Learning to talk in a foreign language

Many language learners have difficulty with even putting a sentence together.

Many independent language learners–following the approach typically taught in schools–get good at grammar and/or vocabulary, but when it’s time to converse, they have difficulty with even putting a sentence together. There are a number of ways to resolve this problem.

Conversation involves at least two components: understanding what the other person is communicating and then somehow communicating your own thoughts. Understanding combines listening, paying attention to non-verbals such as facial expressions and gestures, and some background knowledge of the situation and culture. Speaking ideally should also include non-verbals and background knowledge (because it’s easy to assume that the other person knows what you’re talking about, but maybe they don’t). However, in this article, I’m only going to talk about forming sentences aloud, which is a major component of conversation.

 

Translating in your head? No problem

Thinking in your native language is often blamed for problems with forming sentences quickly, but that’s not necessarily the cause. It’s possible to get quick at thinking in your language, translating in your head, and still forming sentences aloud in a reasonable time. And with practice, you’ll find yourself translating less and less. Eventually, you’ll only translate when you try to say a sentence using a grammar form that you don’t know well.

Also, avoiding translation in the beginning is difficult for most people who learn languages on their own. Very few beginner courses are free of translation, plus translation is an excellent method for learning another language. In short, don’t concern yourself about whether you’re translating or not: Just pick a robust method of learning the language, practice often, persevere, and trust the process.

 

Many options available

All methods require a lot of time. Immersion by itself is known to work in the long run, but can be too slow, frustrating, and/or boring for many adult beginners to start with. Nonetheless, it’s certainly an option for those who want to use it. At the intermediate and advanced levels, some sort of partial or full immersion (i.e. a lot of listening and speaking) are mandatory for advancement, and certainly some listening practice is needed at all levels to make your speech sound less strange and foreign. Furthermore, technology is making it easier to read and listen more at an earlier stage in your learning. Just don’t feel obligated to get only or mostly input in the beginning if you don’t want to. This is just one approach to solve the problem.

Writing is another approach that some learners report has helped them greatly with their speaking. Whether you do the exercises in a grammar workbook, do creative writing in your target language, participate in text chats on the internet in that language, or keep a daily journal where you write only in that language, writing a lot can get you used to the grammar, vocabulary, and sentence formation in general. All of these will make it easier to speak later–but not necessarily easy. If you tend to avoid conversations in your native language, expect even more difficulty in another language–but writing a lot for a few months could make other approaches easier later on.

A specific form of writing that makes conversation a lot easier for me personally is to select a topic, then write some deep questions in the target language that might be asked in conversation, each followed by a one-paragraph answer of how I personally would answer it. Even if those specific questions don’t come up in conversation, I find I’m more prepared and can converse a lot more easily. (I write about this method more in depth in other articles on my blog.) A related method taught by Benny Lewis in his Language Hacking textbook series is to script a paragraph where you describe an aspect of your life (your family, a hobby, your favorite music, etc.) and then memorize that script so it’s always available whenever you converse in that language. Similarly, you can write and memorize quick answers that you can give to common questions such as whether you’re married or how long you’ve been learning that language.

A translation method could make it easier to understand how sentences are formed so that you can start forming your own sentences in conversation. Luca Lampariello, an Italian who has brought at least his Russian and English to very high levels of proficiency and who does public speaking in both languages, starts every language with a translation approach. He reports that it hasn’t worked as well for him for Japanese, but for European languages (not just languages similar to Italian), he reports very positive results. Bidirectional translation (Luca’s and Assimil’s method) involves translating a short text from your target language into your native language or English or another language you know well, comparing it to an existing translation, then translating it back into your target language, and checking it again. Innovative Language podcasts (such as FrenchPod101) are potentially good sources of texts (dialogs) that have both the target language text and the English translation on their downloadable PDF’s. Assimil textbooks are specifically designed for this method.

Audiolingual courses (such as the old FSI courses that are in the public domain–in other words, legally free for download) have been criticized and are therefore underutilized as an option. In my personal experience, they make a good supplement to other methods and resources, and have certainly helped me in the area of speaking and forming sentences. Specifically, the Russian grammatical forms that I feel most comfortable using in conversation are the ones I learned in an audiolingual course (Modern Russian 1 by Clayton Dawson, et al.). This particular textbook is not in the public domain, but Indiana University has made the audio freely available to the public. These courses are all very dry and tedious and won’t appeal to the average language learner, however.

Mass memorization of sentences, phrases, or dialogs is another method which requires a lot of patience but can make your speech a lot smoother-sounding and probably easier. But “mass” is the keyword here in that just memorizing a few dialogs or a few hundred sentences might not be enough to make speaking easier. However, it could be enough to immediately improve your pronunciation and especially your prosody (accent, rhythm, and intonation). You don’t even have to memorize anything completely, just repeat them many times over a period of days or weeks. Also, as I found out when I dabbled in Tagalog, it can be difficult for a complete beginner to start at the sentence or phrase level instead of with individual words–plus it’s a lot harder for me to memorize anything as a middle-aged adult. Book2 and Glossika both use this approach, and they provide thousands of sentences for you. In both cases, you can even select a source language that isn’t English: for example, you can learn Spanish from French or Vietnamese from German.

Sentence mining can be combined with mass memorization. Sentence mining means that you select sentences (or, if you prefer, 2-5 word phrases) yourself from your reading or listening. Combining mining with memorizing means that you can be sure that your speech will sound more natural and comfortable to any native speaker of that dialect that you converse with later. The disadvantage is that it’s difficult to collect both the audio and text of a sentence together. If you only copy the written sentence and memorize it, how do you know if you’re pronouncing it correctly? You can always pay a native speaker to record the sentences for you, but that’s not always possible or convenient.

Finally, you can just converse a lot in your target language–preferably with a paid tutor if you can afford one–even as a beginner. This is the “speak from day one” approach popularized by Benny Lewis. It can be the most painful and difficult way at first–but like almost everything in life, it will get easier with a lot of practice. A good tutor will be patient with you and can help you a lot along the way, but you might have to try several tutors before you find one that you can work well with. Of course, practicing conversation is the only way to get good at it, but this approach starts a lot sooner than most people are comfortable with. It can be combined with any approach above for best results, using other methods on the days when you don’t have a session with your tutor.

 

My own path

As for me, I like to start with some listening to get used to the way a language sounds, then follow an audio course that specifically trains learners to create sentences aloud (my favorite of which is Michel Thomas–except for Mandarin Chinese). If no such course is available, I write the grammar I want to learn in a notebook and make a lot of my own sentences aloud (which works really well for me with Japanese and Korean, but which I find harder to apply to Russian)–and I also have to do more reading and/or listening, if I have to do it this way. Eventually I start spontaneously talking to myself in the language a little bit. From that point on, I purposely practice talking to myself with the help of a dictionary and/or topical vocabulary book. It’s hard at first but eventually becomes fairly easy. Then, I do a lot more listening practice to dialogs for beginners for a few months, then hire italki tutors for conversation practice via Skype for a few months. This approach works really well for me, but of course not for everyone. I explain each of these steps at length in other blog articles.

 

No one-size-fits-all

Don’t believe anyone who claims that everyone should learn a language in a particular way, especially if they downplay all other methods. Every successful foreign language learner has their own path of learning that works well for them. There is no method that works for everyone. Likewise, there is no method that doesn’t work for anyone. I’ve just summarized many different approaches–any of which, when followed for a long time, will make forming sentences in conversation a lot easier.

An exception is if some kind of mental or emotional illness (such as a social phobia) prevents you from conversing even in your native language. In that case, an input approach (mostly listening but with some reading) can at least allow you to understand what the other person is saying, even if you can only give brief answers yourself. Add writing if you enjoy it.

Try any of these methods and persevere with it if you enjoy it, or try another method if you don’t. They work best in combination: For example, I discovered that I improve in a language faster and retain it longer if I work on grammar, conversation, and listening every week.

My goals with German

Arbitrary proficiency goals like B2 or C2 can add stress and demotivate

There was a discussion on Twitter lately about whether it makes sense to the aspiring polyglot (or even the average language learner) to automatically set C2 (high advanced) as their lifetime proficiency goal for every language they’re learning. C2 is the highest level on the CEFR proficiency scale, and represents a highly educated, near-native proficiency. Others in the discussion concluded that a high-intermediate level (B2) would be a more logical proficiency goal for them. Advanced levels are hard to reach and even harder to maintain, and are not always necessary. https://twitter.com/polywerden/status/1125982184760840192

I replied that I’m less interested in proficiency levels. Instead, I create a “bucket list” of things I want to be able to do in my lifetime–such as listening to news broadcasts or reading literature. I then arrange the list from the easiest goal to the hardest, and it becomes a continuous source of motivation, which an arbitrary proficiency goal can never be. https://twitter.com/and_e_r/status/1126332816759726080

Having said that, I’ve only created a list for French so far. (See my article, “My goals with French.” https://oregonpolyglot.com/2018/07/17/my-goals-with-french/ )

My current language project is German, so today, I’m writing my “bucket list” for German and sharing it with you, my readers.

My final goal (so far) is to become a multilingual tour guide. I asked a tour guide which language she gets the most request for tours in (besides English), and she said German. So, I’m learning German.

 

This year’s goals

Stepping back to the beginning and working my way up to the tour guide goal, my first goal for German is to complete the Add1Challenge. I’m currently one month into this 90-day challenge. Around 100 people are participating this round, but in a variety of languages. I’m one of four people taking the A1C to learn German. We each study independently but use the large group for support and accountability using a social media platform called Slack. The challenge is designed to help us to learn focus, study habits, and conversational skills. At the end, we will be able to converse for at least 15 minutes entirely in our target languages. I can do that already, but with difficulty. At the rate I’m improving, I should find it an easy skill by the end of the 90 days. If anyone wishes to follow my progress, I post a video every 30 days of myself speaking German on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIlQVD0LsA5qYSNp5qtR-AA

I want to pronounce German well, and for this, I bought the Mimic Method German Master Class. I plan to start it soon and finish it by the time I finish A1C.

Another reason I want to learn German is because it’s one of five languages for which a tremendous number of courses and resources have been created (along with English, Spanish, French, and Italian). I bought a lot of beginner German courses that I was curious about and want to try all of them out (even if I don’t finish all of them). Many of them are courses that are out of print, and some of them are so old that they come with audio cassettes. I’ve already completed a few of them: German for Children, Paul Noble Complete German, Dr. Blair’s German in No Time, Pimsleur German (Level 1 only, that is, the first 30 lessons), and Michel Thomas Total German, plus some Deutsche Welle podcasts. I’m currently on Michel Thomas Perfect German, Language Transfer, All Audio German, Yabla, FluentU, and other courses. There are a few more waiting after these. By trying out a variety of courses and methods, I hope to expand my repertoire of methods which I can use to learn other languages. (For example, I use elements from the Michel Thomas method to learn Korean grammar successfully.) Also, I’ll be in a better position to recommend courses to people who ask for recommendations.

My next goal is to prepare for my 30-year university reunion in October. I earned a B.A. French degree at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. Minnesota is far from Oregon, so this will only be my second visit to Concordia since graduation. My plan is to arrive a day early and hang out in the foreign language department. Concordia offers bachelor’s degrees in French, Spanish, German, and Mandarin Chinese. I want to converse with the current students and teachers in these languages. Maybe I don’t have time to learn Mandarin before then, but I at least want to use Spanish, French, and German as well as I can. A1C will make me conversational, and the beginner courses will keep expanding my vocabulary and improving my listening skills ahead of the reunion. It will be like a Polyglot Conference for me.

 

Future goals

When I decide to move on to intermediate courses, Deutsche Welle has one that I’ve always wanted to try (but which is too advanced for me now). It’s called “Top Thema.” It’s at the B1 level and includes a lot of simplified news articles–but about interesting cultural topics rather than just the usual politics and economic articles of daily news reports. The variety of topics is vast, so it should greatly broaden my vocabulary. Each article includes a monolingual glossary (i.e. totally in German), the one-page article, and an audio recording. About 100 articles are published a year, going all the way back to 2007. In other words, there are over 1000 articles available. I’ll use Lingro to help me. Lingro is one of those free dictionaries that lets you read something from the internet, click on a word, and see its translations into English or another language. I’d like to read as many articles as I can until I lose interest.

I would love to be able to read the news and listen to news broadcasts in German, then discuss current events in German with native speakers. When I can do that, I feel like I’ve “made it” in that particular language–even though there are many other things I might not be able to do yet (such as understand slang, watch movies, watch YouTubers, read and write scholarly materials, give public speeches, write business letters, etc.). I generally shy away from U.S. news because it’s “close to home” and often makes me sad or angry. Foreign news topics (such as Brexit) have less impact on me personally, and I’d be more likely to follow it. There are intermediate resources after “Top Thema” which I can study at the B2 level, to help prepare me for watching live news broadcasts.

Finally, I want to create a series of YouTube videos about Oregon history–in German. This will prepare me for a possible career as a tour guide, after I retire from IT many years from now.

 

Observations and conclusions

If you find yourself losing motivation to continue learning a foreign language, write yourself a “bucket list” like this, arrange the goals from easiest to hardest, and start working on the first one. Also take note of anything you’ve already accomplished in that language, such as courses you’ve completed or skills you’ve learned. You will then be unlikely to lose your motivation again.

You might have noticed that my “bucket list” for German is different than my list for French. Some items are the same and some are different. Each language has a unique list. I plan to create similar lists in the future for my other languages. And your lists will be different than mine. Another interesting observation about these lists is that French is a lifelong enterprise but I can meet all of my German goals in just a few years.

I find that these lists take some of the stress out of learning, while arbitrary proficiency goals like “B2” or “C2” can add stress and demotivate most people (but not everyone). Proficiency goals can also lead to learners evaluating their own proficiency levels inaccurately–or worse, can persuade people to do boring, stressful studies for proficiency exams that are of no use to them personally.