TIME TO MAKE A TOUGH DECISION!
If you are truly serious about learning a language to fluency as soon as possible, then I recommend you make a similar decision (presuming you are also living in the country). If your English speaking friends understand even a little of the language, then tell them that from now on you are only going to speak to them in it.
If they respond in English, or if a local suggests an English word for what you are trying to say, then that’s fine! But you must only answer them in the language you are learning, or maybe occasionally use the word in English, or a quasi-mixture of English and their language if you must, but don’t actually speak in English.
Stop depending on those English speaking friends and make new ones. In that month I lost a few friends; I realized that some of them were only using me to practise their English, and some of them just simply didn’t have the patience for me and my crazy project. This didn’t help when I actually wanted support and encouragement! But in exchange, I have made some wonderful new friends and have had so many wonderful experiences with people who don’t speak English, ever since then.
When I reveal this to expats I meet in passing, they always give me lots of excuses why it isn’t possible; they have family and friends, they need to relax at the end of the day, it’s too hard etc. I’m not saying it’s an easy decision, but if you are truly serious about speaking the language sooner rather than later, then it’s a decision you may need to make.
If you are new in a country, or about to move there, then decide right now that you will very simply avoid speaking English, even if you have to avoid English speakers themselves. And STICK WITH THE DECISION. Ideally, you can still hang out with the English speakers, but you should all practise the local language instead of speaking English, no matter how weird it seems, or how tempted you are to just use your own common language.
It may seem somewhat antisocial, but not really trying to speak the local language is being even more antisocial with the vast majority of people you could be making friends with. Even if you go to some far away village where nobody speaks English, you may still learn the language slowly if you have just one (likely other foreign) friend that you mostly socialise with in English.
This method continued to this day for me and I now quite dislike speaking English unless it’s necessary (apart from when I’m actually in an English speaking country) and make this very clear to people when they first meet me. This has meant that I rarely socialise with other English speakers; despite all my travels to cities with plenty of expats, I don’t have many American or British or Australian or Irish etc. friends (apart from those I met in Ireland & USA for example). Instead I have a lot of Brazilian, Italian, Argentinian, Spanish, French, Quebecois etc. friends.
This has greatly expanded my cultural horizons and really given me a much better feel for the places that I have lived in. If this includes the price-tag of missing out on having English speaking friends, then so be it. Of course, there are plenty of people who speak fluently in the local language and socialise in English.
You could also adapt a less extreme version of my idea and decide to speak at least 3 hours daily (for example) just in the language in question. There are plenty of ways to reach fluency, and I can already tell that mine are quite disagreeable for some! Like all my posts, this is just a suggestion. :)
Do you think you could make the same decision? Maybe you have a less drastic solution to the problem that I was having in Spain? Has anyone else tried this too? Please do share in the comments! If you’ve been enjoying these posts, but haven’t commented yet, please do say hello to let us know you are out there!