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Self-teaching speaking ability | ||
Tags: Self-Study | Speaking | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| alp Bilingual Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4802 days ago 3 posts - 4 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Italian, Swedish, Russian | Message 1 of 24 18 February 2012 at 11:50pm | IP Logged |
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This is my first post on this forum. I tried searching to see if my questions had already been addressed elsewhere but as I am not a pro member I cannot see all past posts.
My question is: Is it actually possible to teach yourself how to speak, without ever communicating with someone in your target language? The reason I ask is because I have been studying Swedish and Italian for the past couple of years, and would rate myself in the B region for both of these. I am currently in Italy right now, and was shocked at how much I had overrated my Italian speaking abilities. I always considered Italian an "easy" language, as I am natively fluent in French, so reading and listening comprehension came with ease. However, I had a lot of difficulty speaking when I first arrived 6 weeks ago. Despite the fact that I had never been to Italy before, I could understand most of what I was being told, but I really struggled when it came to responding in Italian. This realization made me wonder: despite being able to teach yourself to understand books, TV and the radio (things that you can practice at home), can one really teach oneself how to speak without practicing with a live person? Edited by alp on 18 February 2012 at 11:51pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| kerateo Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5647 days ago 112 posts - 180 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English, French Studies: Italian | Message 2 of 24 19 February 2012 at 12:48am | IP Logged |
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Yes, translating.
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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 3 of 24 19 February 2012 at 2:59am | IP Logged |
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Great question. Welcome to the forum. I am certainly not an expert in this, but I do learn Spanish with relatively little "real" speaking practice. My sense is that someone could get to a decent proficiency level through self study by using programs like FSI and Assimil... but certainly not "fluent"...
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| tmp011007 Diglot Senior Member Congo Joined 6070 days ago 199 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese | Message 4 of 24 19 February 2012 at 3:28am | IP Logged |
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@alp drills and "shadow boxing" techniques
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| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6086 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 5 of 24 19 February 2012 at 10:37am | IP Logged |
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Speaking takes practice. I don't have anyone to speak with and very little time to go online to find anyone and so resort to speaking excercises. @alp, if you're already in Italy the best thing to do is to get out there, speak, and make mistakes. Other than that, try a few of these ideas from a DELF B1 "production orale" section. (you can apply these to any language you're working on..)
Excercise 1: Speaking situations, for example, what do you say to the waiter if you're at a restaurant and your pizza is cold. (I find it helpful to write out a small script first then I translate to the TL without looking at the script.) Excercise 2: Describe what you see in pictures. Sometimes you can find a comic without words (or not too many) and describe what you see is going on. It takes practice, but right away you will get a sense of what words you know well and what words don't come so easily. Excercise 3: Brainstorming. What do you think about for the following themes: "media and technology, student life, working world, ecology and the environment, men and women, money ....etc. Write out what words come to mind and what words you have to look up, then quiz yourself I hope that helps. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6621 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 6 of 24 19 February 2012 at 10:50am | IP Logged |
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You could also try self-talk, or get a Skype pal.
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| Itikar Groupie Italy Joined 4670 days ago 94 posts - 158 votes Speaks: Italian* | Message 7 of 24 19 February 2012 at 12:17pm | IP Logged |
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You have not too much to worry.
Colloquial Italian is not so bad after all and you will get along easily after a while. Despite I do not understand why people call "easy" such a language (or even English, or any other language). Probably this is due to the fact that most people who study Italian focus on the colloquial speech, rather than more troublesome aspects. Anyway to enjoy a decent conversation in Italian I suggest you to focus on: a)Tonality: it is very important, as the Assimil Italian course underlines. In any case there are some little tricks to get around it, but you need experience. b)Subject omission and particles can be challenging, especially when people speak fast, and it is hard for a native speaker to avoid doing this. :( c)It is rare to hear pure Italian as you hear in TV or in a language course. In almost every region, Tuscany included, there are dialectal or regional peculiarities in the common speech. You have to get accustomed to them. It will not take too much effort. d)Unlike what Italian courses usually tell, subjunctive is used a lot in speech, especially simple tenses, and even when they should not be required! So try to make the ear to it. I think you are not so far from the point of expressing yourself well and freely in Italian, since Italian and French grammars and vocabulary are not too different. You have only to get over the "speak block" and you will be fine. :) 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5670 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 24 19 February 2012 at 1:05pm | IP Logged |
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There is actually a slim but excellent book which focuses on precisely this issue. It is full of strategies that if applied (i.e. by using and not just by reading the book!) quite quickly transform you from somebody who is relatively mute but had a decent passive vocabulary, to somebody who can hold a decent conversation.
The book is How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediate by Boris Shekhtman. It is now my favourite language learning book. I wish I had this years ago, since it would have saved me a lot of time and frustration. The author of the book is now retired (I believe) but for many years was a well respected teacher of Russian to high flying journalists (e.g. from Time and the Wall Street Journal if I remember). Prior to that he taught diplomats at FSI. Harold Goodman (who created the Michel Thomas Mandarin course) told me about Boris (he taught Harold Russian) and I am forever grateful to him for this, since it lead eventually to me finding this book and the time-proven and effective strategies it contains. 13 persons have voted this message useful |
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