Is there improvement? 100%, absolutely. I have thought about posting some unscripted videos of me speaking in my TL’s over time (I even bought a camera for this purpose but have been busy).
I try to speak for 2 hours a week at least now in each TL. I really started with speaking a month or so before knowing anything about comprehensible/compelling input.
Beginning:
Swedish and Norwegian were really starts from 0. I used Google Translate to look up how to say how old I was, and then proceeded to say it wrong in Swedish anyway. I really remember the first conversations being {Lots of Stuff I didn’t understand} me saying {Yes/No} followed by {Lots of Stuff I didn’t understand} and then eventually reading a Klar Tale or 8sidor article and then not understanding any of that.
German was different in that with all the classes I had taken I knew about just every grammatical concept that exists in German, but was really only capable of using them when writing with a dictionary and a lot of time. I could have a very basic conversation, but also didn’t understand much that was being said to me. My italki teachers estimated I was about an A2 and I think that was about right.
Now:
In the last 13~ months I went from A0 in Swedish to having a part-time job requiring (read: allowing) me to speak and write in Swedish almost every day. I understand almost everything in conversation without effort. Last week I got into a small argument with someone from Sweden that thought I was lying to them about being neither Norwegian or Danish. I’m told I am difficult to estimate my spoken fluency using the normal CEFR because of my habit of blurting out random Norwegian words or using Norwegian vowels (e.g. saying når instead of när). The consensus is my spoken ability is “imponerande”.
Similarly in Norwegian, I get opportunities to speak with native speakers almost every day. I understand without needing to put in any effort. I actually keep this better separated from Swedish by using Hunkjønn and getting enough exposure to the non-Østlandske dialects. Though sometimes I still say things like “och” instead of “og”. Native speakers tell me my accent is good and that I am “fluent” though I really try to not pay too much attention to it as I do not want to stop improving.
Between both I almost never import false friends like “rar”. But sometimes when I hear them I get taken off by them for a second. My biggest weaknesses in live conversation for both languages are the same:
- Word order in subordinate clauses
- Prepositions
- Interweaving English in the way that a native speaker would…
With German the grammar is simply harder for me. While Swedish and Norwegian both have grammatical gender, it was clear to me from day 1 what gender a word had in almost all contexts. I did not have that muscle with German until very recently. I have no problem expressing myself in great detail, and understanding anything being said to me. But I have a lot of areas I need to improve in with spoken German:
- Grammatical Gender + Grammatical Case
- Prepositional Phrases (+ Grammatical Case)
- V2 Word Order
- Subject-Verb agreement in subordinate clauses
- werden vs. wurden (vs. würden + gewesen)
In general, I just try and pay attention to these things when I read, listen, write and speak. If I notice it, awesome! If I made a mistake, but noticed it, awesome! It will all come together eventually with enough exposure and practice.