Why Packing a Suitcase Won’t Make You Fluent

“The only way to really learn a language is to move to the country.”
“Stop studying and just go. You’ll pick it up naturally.”

You’ve heard it all your life, and you may even believe it. And if you’ve read me a little, you already know I have a tendency to reject what is commonly advised when it comes to learning languages. Not out of contrarian instinct, but because of what I’ve seen and lived myself: years of first-hand experience, and a lifetime of watching people around me struggle with the same thing.

But why wouldn’t it be true? After all, when you’re abroad, you’re surrounded by the language. People talk. You read signs. You have to survive, so you have to talk. Well…at least in theory. Because none of this is entirely true anymore, and I’m not sure it ever was, and that’s the first problem.

People around you talk, yes. But if you have absolutely no knowledge of the language, you have no anchor to hold on to. No crutch to help you make your first step. And people don’t talk the way textbooks prepare you for. They use colloquialisms, swallow half their words, rely on acronyms, speak backwards (hello verlan in French), or refer to inside jokes, shared situations, cultural references you simply don’t have access to. Which, incidentally, is also true in your own language. You can understand every single sentence and still miss the point entirely. (This happens to me often enough that I’ve decided it’s a universal human condition rather than a personal malfunction).

And even if you do have a decent base, it’s not as if you’re going to stand or sit next to strangers and listen to them for hours. Well, admittedly, I did exactly that in Russia, and I wouldn’t recommend it. First, because it felt lonely. Second, because I was giving off strong someone should probably keep an eye on her energy. (Sad music playing internally.)

When you’re abroad, you read signs, yes. Or… kind of. Many signs are translated into English. And when they’re not, say, labels in the supermarket, are you really expecting to learn much from the ingredients list of your shampoo or your yoghurt? You’re unlikely to remember those words, and they won’t help you start a conversation unless you want to ask whether that cream contains almond oil because you’re allergic to it, or whether it’s mosturizing because you have dry feet. Linguistically impressive, sure. Socially? A bit weird, let's be real. Especially if you can’t understand the answer and just stand there, wide-eyed, mouth slightly open, like a stunned deer.

That’s the core problem when you know very little of a language: you can gather all the courage in the world to ask a question to start a conversation, but if the answer you get is completely incomprehensible, what exactly are you getting out of the interaction? It’s premature, discouraging, and often mildly humiliating. And that’s assuming you don’t give up halfway through the day out of sheer frustration and cognitive exhaustion, and retreat into the familiar realm of your phone, translating menus, the ingredients of a mosturizing cream for those dry feet of yours, or simply disconnecting from real life altogether by texting friends back home, listening to music, or putting on a comforting podcast that is, very deliberately, not in your target language. (Wow, that was an awfully long sentence.)

Most “expats”, let’s be honest, end up using very little of the local language in daily life. Even the most motivated of them all. At the supermarket checkout, they repeat robotically unchallenging phrases like “by card, please” (“Mit Karte, bitte” has become a running joke in the German-learning community), apologize constantly for speaking badly, and eventually switch to English, while apologizing for switching to English. Sounds familiar?

For a long time, this wasn’t my experience at all, and I admit I was quietly judgmental toward people who lived abroad for years without learning the local language. After all, what first drew me abroad (to Russia, to Ukraine and to Turkey) was precisely the desire to improve languages I had already begun learning. I had always moved with language as the destination itself, not as a by-product of a job, a relationship, or a life decision. In that sense, I had never really walked in their shoes. That changed in Prague, where I spent several months and, for the first time, became that person. I wasn’t emotionally invested in Czech, I relied on Russian to navigate, and English worked so smoothly that I never felt any real urgency to make an effort. There was no pressure, no necessity, no pull. And that’s when it became obvious: without desire or constraint, people just don’t put on the effort. That’s natural.

When it comes to people who genuinely want to learn but feel unable to, they face several issues. They’re often too busy working all day, whether in their own language or in English, or they simply don’t know where to begin. Each attempt to speak tends to end the same way: freezing mid-sentence, switching to English out of embarrassment, avoiding conversations altogether and slowly isolating themselves, relying on friends or partners, or, if they persist in trying to talk, being answered in English anyway. In every case, it’s discouraging, and it usually cuts the learning process short before it ever has a chance to take hold.

This is something expats in the Netherlands complain about endlessly: the Dutch are simply too proficient in English to let learners struggle quietly in Dutch. In such condition, how can you possibly progress? I knew a girl who had spent, I believe, six years in the Netherlands and eventually gave up entirely. Not because she didn’t care, but because she never found opportunities to speak.

And that’s the point. Native speakers are not teachers. They’re not emotionally invested in your learning journey. When they talk to you, they want to have a good time too and not feel trapped in a conversation where thoughts can’t be articulated. It sounds harsh, but I’ve been on both sides, and both are awkward. It’s awkward to try your hardest and be answered in English. It’s awkward to let someone struggle in your language when you know you could both communicate faster and more comfortably in English (the language most learners already know best). With that being said, some cultures are more encouraging than others. Personalities matter too. But all of this deserves its own article.

Yet what feels certain to me is this: Moving abroad in the hope that the language will magically seep into you is a bit like standing next to a gym and expecting to get fit by proximity alone: technically closer to the action; still doing absolutely nothing.

In your real life, unless you’re a student or a professional whose responsibilities force constant interaction, how much do you actually speak or listen to your own language all day? Probably not that much. You may even spend hours in silence because your lifestyle allows it. Abroad, chances are you work in your own language or in English, or you don’t work at all and suddenly have a lot of empty time. It’s delusional to think you’ll be bathed in the language all day, everyday. On the street, you hear chatter you can’t engage in. Waiters ask how you want your coffee. Shop clerks ask if you need a gift bag. To which you automatically answer “Mit Karte, bitte,” because that’s what you usually say when you see a cashier. And…scene. After that mind-bending interaction, you call it a day.

And if you have local friends…well, you’re friends because you can talk. Which means you’ll likely keep speaking the shared language you already have. Switching is hard once one language has been established. I once met a German–French couple who had met in Spain and had accidentally built an entire relationship in Spanish, even though they both could speak English. Using English together felt odd to them.

So immersion is, paradoxically, very limited even when you’re physically where the language is spoken. Tragically ironic.

So what—does immersion not work at all? Of course it does. Immersion just means being surrounded by the language, and yes, that part is essential. The real question is whether that kind of immersion is even achievable abroad when you’re a beginner, especially when your phone is permanently glued to your hand, as it is for most of us. And in my experience, no, not really. Simply placing your body in a country doesn’t do much unless you’re actively exercising the language and absorbing content alongside it. Otherwise, you’re not immersed - you’re just geographically elsewhere.

What being abroad truly does is reinforce what you already know and, eventually, carry you toward mastery—but only once you’re capable of actually living in the language. That means working, building relationships, taking on responsibilities, and being addressed as a linguistic equal rather than someone others need to slow down for or simplify things for. At that point, being abroad becomes almost indispensable. If your target language is a piece of jewelry, this is where it’s polished: edges softened, details refined, depth revealed.

Immersion should start at home. In the comfort of your own space, where you can actually exploit everything the internet has to offer: hundreds upon hundreds of hours of content, thousands upon thousands of paragraphs - far more exposure than you’ll ever get by hovering next to strangers like the creep I once was in Russia. This is immersion you can control, repeat, rewind, and survive.

It’s also the closest thing adults have to the kind of immersion they once experienced naturally. As babies, then as children, we were surrounded by language every waking hour. We were spoken to constantly at home, then again at school, every waken hour of the day (admittedly that wasn’t many hours a day, and the brain was very much still under construction, but still). That density of exposure is what made language acquisition possible in the first place.

As adults, we don’t get that kind of immersion for free anymore. In real life, that level of constant interaction simply doesn’t exist. No one is going to take you by the hand and teach you a language all day unless you’re paying for an alarming number of private lessons, or unless your partner (if that applies) agrees to speak to you like a very patient toddler for months on end, without ever losing their sanity. Which means we can’t just wing it and hope exposure will magically happen. We have to recreate immersion deliberately and actually exercise it. That’s why home-based immersion isn’t a fallback plan when you are too broke to move abroad; it’s a necessity.

For all these reasons, I consider that the very concept of “immersion” needs to be rethought. Not as the starting line, but as the final phase of the learning journey (not that you ever truly stop learning a language, but you get the idea).

So yes—immersion is crucial.
Just not abroad. Not yet. Not until you have solid, reliable foundations to fall back on. Only once you’ve reached a level that allows you to navigate life almost like a native does immersion abroad truly unlock its power—and take your language from “good enough to survive” to “did you grow up here or something?”.