by Renee S

Created on: January 30, 2007   Last Updated: August 18, 2010

The best way to learn a foreign language is through total immersion in the country where this language is being spoken on a daily basis. The reason for this is simple: when you're forced to listen to the language through the television, the radio, on the streets, in the shops and to communicate with people using this language, your grasp of the language will become stronger.

I speak about this through a personal experience. Since English is not my mother tongue, I was forced to learn it when my parents decided to send me to Australia to study. At the age of 12, I went there with minimal knowledge of the English language, but because I was only mingling with true blue Aussies then, I could speak with no accent (well, with an Australian accent instead) in six months! Even my teachers didn't know that I was an International student, thinking all along that I was born and bred in Australia.

And when I took up French at school, I was then sent on an exchange program to France. Although it was only for one month, my French improved tremendously, I could speak in sentences to my host family and to my French friends. And when I came back to my French classes at school, I breezed through it all, which led me to comfortably take up French lit at university.

So, that's why I say that it's best to learn a foreign language if you live in the country where that language is the national language. But if this scenario is not possible, then the next best thing is to surround yourself with people who speak the language in the country where you're living. Or watch TV programmes and listen to online radio broadcasts in that particular language. Constant exposure to your new language is important if you want to master it and be able to fully converse using the language.

Learn more about this author, Renee S.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.