How to Completely Immerse Yourself in Language Learning
3 effective ways to avoid language transfer
In High-school, my Spanish teacher used to analyse the structural and grammatical differences between English and Spanish. We used to highlight how specific scenarios were portrayed in both languages to explain what made each one unique.
At first, I didn’t see a lot of correlation between effectively learning Spanish and comparing it to another language. I thought I only needed to remember sentence structures and prepositions to fully master the language. After all, my teacher did put a strong emphasis on vocabulary, grammar and syntax. But as we practised, one recurring pattern was still in the way.
Even if we had learned semantics and idioms, we were still using the knowledge of English to interpret Spanish. It all came down to a phenomenon called L1 interference. To effectively master a new language, we had to learn how to prevent it.
What is L1 interference?
L1 interference — or language transfer — is defined as the process of using your knowledge of your first language or another language that you know when speaking or writing a language that you are learning.
