Q.

According to relevance theory, some people think that you

cannot become fluent in a language unless you have spent time
living in that country.
To what extent do you agree?
Learning a new language has many cognitive advantages. Some people are of the opinion that
language proficiency is achieved only by staying or working in a country where that language is
used for communication. I completely agree that fluency in any language is obtained only if we
have an environment of people speaking in the same language around us.

To begin with, People can learn a language fast when they read, write, listen and speak in that
language. When working or living in a country where this language is excessively used paves a
way for learning it quickly. Furthermore, by listening to the native speakers', people can
understand the accent and usage of words. Experiences help in correcting our mistakes and learn
language effortlessly. For example, if a person has been learning French for the past one year but
he lives in Pakistan he doesn't necessarily have to communicate every time in French as many
people speak local languages. This made him difficult to learn French as he did not have the right
platform to implement what is being taught.

Next, Language is not always the rules and grammar defined in textbooks. It is certainly
something that needs to be learned through talking. The more we used it in our daily life the
better the scope of becoming fluent. Exams and language courses help in understanding the gist
but do not give a practical understanding of the usage.

In conclusion, the rules and lessons learned from a language class only help to some extent, but
in order to achieve fluency and command over the language, it is necessary to work or live in a
country.