First advantage: Immersion & exposure
As I already mentioned in the intro, being surrounded by the language generates a lot of passive learning. There’s many different skills that come with learning a language, including speaking- and listening skills. While you might not necessarily learn to speak the language better, your listening skills will quickly improve from hearing it around you all the time. I noticed this most when I was living in Japan, where it helped me improve both my listening and reading skills. It is also easier to study the language when you are immersed in it, because your brain is already wired and in ”language mode”.  While I was living in Japan, there were (of course!) no Dutch people around so it was then that English became my first language. At school most of the classes would be taught in Japanese, and all my studying was of course in Japanese as well. I only used Dutch when I was calling my Dutch friends and family. In the beginning of my exchange year, I was exhausted all the time. I thought it was just me adjusting to Japanese university life (blog for another time, but school in Japan is HARD), and I was certainly a busy bee. Later I realized it had something to do with the constant switching of languages in my brain. Sure, I mainly used English and Japanese, but I would still frequently receive messages and emails in Dutch. On a regular day I would constantly use all three languages mixed together, and let me tell you, that costs a LOT of energy! Apparently there is a science to it: When speaking multiple languages and switching between them, they are actually competing with one another in your brain. That can also result in bilingual people mixing up their languages and temporarily not being able to speak either. Fun times!

Second advantage: Not just the language but also the culture
I am a big advocate for not just studying the language, but also studying the culture, because I personally don’t think you’ll ever fully understand the language if you don’t know it’s cultural meaning behind it. This specifically goes for idioms, but if we just study the usage of words, we might not always understand the meaning behind them. So much of a language is related to context. That’s why automated translation services such as Google Translate will never be a hundred percent accurate.
The Japanese language  is a perfect example in this case. There are words and sentences in Japanese that cannot ever be accurately translated into English. ”Yoroshiku onegaishimasu” is one of those phrases, that we tend to translate to ”nice to meet you”, but there is a deeper meaning behind it. The phrase is infused with a sense of respect and politeness that reflects the Japanese culture, yet that gets lost in translation. 

Fun fact: Did you know that people who speak a different language also adopt some of the differences in culture that come with it? For example, I hardly ever use profanity in Dutch. I am much more polite and calm when I speak Dutch compared to English. It’s like I prefer being mad in English, as I feel like I can express myself better.

Third advantage: No textbook learning
Not everyone is a fan of learning a language from a textbook. In Dutch we have a saying amongst students: ”dom stampen”, which literally translates to ‘stupid stamping’, and refers to how some things can only be learned by repetition. It implies that you don’t need a lot of mental capacity for this act of learning, and that it is not engaging at all. Learning a language is a lot like that, because repetition is key. When it comes to vocabulary, all you can do is just repeat the words over and over again. But the thing is, passive learning and learning from the people around you are very engaging things. It doesn’t require repetition, as you often learn new words from the context of other people’s sentences. I’m all for learning from the textbooks if you like structure, as well as to build a strong language foundation. However, for a lot of people learning from a textbook is dry and doesn’t really lead to having ‘real-life scenarios’- language skills. Some of the things that you’ll learn will not be very useful. 

Fourth advantage: Jokes, slang, accent
Another great advantage of learning a language abroad is that you will learn all the good stuff! How to curse, to joke, to look cool, to look like a fool… Being able to joke in another language and be able to get rid of your accent demonstrates fluency. You will be able to fit in a lot more. Some of the Japanese students that were attending the same lectures as me sounded very British, and you could bet your ass they had studied in the UK before! I am unsure of the accent that I have acquired since living here, but according to most people here I sound like I’m from the Pacific Northwest (which is where I live, so that makes sense). In Japan, we adopted a ‘Kansai-ben’, so a Kansai-accent, since we were living in the Kansai area. 

Fifth advantage: Fluency
I think it is really hard to ever reach fluency if you haven’t at least spent a couple of months abroad. Why? Because of all the things mentioned above! Fluency requires a full understanding of a language, which includes cultural meaning, slang, jokes etc. I wish I was fluent in Japanese at this point since I have lived in Japan for a year, but to be honest I am not very good at languages. Contrary to what a lot of people would say, considering I am bilingual at this point, it costs a great deal of energy to study a language and I easily get overwhelmed. Luckily I like a challenge, so I’m shooting for trilingualism!

Sixth advantage: Well….you have to?
To sum it all up, when you live abroad and you study the language of the country you live in, you often are forced to learn. However, this is not a bad thing. I was not fluent in English when I moved to Japan (2017), and I was so afraid of making mistakes and being the ”odd one out”. As the only non-native speaker, I often felt insecure and excluded from conversations that I didn’t quite understand. It forced me to get out of my comfort zone and start engaging. It gave me the right push to start asking questions and pausing people whenever I had a hard time catching a joke. It is hard knowing that my vocabulary isn’t as broad as my husband’s, and that sometimes leads to the occasional language barrier, but I am not as limited as I was before. I’m very eager to learn and he’s willing to correct any mistakes, so my English is still improving!
I would recommend living abroad to anyone who is serious about learning a language.

Tell me about your own experience in the comments!
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