Three Language Lessons I Learned on my First Visit to France

23 Oct 2020 #writing

This post is about one of my hobbies: learning new languages. But not programming languages. Foreign languages.

I want to share three lessons I learned while traveling to France to practice my French-speaking skills. Each lesson is behind a funny story that happened on my first visit to France.

These are the three lessons I learned:

1. Don’t Fall into the temptation of speaking English. Keep speaking in your target language when locals talk to you in English. Don’t think they’re rude or you aren’t “worthy” of their language. They want to practice too. Ask politely to continue speaking in your target language. Or pretend you don’t speak English.
2. Learn vocabulary to suit your needs. If you’re traveling for work, vacations, or cultural exchange, you will need vocabulary for totally different situations. I learned this lesson while waiting at the security at an airport. Can you imagine what happened?
3. Mistakes are progress. Embrace it when locals correct your language skills. Don’t feel discouraged when locals correct your mistakes. Imagine you got a free language lesson. Probably you won’t make that mistake again.

To read the full story, go to “Fluent in 3 Months” at 3 Language Lessons I Learned on my First Visit to France where I originally published it.

Happy learning!