Receptive bilingualism

This simply means; understanding a language but not speaking it.

It's funny but that's what I and my brother are experiencing. We understand our language perfectly when you speak it to us. Speaking it back is a whole other thing.

Anybody has any suggestion about how to fill the gap between the level of understanding and the level or capacity of speaking in that language?

This article says more, take a look

https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/how-can-we-sometimes-understand-a-language-but-not-speak-it-very-well.html

This topic is like my childhood, my cousins were born in the US and they used to came to visit on the holidays. At first we didn't understand each other, but that just fueled the need to learn English (and for them to learn Spanish). The time passed by and our family meetings were in Spanish and English (sometimes just in English after my grand father developed alzheimer), we spoked in the language we felt more comfortable. IMO the gap is filled with "need", practice and motivation :)

Jess.PWinkler wrote:

IMO the gap is filled with "need", practice and motivation :)

Thank you Jess. You're absolutely correct because I've actually not felt the need to balance it out. If i can get to that, I'll be able to close the gap.

I remember when I was starting to learn English. I used to ask my friends to only speak English to me and I have absolutely no problem understanding what they say or write, but I have to answer them in Tagalog because I just don't know what to say. lol

Rose.Angelie wrote:

I think many of us (if not all) will go through this stage when learning a new language. And I think it's even natural like in the case of young kids when they completely understand what someone is trying to say but they can't respond very well yet. :) So practice and more exposure (actually conversing) will fill the gap faster I think. :)

Thanks Rose!

This is quite interesting. This phenomenon is quite pronounced amongst Chinese speakers. Many Chinese speakers had to learn Mandarin (the 'standard' Chinese), but there are several dialects. As a result, I know of several peers who are able to understand their grandparents, who speak a different dialect, but are unable to speak it. They reply in Mandarin, which their grandparents don't speak, but do understand.

Can someone invent a probe to like prod the Broca part of my brain so it's more active??? 

Plus 1 for more more practice. Speaking/using the language often will do the trick. It's the same case with my cousins from Manila (capital of Philippines), whose using Tagalog as their dialect, while ours is Bikol. They could understand what we are talking in Bikol but they could not reply in the same dialect. But when they stayed for a year in our place, they eventually adopted our dialect and were very good in speaking it.

Hi Kevwe,did you grow up speaking your language? Or like somewhere its spoken alot? .

I’m actually experiencing this and i kinda feel bad sometimes. People say its difficult at this age but i find that hard to believe. 

TemitopeAkinyede wrote:

Hi Kevwe,did you grow up speaking your language? Or like somewhere its spoken alot? .
I’m actually experiencing this and i kinda feel bad sometimes. People say its difficult at this age but i find that hard to believe.

Hello Tope, i actually grew up listening more and speaking less and I'm trying to bridge that gap now. I was literally transferred from state to state while growing up because of the nature of my father's job. Once I started to pick up a language, It'd be time to move and that just kept happening over and over again. I just got tired and realized that I pick up languages faster when I'm passively listening, strange right?

BTW, where have you been? Happy New Year!