How can I improve my oral skills?

Open Forum in English
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To me correction is more input. I believe we learn mainly from input. When I receive corrected writing or my tutor’s conversation report, I study this content carefully. It is relevant content, high resonance content, because it represents something I was trying to say. The more relevant and the higher resonance of content, the better I learn. But one or a few writing correction or conversation reports represent just a small part of the massive input that I consume, trying always to notice what is going on in the language.

Again and again I notice things that I did notice before. And with the constant exposure, my brain gradually starts to get used to the new language and to use the new language more correctly. Correction is a useful, but small part, of a much larger picture, in my experience.

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But if somebody never gets corrected, all their bad habits get ingrained. In Spain I met an American that had lived in Spain for 4 years, I believe. Her work was mostly in English but she still had a LOT of exposure to Spanish outside of work. However, her grammar was pretty poor considering she had been there for years and she kept on getting the gender of words wrong. She didn’t notice the right way of speaking, apparently.

I actually copied down some of the notes that we had in our intensive, boot-camp grammar class to help her with the rules of gender in Spanish. It’s another topic, but I really think that having a solid grasp of grammar is fundamental for adults learning languages to reach a very high level. If you know grammar inside and out, you can teach the language and it shows that you really do understand how the language works. In Spanish, for example, if you just memorize a few pages of rules, you don’t have to remember every simple word gender or every use of the preterite vs imperfect.

And I remember recently how I had always been saying a few things wrong for thousands of hours until somebody finally told me! (I would say, “aficionado DE…” instead of the correct “aficionado A”)

That said, I think once the person is relatively advanced (B2/C1+), they just talk as natives do and pick the option that “sounds” right in sentences. To me, that is a mark of a very advanced speaker. And most people, unless they are a teacher, tend to forget most of the rules that they knew when they were intermediate speakers, I think.

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I think the “De” and "A’ are great examples of some things that you can only pick up with exposure. I have never memorized these but I get them correct most of the time. I think I just picked them up. I am not even sure there are rules here.

In fact I never really studied grammar, and the genders I get correct I think were assimilated from mass listening. I have a vague sense of the gender patterns, but in French they are rather less clear than in Spanish, I think.

I’m finding the less I think when I speak, the better I speak. Its basically the same as improvising on an instrument. When I try to play a phrase I’ve been practicing, or that I have transcribed, when I play a solo, I usually mess it up. When I don’t think about it, it usually ends up being played without my realizing it.

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@cazasigiloso - Well said, they possess a very mature grasp of a language – the unfortunate thing is that those people are sometimes even mistaken for being dumb!

I get the feeling your Spanish, relatively speaking, is actually way better than you think. I could barely understand one of my thick-accented professors (non-language subject) at Uni years ago, but his doctoral-level written English rang rings around my undergraduate English. But you wouldn’t think so if you heard him speak.

It’s a pity you’ve had some somewhat condescending experiences with native speakers – just when you think you’re getting somewhere, they deal you a blow. I think they should have given more respect and sensitivity, just as you did for students you tutored when you cleverly indirectly corrected them without making them feel like dumb-arses. It’s weird how we tend to make assumptions and judgements about others’ accents – it doesn’t necessarily reflect true ability of course.

I wonder if the goal of excellence – that is, just being the very best you can be in your target languages (and for you, that would be a realistically very high standard I’m sure) – is more helpful than trying to sound like a native. No matter how many years I’ll put into Japanese, I have to accept that my kids will probably speak it better than I ever will. This doesn’t compare to your years of language-learning experience of course, but I learned to sing a song I valued very much in Chinese - put my blood, sweat and tears into it - but a native commented my singing sounded like “a real foreigner”. I realised I must have sounded the same to native speakers as some Asian foreigners here trying to sing English karaoke. Ouch!

I’m like you, too, in that I prefer to be corrected. But if I have too many corrections as a beginner, then I might get discouraged. However, I really concur with you about ingrained bad habits. Something happened earlier this year that really made an impression on me about bad habits: I scored higher in an oral language test and other assessment (online university) as a complete beginner from scratch, than some students who were actually living in the target country for twice the amount of time as your friend. I wasn’t a genius – I just hadn’t had the chance for really bad habits to set in yet.

So that drives me for the time being to take more notice of a language.

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@djv: Yes, “a” and “de” do have rules. I have forgotten some of the rules for Spanish grammar since almost all of them have been (hopefully) assimilated into my head without me thinking of them. When I was finally corrected with the “aficionado a”, that was at 5,500 or so hours of Spanish so I did have a LOT of exposure already. Another point is that I didn’t use the expression that much so maybe that is why I always said it incorrectly. Of course, I’m a perfectionist so a few errors isn’t a big deal–but I HATE grammatical errors.

In Spanish I think it is extremely important to commit the rules to memory; that way, you get 98% of the genders right. I guess you could just “notice” them but you run the risk of not doing so like my friend in Spain. There aren’t many (it is literally like 15 rules) for gender so it doesn’t take much time to remember them anyways!

@Julz: It is weird to me because if you are talking about relatively complex topics like the history of colonialism in Africa and its negative effects on the country’s psyche, somebody could ask you if you understood something extremely basic in the language. But I guess that is their way of talking? They haven’t dealt me a blow, just pissed me off. :slight_smile: And in these situations I didn’t make mistakes. For example, we would be talking and then they would suddenly ask me, “do you know what ‘situación’ means?”

Me (thinking): Um…it’s a cognate so even if I didn’t have 6,500 hours of Spanish I would be able to decipher what it means. (duh)

I’m well aware of how poor or good my Spanish is and I’m actually very pleased with how with just one hour spent speaking/listening a day, how I maintain everything I’ve learned in the past! My Spanish friend is always like, “How do you speak so well with just one hour a day!?”

Me: Well, I also had the 6,500 (or whatever) hours in the past…

Congrats on your test! I think the accent work that Luca does is pretty important; he does it at the start and it shows. I haven’t ever, nor will I ever, studied a very different language from English like Japanese or Chinese but I imagine that pronunciation work is extremely important in being understood consistently. Do you try to sound like a native? I don’t think most serious language learners try for that, right? That is something that some people never get, like my French-speaking friend that has lived here for 10 years. My father, however, has lived here for 40+ years and I don’t think he has any accent. And his native language is Chinese; pretty different from English.

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“My father, however, has lived here for 40+ years and I don’t think he has any accent. And his native language is Chinese; pretty different from English.”

You might just not notice it. I forget my mom has an accent, then every once in a while someone visiting my parents house will ask me to repeat what my mom just said more clearly.

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Another relative thinks that he still has a slight accent but I disagree with him. I also have another relative that is from the same city in China and has lived in the US for 40+ years also and this person has an obvious accent. So that is another topic about how two people with the same language upbringing and same number of hours in the US can have considerably different levels of English proficiency. Not just in accent but in speaking correctly.

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Agreed, that is bizarre that they did that after such hours of high level conversation as you said. I can’t imagine being able to discuss the rise of militarism and ultra-nationalism in Japan during the 1930s any time soon in Japanese, lol. So you’re the master! I take my hat off to you re your Spanish.

As for accents - I don’t really put much store by them. I can tell if an aussie comes from Queensland as opposed to South Australia, or if someone is a Kiwi (New Zealander) within seconds of opening their mouth. But obviously accents aren’t really an indication of ability in the L2, except when you can tell someone’s only had 3 language lessons, say.

I had a Japanese teacher years ago who didn’t know how to pronounce “whole”, and after the class good-naturedly laughed about it, she said she was very ashamed of her English ability. I said to her, “Are you insane? I grew up with neighbours from Italy, Greece and Yugoslavia, and they still can’t speak English - but you on the the other hand speak impeccable English. So what if there’s a few words in the entire English language you can’t pronounce?” She changed her tune when she saw it in perspective.

I don’t try to talk like a native in Chinese - all that unnatural contorting of my mouth getting me nowhere… but I try to get the tones right. I am very pleased with my Japanese pronunciation though. Not having an American accent does give me an edge in Japanese. On the other hand, American 'r’s would be helpful for the er sound in Chinese. I have no idea how I’m ever gonna roll my 'r’s for Spanish.

@ ‘two people with the same language upbringing and same number of hours in the US can have considerably different levels of English proficiency. Not just in accent but in speaking correctly’ - my 2 sisters and I with the same upbringing, school etc have considerably different levels of English proficiency in our mother tongue English. haha! Weird, that. I was the only one (middle child) who graduated from high school, let alone go to law school etc. Could never figure out why.

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@Julz: Thanks for the compliment but 1. You don’t know how good (or bad!) my Spanish is and 2. There is still a ton to learn…always… (I hate it when people that have never studied a foreign language say that language X is easy. Ugh)

Why did she have trouble with “whole”? I thought that the “th” sound was the hardest thing to pronounce in English for learners, right?

So…you are learning Japanese and Chinese? Which do you like more? Since you are in Australia, it makes sense that you would learn those two. Why not Korean? K-Pop seems to be uber popular nowadays.

It just seems weird since the friend has been in the US for 40+ years and still makes the same basic mistakes occasionally. Other than that the person is 100% native, but it just seems interesting to me.

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yes, all the schools here 99% teach either Japanese or Chinese. I studied Japanese in the 70s in high school for 5 years.
My second-fave teacher of all time was in fact my Japanese teacher Mr Hiroshi Haga, a kind, gentle and intelligent man.
To my ears, Japanese is such a beautiful language.

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I’ve been told by relatives (I’m Chinese) that a lot of older Chinese are still very bitter about WW2 and won’t buy Japanese cars because of it. If you read about the Rape of Nanking and other atrocities committed by the Japanese from 1937-1945 in Manchuria and other parts of China, your blood will boil. Wow, I just did a google search and came up with this article from today! Ugh, I really hope that none of my ancestors were victims…

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Operation Downfall was the proposed allied (American, really) invasion of the Japanese home islands. A lot of analysis was done regarding how many casualties it would take to defeat Japan 500,000+. Obviously some were on the lower end but other military figures thought that it would be over a million. These estimates were not outlandish since they extrapolated the previous American casualty rates/day at Okinawa and Iwo Jima, I believe.

The home islands were supposed to be even worse for the US since Japan had stockpiled a ton of suicide planes and fast suicide boats. Even so, I don’t know what to feel about the two atomic bombs dropped. I can see both arguments. However, what people REALLY don’t know about is that Japan’s surrender was motivated more so due to the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, one of the most successful offensive campaigns of WW2 and a mere footnote in history for the lay person. Based on that argument that the Japanese were really forced to surrender due to the Soviet offensive, the decision to use the atomic bombs looks worse.

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I think linking our heart-felt passions with our language study is a key. (See my page). Gotta go feed the kids now, lol.

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It doesn’t. Just an aside. I do like sushi so I give the Japanese props for that.

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@cazasigiloso - I’ve just realised our last few discussions on this thread may really upset some people, and I feel terrible. I’ve edited mine out - I feel it doesn’t belong on lingQ language threads. I wouldn’t want to genuinely upset some folks.

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I don’t see why such a discussion should be upsetting. Its just difficult to articulate, and definetly to express in writing.

If we were babyboomers, maybe. If we were their parents, definetly. But us?

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I am a babyboomer:) (despite having 3 under-12s!)

I just walked back from the shops, and on the way realised why it pricked my conscience so much - I’d entirely forgotten that I upset a native years ago telling my story. She took it badly, and I did too, knowing I’d humiliated her unintentionally. It’s like she took personal responsibility for her grandparents’ generation.

Discussion about the cars isn’t really a big deal, but I felt that my comments have no place on LingQ - maybe I’d deleted them before you saw them. Now that I’ve edited my comments, cazasigiloso’s comments standing alone don’t sound so bad.

Apart from Japanese, what are the 4 other languages you say you want to study before you die? I started Chinese from scratch at 51. I will have a go at Tagalog, Dutch and Spanish. In my first year of highschool we were made to study Japanese, Latin and French concurrently for a year. They don’t do that now, but I think it did wonders for our IQ, funny enough. My class excelled academically for the rest of high school and beyond, even against people half our age now. Actually, when I was at uni in the 90s, I did notice several of us who happened to be studying Japanese ending up on the honour roll (for first year studies, not just Japanese). Maybe language learning and IQ could have some correlation in some contexts.

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djvlbass - my firstborn also has your name and looks about your age. He’s the one with the genius IQ:))