When my dad hopped off the plane in Colombia, he had a streak of over 500 days on Duolingo. He had confidence that his dedication to practice would allow him to effectively communicate with the locals. When we arrived at our hostel in Bogota, the hostel owner asked him a very simple question: “De donde llegaste?” (where did you arrive from).
A look of panic came across my dad’s face. In the hundreds of lessons practicing how to ask someone's name or buy an apple from the market, Duolingo had yet to cover past tense verb conjugation. Thus, the presentation of the verb “llegar” as “llegaste” left my dad hopeless for translation. Over the next several weeks of travel in South America, my dad’s Duolingo Spanish was consistently humbled.
Throughout my first couple of months in Latin America, I suffered similar struggles when it came to effective communication. After countless hours spent on language apps and YouTube tutorials, I decided to implement a new learning strategy: go on dates with locals that do not speak any English. A few days of swiping on bumble led to a week full of coffee and lunch dates.
The first few dates were—to put it mildly—a disaster. I was constantly apologizing for my lack of Spanish and having to pull out google translate every other sentence. However, after the initial shock, I learned to calm down and focus on the Spanish I did know instead of worrying about the Spanish that I didn’t yet know. I learned to find unique ways of communicating without fixating on proper grammar or pronunciation. Months of trying to memorize grammar rules and vocabulary made conversation feel robotic. Now, I was focused on making the person understand my intent instead of treating communication like a formula.
Over the course of many increasingly less awkward dates, I went from struggling to form sentences, to having sustained basic conversations. Once I got this small bit of confidence, the learning began to compound. I was soon having conversations with locals at any given opportunity. Within a couple of months, I could openly converse with market vendors or bus drivers without making a fool of myself.
There is a widespread belief that childhood is the optimal time to learn a language. Some might even say it is impossible to pick up a new language once you get past a certain age. While the neurobiology of an infant is certainly more conducive to language learning than someone in their fifties, the bigger issue is how people try to learn a new language in their adult years.
When an infant does not yet understand the concept language, they figure out unique ways of communicating. First through crying, then through gestures, and eventually through very simple vocab and phrases. A two-year-old does not give a damn if their grammar is correct, they just need to communicate that they are hungry.
When I forced myself into the situation of having no other option but to communicate in a foreign language, I put myself in the shoes of a toddler just learning how to interact with the world. The result was improving more in two weeks than I had in the previous two months.
Our brains have evolved to only exert effort remembering information that might be necessary for survival. If you log on to Duolingo for 5 minutes a day, but speak your native language to everyone around you for the other 16 hours of your day, the brain is unlikely to register that stimulus as something worth remembering. Until you can convince your brain that a new language is essential to your life, it won't dedicate the resources needed to retain it.
This is why English is by far the most common second language. Most people living in non-english speaking countries see acquiring the language as a means of opening up better work and life opportunities. Thus, the brain is willing to allocate resources for a chance at a better life.
Once I acquired a conversational-level of Spanish, it completely transformed my experience travelling through Latin America. I was able to discover places off the beaten path, haggle prices like the locals, and have relationships with women that did not speak a word of English (Ok, so there was more than just the language learning goal with the dates).
Most importantly, I was able to see life through the lens of a local, and in turn, shift my perception of the world.