Understanding v. Speaking

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40 years ago, I spent a semester in Germany, became quite adept at understanding German but speaking it was always difficult. Just finished 100 days on LingQ and am close to my understanding skills all those years ago. I even read novels now and enjoy them. But I want to fluently speak. Would appreciate hearing suggestions from those who struggled with and overcame this limitation.

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A classic issue - and no doubt for any target language.

You might find it useful to look at the latest YouTube video [in German] from Dr Gareth Popkins, a polyglot, who has addressed this issue under the heading ”So lernst du Deutsch aktiver - und nutzt es wirklich” [This is how you learn German more actively - and actually use it].

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And another video which you might find helpful to activate vocabulary. It focusses on how to transition from passive to active usage. It also discusses concepts such as “input bulimia” and “cognitive overload”… The discussion is in German but the YouTube video has English subtitles.

So wächst dein actives Wortschatz schneller!

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Unless the loanword is used in its original form, including the pronounciation, which in some contexts is done with english loanwords, ct becomes kt. And it’s nominative case (scrap that, unimportant) male, not neuter. Correcting you, just so I can correct myself. :slight_smile:

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Here are a few things that helped me:

  1. For German specifically, one big issue was that I wasn’t remembering word genders from input alone. I downloaded anki decks for a1, a2, b1, and went through them. I went through pretty fast because I knew these words passively, but I needed to work on the English → German direction.

  2. The second one applies to all languages that I have studied; simply speak more. I spoke to myself when I was alone, describing things that I was seeing, or having arguments with imaginary people, and when I couldn’t come up with a word that I needed, I made a mental note of it and looked it up later. I found conversation partners with tandem and worked with them. And I paid for some conversational lessons.

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For speaking wise.
Reached a good level in mandarin through talking with yourself and using google translate to correct your mistakes. For accuracy, do shadowing, which is the action of mimic real native speaker audio in real time.

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I noticed that. Then realised it is the video title!

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Good advice here already.

I’ll mention a couple of things from my experience:

  1. Back in the 1990s, I learned Japanese in college classes where we spoke from day one in daily conversation classes in addition to the traditional classes. My speaking skills were better matched to my comprehension that way. In contrast, I have been learning Spanish using an input focused method since 2020. I didn’t even bother to set up a real conversation for a couple years, and boy did I FEEL that gap once I did. It is frustrating to be able to understand so much without being able to produce. That gap will be there at first, but you will progress quickly practicing/training your output.
  2. Input is a cheat code in many ways, but I’ll echo @toomanysusans experience, and say the things I struggled to produce after all that input were the parts of the language that parts that varied most from English. (Gender, reflexive, subjunctive, prepositions, past tense) I could understand them, but it takes practice to produce them with automaticity.
  3. The suggestions by others above are great. I’ll add that practicing written conversations with AI because you can get immediate feedback and explanations, language islands (to bring some focus) and drills (worked wonders for me with prepositions) have been great in addition to speaking practice.

Good luck and happy learning!

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