Learning the local language abroad: What helps expats succeed?

Between December 2025 and May 2026, the LangPats project surveyed Western expats in 44 countries across Asia and the Middle East. They were asked about their self-assessed language proficiencies, language ambitions, effort to learn the language, along with their demographic profile and how happy they are with expat life. We received 3,212 responses, 1,776 fully completed, thanks in part to Expat.com's dissemination to its readers. Most were living in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, China and Vietnam. Half had been living there for at least four years, and over half intended to stay indefinitely. We followed up with in-depth interviews in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

1. Language does not always buy you “integration”

In the West, we tell migrants a simple story: learn the language and you can integrate. It is written into citizenship tests, civic integration courses and public debates. Many Western expats carry that story with them when they move abroad.

But not every society conceptualises migration and settlement this way. In Asia, for example, being a “local” is a matter of ethnicity rather than language, so a foreigner may never be seen as fully integrated, regardless of how much language they learn. Some found this deeply frustrating: they had invested years in the language and felt their commitment was not rewarded. The problem is they had imported a Western idea of migration and integration, and had applied it in a place and society where that idea is foreign. The happiest expats were those who had made peace with integration, in its Western sense, not being possible. 

2. People learn a language when it matters to them

The single clearest pattern in our data is that the perceived importance of the language drives learning. Expats who rated the local language as highly important and relevant to other expat issues reached about one full proficiency level higher on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) scale (for example, from A2 to B1) than those who did not. Nearly half of them (47%) reported putting in a lot of effort to learn.

Of course, what makes a language important varies enormously. Language tests in residence policy, daily-life demands and a love of the local culture all play a part. Language may be the key to a university degree, to employment, to more friendships, or to understanding the host society. Expats with a chronic health condition or disability improved more than others, because they needed the language to manage local healthcare.

In Taiwan, language was important for expats even when it seemed to matter to no one else. Immigration rules require no Mandarin, so government support for learning is scarce. Some expats told us their employers would not pay for lessons, often to preserve their image as “international” staff. Rather than give up, many became self-learners, finding creative, free and often very unstructured ways to learn in their own time. They wished they had been supported, or even expected, to learn.

Knowing that expats who learn (some of) the local language settle better and become more productive at work, it is in the interests of employers to encourage language learning. This needs to be a carrot, but not a stick, as punitive requirements that increase workloads only push expats away and make a country or company less attractive to international talent.

3. Happier expats speak more of the language

Expats who are more satisfied with their lives tend to have learned more of the local language: the most satisfied moved almost 2 CEFR proficiency steps up, compared to between 1 and 1.5 steps among the least satisfied. 

60% of respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with expat life, but only 32% felt connected to their host community. In analyzing the survey data, we were able to rate levels of satisfaction as a score out of 15, and how connected people feel to the local community as a score out of 18: 

• The most satisfied expats were men living in China, Indonesia and Thailand (12–12.5/15), and American, Canadian, French and Dutch expats (11.6–11.8/15). 
• The least satisfied were expats in South Korea (10.7/15) and those who had moved abroad for their partner (10.9/15). These groups were also the least connected (12.7/18 and 12.0/18).
• Australians, Americans and Germans, and expats in Indonesia, Thailand and Japan, felt the most connected (13.5-13.9/15).

Do satisfied expats who feel connected to the community go on to learn the language, or is it having learned the language that makes them happier and more connected?  Most likely it works both ways. For employers, the direction matters less than the outcome: an early resignation by an expat who can't find happiness is expensive. 

4. Expats often just need a buddy

Expat life is busy and can be hard. The typical respondent was 41, most worked full time, and over a quarter had young children at home. They rarely step into ready-made friendship groups. Not everyone is outgoing, and in some societies, hierarchy, social distance, and ethnic boundaries make friendships with locals slow to form.

Who you live with matters. Expats in a relationship with a local learned the most. But having a local partner is no guarantee: in South Korea and Taiwan, many couples simply use English at home, even if the expat wants to learn the language.

Interviewees described the challenge of finding people to actually practise with, even when surrounded by native speakers. What expats often need is a buddy: a person who has the time and interest to speak with the expat at their pace. Someone who is patient with language mistakes, and who offers an anchor into local life beyond the expat bubble. Someone who can resist the urge to shift to English for efficiency.  A structured buddy scheme can fill this gap. 

5. Many language classes don't fit expats

Most expats learn on their own. 57% used self-study, half took classes, a third used AI tools and 24% hired a tutor. So, much learning is unstructured. That may explain a striking result: the amount of effort an expat puts into learning the language is only a weak predictor of how much the expat actually improved.

When expats did look for classes, many were turned off. Classes were typically during working hours, were full of young students, and were focused on passing formal tests. Public language programmes, where they exist, are often designed for the needs of other groups of migrants. 

What many want is clear: quality teaching focused on real communication, at times that work around a job and a family, and among learners like themselves. 

6. Time to drop the myth of the lazy native English speaker

The image of the monolingual Brit, American or Australian abroad is persistent. There is a grain of truth in it: native English speakers were more likely to say it is easy to live in their host country without learning the local language, and they were more anxious about speaking it.

But they also reported more effort to learn the language, and they learned more of it. Anglophone expats improved by nearly 2 proficiency steps after moving, compared with about 1.5 among other Western expats. Employers should not assume that their English-speaking staff are uninterested in the local language. Many are keen, and they deliver.

7. Locals need to make room for “in-between” speakers

Learning a language means speaking it with limitations for a long time. Many locals are not used to that and 38% of respondents said they feel anxious when speaking the local language. 

In Taiwan, interviewees said locals expect foreigners to speak either perfect Mandarin or no Mandarin at all. Anything in between caused confusion: a wrong tone or a grammar slip was met with a quick switch to English. 

In South Korea, some expats deliberately stopped learning Korean beyond an intermediate level, or did not let people know they had reached advanced proficiency. Speaking fluently, they explained, no longer exempts you from the complex rules of Korean social hierarchy expressed via honorifics. Get those wrong as a fluent speaker, and it can harm your social and working life. This presented as a significant block in the expat language journey in Korea.  

8. LGBTQ+ expats: well prepared, but more anxious

LGBTQ+ participants were more likely to have started learning the language before arriving (59% compared to 48% for non-LGBTQ+ people). Yet they were also more anxious about speaking the local language (46% compared to 36%), less likely to find locals welcoming (61% compared to 68%), and more likely to say better language skills would improve their social life (77% compared to 67%).

Feeling accepted made a clear difference. LGBTQ+ expats who felt connected to the local community made over 50% more progress in the language than those who felt least connected. In South Korea, LGBTQ+ respondents reported higher speaking anxiety and less effort, which may reflect the country's slower social and legal acceptance of LGBTQ+ people.

For employers, this means that inclusion and language support go hand-in-hand. LGBTQ+ staff may value opportunities to practise their language skills without having to manage how they will be received.

9. Where do expats learn the most language?

Japan and Indonesia lead, while Vietnam and the Gulf states trail. Japan showed the biggest improvement in speaking and listening, while South Korea showed the biggest gains in reading and writing, helped by the easy-to-learn Hangul alphabet. The smallest improvements were in Vietnam and the Arab Gulf states, where expats predominantly move for work-related reasons.

This table shows the average language proficiency level reached by expats who had lived in the country for at least four years (self-assessed, based on CEFR):

Expats were also asked to score the local language in terms of difficulty to learn on a scale of 1 (very easy) to 5 (very difficult). They rated Cantonese (4.39) and Khmer (4.27) as the hardest to learn. Malay (2.55) and Indonesian (2.6) were rated the easiest.

10. Some words of advice

There is no single explanation for why some expats learn the local language and others don't. A knowledge worker in Thailand with no language requirement on their visa, working in an international company and has an expat spouse will have a very different path from someone who moved to Japan for the culture, married locally and needs a language test to stay. Still, a few lessons hold across the region.

For employers

• Offer carrots to learn the language, such as:

1. using office hours to attend language classes,
2. covering language course fees,
3. offering bonuses for reaching a certain language level or offering a career path that is made possible through new language skills.

• Build language learning into relocation and settlement, starting before departure, and into work agreements. Include language support for accompanying partners, including for LGBTQ+ staff, as they are often the most isolated.
• Prevent frustration among expats for not feeling ‘integrated' by setting realistic expectations pre-arrival about how settlement and belonging are understood by the host country.
• Set up a buddy scheme to match expats with a local who they can meet and have coffee with in the local language.
• Raise awareness among local staff and offer tips and tricks on how to engage with an expat who is seeks to learn and use the language, such as:

1. allocating certain times (eg lunch every Friday) and spaces (eg the coffee machine) for using only the local language, and choosing topics that the expat's proficiency can reasonably deal with. For example, a beginner might be able to talk about their weekend activities but not about the workplace's retirement scheme,

2. being patient and allowing for awkward pauses in conversation while the expat seeks to respond in the language, 

3. understanding that wrong honorifics are not a sign of disrespect, 

4. taking the conversation's broader context into account to understand what an expats means when mistakes are made,

5. a policy of not laughing at the expat's mistakes, 

6. not translating a word for the expat but helping them find vocabulary through the target language, 

7. not using dialect or slang with the expat,

8. not speaking too fast,

9. ensuring one person speaks at a time, as too much noise can distract from learning.

For expats

• Start learning the language before you arrive, even if just a little, as this impacts language success later.
• Decide what you want the language to do for you. Let go of Western ideas of “integration” if they don't fit. This might make you happier. 
• Look for practice partners, not just a language course.
• Choose classes that match your goals, not ones built for exam-taking students.
• Don't rely on apps. They can be supportive instruments but real-life engagement is always key

For language schools, municipalities and NGOs

• Offer practical, communicative courses that respond to the unique language needs of expats which often do not involve sitting language exams.
• Schedule classes at times that fit working adults.
• Ensure discourse in the classroom is inclusive of different types of expats: some are sent for work, some are LGBTQ+, some are single and some have children.
• Just as an employers might, set up a buddy scheme to match expats with a local who they can meet and have coffee with in the local language.