Anyone get a level of speaking you are proud of? If so, how did you do it?
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When I talk French with natives, theyâre underwhelmed.
When I talk Japanese with natives, I get accolades.
And yet, my French is quite a bit better than my Japanese.
What did it take? First and foremost, picking the right language and culture in order to receive these affirmations, and to have a âlevel of speaking Iâm proud of.â
Seriously though, I think culture matters profoundly on this question, as does relationship with self.
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Right I get this. I feel like I felt proud when I learned ASL for my deaf son. I would like to speak well in Portuguese as well. I kind of feel like I have all of this dormant vocabulary that Iâm on the verge of using but I still get stuck.
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For me, it took living in Germany for three months with a phrase book memorized, and forcing myself to speak German every day. That gave me confidence to speak.
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Why did we always read that everywhere ? French are so mean like that ? I absolutely never see someone, in France, be underwhelmed by someone who try to speak french. Never. In 30 years.
Everytime I saw video on travelling to France, I never see a mean French person making fun of a bad expression. Maybe in Paris, but not in France. A contrario, we are always trying to help when someone struggle to speak french. Yes we correct the mistake, which can be seen as mean, but it is not.
Yet here, everyone complains. France is made up of a lot of accents, is it possible to believe that we are all mocking each other?
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Vanadir, in Japan I get treated like a rock star for speaking Japanese.
While yes there is unfair stereotyping in this matter as you identify, a large cultural distinction remains.
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I lived in South America for Spanish, in France for French, and in England for English. I had more projects but life changed my plans more than one time, so I guess for now Iâm done with going in other countries for language learning.
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How very cool. I would love to go to Germany! I am not sure Iâm going to go to germany to learn german but the value i see in this is immersion. Thank you
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My current approach is to spend 20 % of my daily language learning time on speaking. I am already seeing marked improvements,that I feel proud of.My aim is to adhere more closely to the the Smart Learning Methods of Polyglot Luca Lampriello
I have been working to assimilate that method.
Understanding what is involved ,has become easier recently, due to some excellent new content provided by Luca.
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I travelled round France many decades ago and found the people pleasant, and Iâve met French people in England and again they were pleasant. I lived in Montreal for two years, and many Quebeckers were awful. I was endlessly corrected by several people, usually because I used non formal French e.g. Câest pas la peine and Je le sais pas. It made me tense, destroyed my confidence and I gave up speaking French.
In my opinion correcting someone is usually counterproductive. They often know they made a mistake, and if not, it often confuses them. People donât correct children, unless they are rude.
Oh and you do mock other accents, there are some very funny videos using the chti accent on YouTube, and then we have the mockery of bourbines by Swiss TV. All in good humour of course.
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Les QuĂ©bĂ©cois sont trĂšs attachĂ©s au bon français, lâanglais essayant de les supplanter.
Et oui, il yâa de lâhumour sur les accents, mais câest toujours affectif. Toujours. Ce nâest pas de la moquerie dans le sens âmĂ©chantâ.
Dans tous les cas, jâespĂšre que votre expĂ©rience sâamĂ©liorera et que vous retrouverez goĂ»t en notre vieille langue.
(Quebecers are very attached to proper French, with English trying to supplant it.
Yes, thereâs humor about accents, but itâs always affectionate. Always. Itâs not mockery in a âmeanâ sense.
In any case, I hope your experience improves and that you rediscover a taste for our old language.)
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I made the goal of speaking 4-5 times a week in Japanese, (4-5 hours). Itâs helped immensly.
I have no problem understanding my tutors, I can speak and we can have a good conversation but Iâm not at the stage I want to be.
Basically, speak more (and write more) to get better at output.
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4-5 hours is a lot, it also is gonna cost a bit of money. I will start with a tutor tomorrow for Chinese. I plan on doing 1 hour a week at the beginning, but I would like to switch to 2 hours a week soon. Iâm afraid I canât afford doing more than that. I hope my Chinese will improve. I wish I had Chinese friends near me for speaking more also outside of tutoring hours. I could find some people online to do language exchange for free, but I had a better experience with paid tutors for now. They usually are more willing to put effort in teaching me and there isnât the problem of switching back and forth from a language to another.
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I agree 4-5 hours with tutors might be expensive. With 5 lessons, I would also struggle to have the time to prepare / review to make the lessons effective.
With 1-2 lessons a week, I try to prepare what Iâd like to talk about to focus the convo on what I want to learn (the language island idea with a very small island). I try to have the convo in advance with AI. I try not to waste lesson time on questions that could be answered with web/AI/other resources. Then, Iâll record the lesson or take notes and review after. I speak out loud at every step.
Just some ideas to consider.
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Define well!
If you mean getting around unimpeded by the target language then you will never think you are good enough but if you can get by with limited language skills then you will be proud you got through unscathed.
The first time I asked for a table for two in a German restaurant I actually asked for a bag for two because Tisch (table) and tasche (bag) sound very similar to a language learner. Everyone had a laugh at my expense and the evening was great.
So I suggest you embrace the level you are at right now, love the mistakes you make and you WILL learn from each mistake in a more powerful way. Also, most, not all, people of that language appreciate the fact that someone from another country is trying to communicate with them in their own language and will make allowances for your limited vocabulary.
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I find that itâs much easier for Quebeckers to speak good North American English with me, rather than engage me, as an American, with upper intermediate metropolitan French.
Quebec law requires shop workers to speak French with the native French-speaking population. Paradoxically, it doesnât really mandate the native French-speaking population to speak with me.
I struggle sometimes reconciling the demands of the language laws of Quebec with the nature of the linguistic insecurity.
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I struggled to speak French in Quebec as they would often reply in English, telling me You donât need to speak French, we all speak perfect English as they proceeded to commit unthinkable crimes to English grammar. And yet they will tell you that the English, by which they mean English speaking Canadians, are dreadful as they refuse to speak French. I think in truth English is seen as essential for a career and thus they try and speak English whenever possible. Certainly the wealthy Quebecois ensure their children are bilingual.
Realistically they do need language laws to prevent Canadian French going the way of Irish in Ireland and French in Louisiana. As it is, French speaking villages in other provinces to the west of Quebec are being assimilated. Iâm not sure how it is to the east of Quebec.
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i would defintely echo @gmeyer 's commentsâportuguese gets SO much more respect in Brazil than spanish does from an american just about anywhere, and it wasnt just encouragement/egoâthe genuine enthusiasm they had, and relative rarity of an american learning it so eagerly, created a feedback loop that it made it more fun to speak, easier to tolerate sounding foolish, and thus much faster progress.
but seriously, ive never understood this spazdom everyone has about speaking. it was the first and easiest skill to crystalize for me and actually a bit dangerous because my fluidity outpaced my actual fluency. i spent my first year on portuguese babbling with online tutors (Brazilian college kids charging me so little it further reduced the pressure to make sure the lesson was super productive), and i used the translator engine open beside the video call to âcheatâ, just trying to clock time spent in the language, not to remember anything or make a study of it. it was 50% english, 40% gibberish, 10% portuguese, and a year a later, the percentages reversed, without ever feeling like it became more intense or more like work.
the main thing i did differently than most people i think is beelining to personal, goofy, even NSFW topics with my tutors so that I could get to know them as people and have an actual desire to share a conversation. its not just that its boring or cringe to do the âlets pretend weâre at a restaurantâ bitâits that it doesnt help you learn, because you are trying to build on top of the scaffolding instead of trying to remove it. learning takes place when you literally âforgetâ about the vessel transmitting the content and are thinking only about the contentâwhich is the real insight behind the comprehensible input hypothesis, more than a profound breakthrough in actual methodology, IMO.
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I live in Germany for 5 years , and I m still suffering 
Can you share the sentences book?
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Lonely Planet makes great phrasebooks. They cover a lot of useful topics.
The other thing you can do is focus on the things that you might generally want or need to talk about. Gather them in a spreadsheet and drill them. Test your recall in Anki or in some other manner (I just use spreadsheet and hide the target language text by making text color same as background).
You can build âlanguage islandsâ ⊠The Beginnerâs Guide to Language Islands [All the Answers + Examples]
This concept was introduced in âHow to improve your Foreign Language Immediatelyâ by Boris Shekhtman (at least formally).
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