People love to say that if you move to a country where you don't speak the language, you'll be fluent in a year. And like, that's probably true for some people, but I think that's mostly people who don't spend a lot of time speaking their first language in that country, like people who go specifically to study alone in a country where very few people speak their first language, or people who are sent as the one member of their family who can afford to escape the pogroms.
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I'm speaking a lot of English in Uruguay, because my family is with me. I still have to speak Spanish to get my needs met, but less than you might expect for a country where only 10-15% of people speak English.
Sometimes people try to reassure me that I'll still be fluent within a year of having gotten here, but the way my anxious brain tends to take that is "Oh no, the clock is ticking, and if I'm not fluent by August, I'm a failure."
@BathysphereHat Give yourself a break. That's not an unusual migrant experience.
People communicate roughly about 1/3 with their household, 1/3 with their workplace or school, and 1/3 with everyone else -- online, neighbors, stores, clubs, friends, extended family, whatever.
If your home and work are both English-speaking, and you're mostly socializing online and off with anglophones, you're not immersed enough to become fluent in the language of the surrounding community just by osmosis.
@BathysphereHat I think setting some goals for what you want to accomplish is better than expecting fluency. Some example goals:
- Full interaction in a store or restaurant in host language
- Full interaction with a professional, like a doctor or electrician
- Go to a social event where you only speak the host language
- Make a monolingual friend
- Join a club
- Volunteer
- Read the news
- Read a book
- Get a job
- Have a romantic partner
It's OK to set realistic goals.
