Some People Think That You Can Never Become Fluent In A Language Unless You Have Spent Time Living In That Country | Band 7.5 IELTS Essay Sample
Some people think that you can never become fluent in a language unless you have spent time living or working in that country. To what extent do you agree?
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Band 7.5 IELTS essay sample
According to some people, in order to become fully fluent in a language, we have to work or live in the country where that language is spoken. I do not quite agree with that view. In my opinion, if we use a language continuously, we can achieve fluency regardless of where you live.
To commence with, the easiest way to gain proficiency in any language is to live or work in the country where it is spoken. This makes it necessary for us to converse in that language all the time. For example, when we are at the grocery store, restaurant or dispensary, we have to use the native language and thus we will gain proficiency without much effort. The thing with language is that it does not require higher levels of intelligence or effort to gain mastery of it. We only have to use and surround ourselves with people who speak it all the time. This is how babies learn their first language. They get immersed in it. They hear it all the time and they do not require any special effort to learn it. This is not the case with foreign languages. Oftentimes, we do not have any opportunity to speak it in our country and this affects our fluency.
Having said that, it really is not necessary to go abroad to learn a foreign language. If we speak it regularly at work or over the phone we can achieve proficiency without going abroad. For example, I studied in Tamil medium and was not fluent in English but after I got a job Bangalore, I had to start using it. My colleagues did not speak Tamil and I did not know their language. Hence, although I was not fluent in English, I had to use it to converse with them because they also understand English. Slowly, I started becoming more confident of my ability to speak English.
To conclude, the easiest way to gain proficiency in any language is to live in the country where it is the first language. However, this is not the only way and anyone can gain proficiency in any language, if they use it all the time.
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