (just like you say).
In short, I understand why people are tourists and if that’s a deliberate decision, that’s fine. I’m not telling people what to do, but I am saying that tourists will learn less Chinese. This is still a matter of balancing what you can cope with with what you want to achieve, which might be tricky. As I say in the article towards the end, I think “baby steps to more integration” is the way to go. If you take small steps for a long time, you will still come a long way.
Well, while I suppose I am taking baby steps in the general direction of integration into Taiwanese society, I have no intention of ever arriving at that destination 😉
That depends on what you consider to be the destination. I would say “as immersed as you feel comfortable with” is a good one and that is achievable. I mean, the goal of immersion isn’t necessarily to forget your life prior to arriving in Taiwan and never speak with your family and friends again. 🙂
When I travel to China I always give myself two rules:
1) Chinese only (except with my wife)
2) Nothing American (food, Starbucks, shopping, etc.)
The “nothing American” rule really helps push me to try new things and avoid the tourist mentality. The “Chinese only” rule is partially about practicing the language, but it also makes me feel more integrated with the country and less like an outsider. My Chinese is only low-intermediate, so I definitely struggle a lot, but it’s definitely worth it.
Sounds like very good rules!