The best way to learning a language is by 'Speaking'

Hello Lorwina Enriquez,

i totally agree with you! For me its the easiest to just talk and listen to natives. Not to sit in front of textbooks and just study them. 

Immersion is the best learning method I am guilty of studying and I read and write most languages well but struggle in person. Moving to a country without knowing the language forced the immersion and the text books never get it right every city has its own slang and colloquialism

After establishing the basics on my own, I take 1 hour lessons, 100% in my target language, casual conversation only (no grammar drills or anything like that - I can do that on my own). I take notes during the lessons, and after the lesson I memorize most of the new words and structure I hear. I do this 5 times a week. Improvement is rapid, and the vocabulary and structure I learn are all based on conversation, not on books and such. It's a very effective method; I'll take conversation every time.

I certainly agree with you.

As far as I remember when I was learning English, I realized that staying in my room all day and study English wouldn't help for myself.

I figured out that if you want to improve your English skill, you need to go outside and communicate with native English speakers.

I dissagree. The pretext is wrong. The art of speaking is a direct consequence of comprehensible input. I remember when i started learning english as my second language, I didn't speak the language for about 2 years. The reason being I wasn't familiar enough with the language at that point. It took about 2 years of a lot of exposure to the language before I could make sense of the language. But after this point it took off, I could do so much in the language could understand EVERYTHING, and could express myself freely. The act of speeking is a direct result of a massive amount of exposure. But yes if you do find yourself in a situation with native speakers around and you've already been getting a lot of exposure, that might be a good opportunity to speak. But not as a general rule. I speak when I am ready and NOT from the get go. :)

Lorwina.Enriquez wrote:

You may be struggling to learn English right now or which ever language you are trying to ace...

I think that speaking the language is the best way for us to learn it. I don't think that merely speaking to someone using the language forcefully can help you learn it though. Not putting any pressure in it is the key for me to learn the language. If ever I'm speaking to someone who's a native language speaker which I'm studying. I just try to have casual conversation. Just trying out the basics. It may sounds boring but I think the basic languages and phrases would help us understand and learn it in a better way. A simple hello how are you (Привет как дела) will suffice. Sentences that I use may be too short but I think the reason why it's useful for me is because I am learning the sentence structures little by little which leads to other longer sentences that I may use in other conversations. 

Peter.Jensen wrote:

The act of speeking is a direct result of a massive amount of exposure. But yes if you do find yourself in a situation with native speakers around and you've already been getting a lot of exposure, that might be a good opportunity to speak. But not as a general rule. I speak when I am ready and NOT from the get go. :)

I think this is how it's really being done. The only difference is the duration of time before each of us start practicing the language through speaking. I remember when I started, that I first tried to read the alphabets in that language until I can recognize the most basic sentence. Afterwards, I started speaking these sentences on the same time while what I've learned from the writing is still fresh in my mind. It may be better for some to wait for a year or two, but I still think that we begin to learn the new language that we want first through it's writing before speaking it.

And I say that applies only when there's a new language that we want to speak because if you think of it, none of us had the ability to read and write when we were little, yet we spoke the native languages of our parents just by listening. 

Peter.Jensen wrote:

I remember when i started learning english as my second language

But your profile states that you are a native English speaker.

I totally agree with the idea. I mean, being able to speak the language one day is why we're learning it in the first place, isn't it?

I see a ton of people being afraid to try to talk in a language they're learning, not just in real-life situations (in foreign countries, for example) but also in class or in a casual environment with fellow learners. I understand the anxiety, but the push really needs to be made to actually make progress. After all, languages are learned skills, and the best way to improve your ability there is to practice, practice, practice.

I guess there perhaps are some people that study diligently using textbooks, movies, dictionaries and whatever materials they can find, and then when they muster the courage to speak it sounds great, but it's just much easier to learn through actually putting the little things we learn to use, it makes them much easier to remember. Sure, mistakes will be made (very often), but as long as there is someone to help correct those mistakes, it's a positive thing and only enhances the good outcome.

Speaking is not learning! yes it is practice in using the language, but that is not how you learn a language. Speaking is a result of having acquired the language. Speaking isolated is evidently not possible. Speaking has to come from something. Speaking is the reward of acquisition through listening and reading. That is just facts. And also research show that correcting speaking or grammar is redundant, nothing will ever come from that. However the corrections will automatically come, when your brain begin to pickup on them subconsciously through huge amounts of listening and reading. Peace!

Peter.Jensen wrote:

Speaking is not learning!

Speaking isn't input - is that what you meant? You can't, for example, listen for several years and then be able to correctly produce language the first time you open your mouth. There is a learning curve for speaking, and therefore we learn when we speak. We also listen to our partners during conversation, which is input.

It's certainly possible to delay one's speech while learning a language, but it's not a necessity. If you choose this path I encourage you not to do any reading before mastering basic pronunciation, otherwise you'll most likely fossilize pronunciation errors that can't be fully reversed in the future. Fortunately, it doesn't take too long to do that for a native English speaker learning French such as yourself.