How far can you progress without immersion of some sort?
Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2019 2:48 am
Hello everyone!
I have a question / discussion for everyone here. In your experience, how fluent / close to a native-like level can one achieve without immersion and / or using the language daily in a wide variety of situations?
Please Note: I'm using the phrase, "some sort of immersion" in a very loose and general sense. Think: Regular, Frequent and Meaningful Contact with Native Speakers
Examples of what would "qualify" as some sort of immersion would be
- Living with a boyfriend / girlfriend with whom you primarily speak your TL.
- Spending lots of time doing diverse activities with a group (or at least 2) friends who are natives speakers of your target language.
- The vast majority of coworkers are natives / the primary language at work is your TL, AND you maintain some degree of friendship / informal contact with these natives.
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(OPTIONAL READING / BACKGROUND INFO BELOW)
My Experience as an American who's lived abroad since finishing University:
I've met two non-native speakers of English who had achieved (more or less) native level American English speaking and writing skills. Neither of them satisfied any of the requirements above, however both lived their whole lives in Europe, and loved English, and studied it very intensely over a period of many years. I think English in Europe, (even though one was Italian, and the other Romanian) might be in a unique situation though due to its dominance, especially it's dominance on the internet and social media.
Other than these two very intelligent and driven individuals, I have yet to meet anyone else who was able to express themselves as well as the average American. I've met another dozen or so who come very close, (think Luca Lampariello for example,) but out of the hundreds of non-native English speakers I've had a decent amount of contact with, there's only been those two - and they were both even younger than me - one was 3 years younger, and the other was 5 years younger. Note: I'm not counting people who've spent more than a year living in America while also meeting my above definition!
[edit] The people who I'm referring to above as having come very close to it generally reveal their non-nativeness when it came to "simple things" especially word order, pragmatics (formal/informal), and using complex sentences to express things (especially commands or suggestions) that even the most pedantic of natives would say in much simpler, possibly idiomatic ways.
Note: For reference I'm comparing them to the average American with a high school education (minus jargon,) which honestly isn't a very high standard. I'm not comparing them to law students and professors.
*** I'm especially interested in hearing what native speakers of languages other than English have to say about this! ***
I have a question / discussion for everyone here. In your experience, how fluent / close to a native-like level can one achieve without immersion and / or using the language daily in a wide variety of situations?
Please Note: I'm using the phrase, "some sort of immersion" in a very loose and general sense. Think: Regular, Frequent and Meaningful Contact with Native Speakers
Examples of what would "qualify" as some sort of immersion would be
- Living with a boyfriend / girlfriend with whom you primarily speak your TL.
- Spending lots of time doing diverse activities with a group (or at least 2) friends who are natives speakers of your target language.
- The vast majority of coworkers are natives / the primary language at work is your TL, AND you maintain some degree of friendship / informal contact with these natives.
--------------
(OPTIONAL READING / BACKGROUND INFO BELOW)
My Experience as an American who's lived abroad since finishing University:
I've met two non-native speakers of English who had achieved (more or less) native level American English speaking and writing skills. Neither of them satisfied any of the requirements above, however both lived their whole lives in Europe, and loved English, and studied it very intensely over a period of many years. I think English in Europe, (even though one was Italian, and the other Romanian) might be in a unique situation though due to its dominance, especially it's dominance on the internet and social media.
Other than these two very intelligent and driven individuals, I have yet to meet anyone else who was able to express themselves as well as the average American. I've met another dozen or so who come very close, (think Luca Lampariello for example,) but out of the hundreds of non-native English speakers I've had a decent amount of contact with, there's only been those two - and they were both even younger than me - one was 3 years younger, and the other was 5 years younger. Note: I'm not counting people who've spent more than a year living in America while also meeting my above definition!
[edit] The people who I'm referring to above as having come very close to it generally reveal their non-nativeness when it came to "simple things" especially word order, pragmatics (formal/informal), and using complex sentences to express things (especially commands or suggestions) that even the most pedantic of natives would say in much simpler, possibly idiomatic ways.
Note: For reference I'm comparing them to the average American with a high school education (minus jargon,) which honestly isn't a very high standard. I'm not comparing them to law students and professors.
*** I'm especially interested in hearing what native speakers of languages other than English have to say about this! ***