There is a common belief that living abroad is romantic, and well it has its charms but I think it is like dating. A good match comes down to three things: some of it is when you are in your life, some of it is where you are in your life and the rest is complimentary dysfunction. That is to say when you visit a city as a tourist this is the first date. Hopefully they gussied up a bit, you get to see the swankiest places but for the most part when you are a tourist you are either living a bit above your socio-economic rung (do you really pay someone to come to your house and clean it every day or other people to cook for you? If so are you looking to adopt?) or it is cool and exotic. I mean we all have expectations for how a hotel should run and whoa to them who violate it (if you are feeling too good about humanity go and read negative reviews on tripadvisor).
What does this have to do with language and language learning? Well experiencing the language was integral to the place. I say was because with the invention of the internet (show age by inserting tech stock bubble joke here) culture is now a Boolean operator away. Don't believe me? Use your internet search provider of choice and look for "movie completo dublado". You will now find movies dubbed into Brazilian Portuguese, sometimes they cost, sometimes not. This also works the other way. Where it was hideously expensive to call the US or find books in English now it is a click away. So I can live in Portugal but conduct my life in English pretty darn easily.
Which is the long way of saying that travelling abroad is no longer a given way to expose oneself to a language, even living abroad I have created a bit of unreality here. But before you can say "privileged, culturally imperialistic white guy" lets be clear, this is a human thing. Have you ever gone over to your friend's house with the strange cooking (you mean your are not have fish sticks or frozen ravioli tonight?) and heard him get bawled out by his mom in something not Englishy or gone to a restaurant where they serve neither fish sticks nor frozen ravioli and thought "must be good, the people here are not speaking English". I consider this human because I think that this is best captured by the after dinner comment my friend Paulo made, "I can talk in four languages but I can only express myself in one". We all have a need to express ourselves, but sometimes I need to talk in another. So I am working to create those times where I need to talk in another. This opportunity is available to everyone now.
What does this have to do with language and language learning? Well experiencing the language was integral to the place. I say was because with the invention of the internet (show age by inserting tech stock bubble joke here) culture is now a Boolean operator away. Don't believe me? Use your internet search provider of choice and look for "movie completo dublado". You will now find movies dubbed into Brazilian Portuguese, sometimes they cost, sometimes not. This also works the other way. Where it was hideously expensive to call the US or find books in English now it is a click away. So I can live in Portugal but conduct my life in English pretty darn easily.
Which is the long way of saying that travelling abroad is no longer a given way to expose oneself to a language, even living abroad I have created a bit of unreality here. But before you can say "privileged, culturally imperialistic white guy" lets be clear, this is a human thing. Have you ever gone over to your friend's house with the strange cooking (you mean your are not have fish sticks or frozen ravioli tonight?) and heard him get bawled out by his mom in something not Englishy or gone to a restaurant where they serve neither fish sticks nor frozen ravioli and thought "must be good, the people here are not speaking English". I consider this human because I think that this is best captured by the after dinner comment my friend Paulo made, "I can talk in four languages but I can only express myself in one". We all have a need to express ourselves, but sometimes I need to talk in another. So I am working to create those times where I need to talk in another. This opportunity is available to everyone now.
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