There are two ways to improve fluency: (a) immersing yourself in a language and (b) having a teacher or a bilingual friend guide and correct you. When I was living in Norway, where much of the population speaks English fluently, I thought it would be the perfect situation to learn the Norwegian. I was both immersed in the language and surrounded by people who could help me. But over time, I realized that this ‘perfect’ situation was a double-edged sword, and what was supposed to help me grow almost caused me to stagnate.

Because so much of Norway can speak English, I often found it challenging to maintain conversations in Norwegian for long. As soon as someone noticed my accent, saw me searching for my words, or thought my language use bizarre, they would almost always accommodate me by switching to English.

It happened while working when I tried to serve customers. It happened at restaurants when I ordered food, and of course, it happened with friends. It was incredible—Norway is the only place I’ve ever lived where an entire group of locals would speak English on my behalf. There could be multiple simultaneous conversations, but if I was with them, they would choose to speak English so that I wouldn’t feel excluded. 

Once at a bar, my friends and I were all speaking English. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, my friends had switched to Norwegian. I stood and listened for a moment, but when they noticed I had returned, the person speaking finished his thought and then switched back to English. Not exactly the immersive experience I was hoping for.

As far as I could see, there were many reasons for this tendency to switch to English. Some people were aching to practice, others wanted to help when they saw me struggling, often people wanted me to feel included, and sometimes they impatiently switched to English so we could just get on with the conversation. But quite honestly, the reason we spoke English was that I didn’t insist on speaking Norwegian.

There’s a story told by many foreigners in Norway (mostly those who don’t speak Norwegian). Namely, that it’s impossible to learn the language because everyone in Norway speaks English. For a time, I accepted this truth, and whenever someone switched to English, I would shrug it off and abide, thinking I was doing them a favor. But the truth is, whenever we changed to English, I was relieved. It was a weight off my shoulders, and I was happy to express myself freely.

It’s understandable. Learning a language is difficult. There are plenty of internal and external obstacles, not to mention the fact that most people will generally take the path of least resistance when it is available. So I had plenty of excusable reasons and some reasonable excuses to avoid practicing my Norwegian. But in the end, it all came down to me making a choice. If I wanted to learn Norwegian and gain fluency, it was my responsibility as the language learner to insist on speaking Norwegian. When I accepted this, things started to change.

It didn’t happen all at once, and I was never able to do it one hundred percent of the time—but little by little I got better at only using English when needing it and insisting on speaking Norwegian as much as possible. And those times when I did my best and refused the invitations to speak English, those were the times when I made the most substantial progress.

My advice—have patience with yourself. Take your time, and if you see that you’re avoiding your second language, don’t be too harsh on yourself; it isn’t easy and there’s always next time. But when you do overcome the odds and make the effort to stay in your second language, congratulate yourself, because that’s the choice that leads to greater fluency.