The app I use to learn languages -> shorturl.at/tBJV8 My 10 FREE secrets to language learning -> www.thelinguist.com How do you approach speaking in the language you are learning?

I hope when I am in my 70's, I am like Steve. 😊

I’ve been learning Russian for about 2 years and just last week talked to a human in Russian for the first time. The wait paid off because she complimented me very generously on my pronunciation! Definitely validated the somewhat indirect and slow approach I’ve taken with this language.

After 2 years of struggling through my 1st foreign language (Portuguese br.) I've had 2 conversations now with the person whom I've been studying for. I was definitely scared to speak at first.. now I cherish it.. after the first couple minutes I began to really enjoy it and it made my day and week good.. I try not to "think" of what to say too much.. I just let whatever it is come out and if she responds.. she understands enough 😂 and I've noticed my listening comprehension has already greatly improved from the first conversation to the 2nd, and I haven't even been studying the past month. Very very little only a couple hours... For the whole month.. and yet my listening is significantly better. Speaking was the best decision I've made in my learning process. I encourage everyone, speak.. you will be nervous probably.. but you'll love it!!

The fear of speaking is mainly connected to the manner of language instruction. Students learn quickly whether they are more likely to be rewarded for their efforts or critiqued for even their slightest errors

I have been learning English for 2-3 months. I read books and listen to podcasts nearly every day. Firstly, I listen to podcasts and then I look at the transcript, so I check every sentence in the podcast. I believe this approach will help me improve. Additionally, as I mentioned before, I enjoy reading books. I prefer mystery books, which, in my opinion, is a good choice for exploring the world of English fiction. However, I struggle with speaking. Talking is difficult for me, so reading and listening are easier than speaking.

Świetne rady, bardzo konkretne, dzięki 😊

Stive, you are great person!!! Your assistance to people is invaluable. With ❤ from Russia.

I think this is your most important recent video! Re: be prepared: you mostly addressed the larger strategic issues, but there are also lots of very specific, immediate issues to think about, such as: what are the names of the people I'll be speaking with? What have they been up to today? What are their backgrounds and priorities? (These specific sorts of questions are probably worth a whole 'nother video!)

Oddly a year ago I was more willing to speak. I did some language exchanges and found them interesting but exhausting. Now I feel I’m at a stage where I’m becoming aware of how much I don’t know so I’m less willing to speak than when I knew less! I think it will pass and maybe it means I’m at some sort of turning point. Thank you for this and all your videos!

Bonjour Steve, la lecture à voix haute est, pour moi, une première étape pour commencer à parler une langue. Cela me prépare à mes futures conversations. Cela me permet de faire passer les mots par mes muscles, mon souffle, mon ouïe.

Hi Steve, I'm a recent subscriber following the recommendation of a future German colleague. I'm moving to Germany from the UK as it's something I've always wanted to do. Only recently did I realise how critical speaking improvement was to the overall journey to fluency. I never got fluent because I was reluctant to speak, likely because of lacking humility/ focussing on perfection. I'm having more frequent and longer German spoken conversations as I prepare to move, and I can feel improvements in accuracy and confidence. You have articulated these points very well in your video

I found the best way to speak a foreign language better is simply to speak it a lot with and without errors. I did this, and for the longest time I didn't improve. But one day, without realising it, I started to improve. I didn't do anything different to make this breakthrough. Also, I would add, that as my speak ability improved, my overall language acquisition and learning ability increased quite noticably.

Steve and Lindie both are my biggest inspirators in the world of the language learnings ❤

Steve is inspirational, and without doubt has so much experience to share. I recall Steven Krashen once saying that you should not rush someone to speak, instead let them speak when they feel comfortable. I am not like Steve Kaufmann, I do have social anxiety if I try to speak with strangers in a language which I know poorly. I compensate by working hard on comprehension and pronunciation, and talking out loud to exercise the language as opposed to just passive listening.

This vídeo shared by you is a masterpiece. Pure wisdom and common sense. Thanks for sharing Steve!

This video fitted me like a glove!

Please make more often videos where you speak the languages you have learned. It would be fun to hear conversations also about other subjects than language learning. And also good way for you to maintain the not so fluent languages :)

Very usefully, thank you!

Thank you very much again! Your videos are essential for us that are learning English or another language. Your discussion removes one hard weight from our back. You can´t imagine. Thanks, thanks. You´re a really amazing teacher.

Absolutely perfect. Many thanks.

thank you for this video and greetings from Poland :)

Your videos have been a major boon in my teaching/language learning journey Steve. I currently run my own private teaching service for elementary school students where my curriculum centers around reading, writing, and public speaking. I've always had fun and found success when teaching ELA to kids, but 6 months ago, I decided to dedicate myself to learning Spanish. I had this sudden epiphany where I asked myself, "how can I expect to teach proper language skills to kids, if I haven't subjected myself to the simultaneously exciting and embarrassing process of learning a second language?" Last week I attended the graduation ceremony for my old students. During the ceremony the principal gave a speech entirely in Spanish--and I understood every word. A year ago I wasn't even entertaining the thought of learning a 2nd language. After 6 months of daily practice through listening, reading, and speaking, I'm able to understand a speech with ease. My speaking isn't where I want it to be yet, but that doesn't matter to me because I'm just having fun engaging the language everyday.

Patience and Humility.

Many thanks indeed for the Mini-Stories in LingQ. I listen to them every day learning Turkish. It's extremely useful. I will recommend it to all my friends. Your videos are so inspiring and motivating! BRAVO!!!! 👍👨‍🎓

You re the one of the person who really inspired to me congratulates . You re genius

Steve your videos are so helpfull - You are a perfect in your explanations.Tks a lot for your job. It's making all the diference to me.

you're very underrated and talented as well, you are amazing

From dominican republic good job My brother God bless You

Why we don't speak a foreign language fluently ? 13 - Reasons 1- Fear of making mistakes. 2-Fear of being judged and criticized . 3-Perfectionism . 4-A negative situation in the past. 5-Perceiving the target language as a mathematics lesson. 6-Lack of practice . 7- Inadequate language teacher in school. 8-The word order of your native language is different from the target language. 9-Shyness , introvert person. 10- We want to speak by translating from the native language. 11-Weak vocabulary , inadequate input. 12- Not to be exposed to the target language. 13- Lack of patience .

Hi Steve and thanks for the video. In days of yore I myself sometimes struggled with speaking i.e. being afraid of mistakes, ultimately trying to avoid some kind of shame (though only in your own head). I got over it on a long solo trip but still get a relapse every now and then). Anyways I think shame or embarrassment (over the inevitable errors) is in the heart of this - I mean otherwise it seems just illogical to not speak if said person is aware that will lead to enhancement of language skills.

Estoy aprendiendo español y después de 5 años, me siento como no estoy mejorando. Tienes muchos puntos buenos en este video, y lo intentaré aplicarlos a mi aprendiendo.

Thank you Steve for the encouraging presentation. Hope one day I can speak French, Chinese and Japanese at least at a level I could be understood. Can't wait for that day. I learned French for 2 years, Chinese 1 year and self taught in Japanese.

Pozdrawiam z Polski :😊uczę angielskiego znalazłem Twój kanał, jest super, dzięki za rady!

Thanks for your knowledge

Thank you Sur! 😊

I used some French at a local McDonald's with some French Canadians, a family unit from Montreal. It was a brief encounter, I spoke in french I am a little french, trying to say I speak a little french. The daughter who was about 8 corrected me, saying it's je parle un peu francais. They were generally understanding, and actually delighted an American was trying to learn their language.

Sometimes during lessons with tutors there is of course an expectation to speak “as well as you can” for a portion of the lesson, and it’s often at the very start.

You are giving inspiration to youth and elders

Yeah, in my experience with Spanish (3.5 years learning) the speaking part kinda comes along as I get more familiar with the language. As of now, I am in Spain for some time and finding that my speaking is getting better because I'm needing to speak more often. Before this time in Spain, I did very little speaking because I just thought that listening and reading would be more practical. I had a wrestling coach that said one time that day to day we get better, but it is not noticeable; it's like putting one piece of paper on top of another; over 3 days, or 10 days the stack of papers do not look much different. However, after 1 year, 2 or 3 years, that stack of paper is noticeably larger and thicker. I think this analogy fits well when we think of language learning. Like wrestling, language is a skill that requires time, effort, focus and attention. :)

I have been utilizing your innovative methodologies and insightful hypotheses that you eloquently discussed. Your exceptional approach distinguishes you markedly from other KZfaqrs in the realm. Recently, I stumbled upon a video where individuals were offering criticism towards Lingomarina. This disheartened me deeply, as I could never fathom you engaging in such disparagement towards fellow content creators. Please know that you have my unwavering support and affection from Armenia. ❤️

I hope that one day I'll be able to speak lot of languages like Steve Kaufman. By the way, thanks for the lessons I really appreciate this video so much🙏 ❤❤

Hello dear professor Your lessons are really interesting and crucial, thank you so much for your help and advice,i do appreciate your job,i wish you peace and happiness under the sky of prosperity,all the best. Take care and have a good time.

Thank you for this video

Thank you very much to help me.😊

Great video; thanks! 😊

Dear Steve, every time you bring interesting topic. No more space for comments. I just agree

Obrigada

Just keep swimming and you'll be well on your way... Be consistent... Watch out for your weeknesses and work on them.... Be patient

Cieszę się, że ci się podobało. Pozdrawiam 🙃

hi steve ! i discover you and what you learn is impressive ! i have a question : how start learn a new alphabet for reading and listening ?

I hope an Irish language 🇮🇪 course can be developed for this app. It has well over a million speakers, and many more learners worldwide but lacks support, and a learning system like this would help a lot imo

Eu entendo bem o ingles, mas tenho dificuldade pra falar porque o cerebro fica fazendo pausas pra penssar se a ordem das palavras está correta.

I think one of my problems in speaking is simply having nothing to say. Also, I am never one to initiate the conversation.

Hi! Do you recommend to do, in middle of a one-language learning period, a rest? Where you can maybe learn another language, to rest the brain from the first langugage.

The German word for "language" is "Sprache" and "sprechen" means "to speak". Also, I'm 99% sure that the English word "language" derives from latin "lingua" meaning "tongue" (and also "language" if I'm not mistaken). That's what languages are for first and foremost - to be spoken. The printing press (and therefore our ability to read books) was invented sometime in the 15th century, until then people had been learning languages "the natural way". That's why, for me, being able to speak a language comes first. That's not to say that I didn't read a lot in my target language - I do - but the focus here is on adding new words and expressions to my vocabulary. However, I don't take notes in order to repeat them later on to memorize them, I let it happen naturally: if a word is repeated often it becomes engrained in my brain and if not, I let it fade away. As for why people are so afraid of speaking, I'd say it's the fear of making a mistake in front of someone who will - potentially - immediately notice something's off. The reason why this mainly affects speaking is, because there is very little time to reconsider when building a sentence, if you have to pause frequently, thinking of a word or the proper grammar, it shows right away. That's not the case with any of the other 3 skills (reading/writing/listening) - nobody can see what you're thinking while you read or listen and when writing a text you can take your time rephrasing and correcting - the person who's going to read the text will not be aware of your inner struggle at the time of writing.

Pozdrowienia z Krakowa😀

Where can I find examples of this method being applied? When does the student speak?

In Bezug auf dieses Thema, kommt der Sprachniveau des Gesprächpartners auf Englisch ins Spiel. Ich würde gerne mehr über Ihre Erfahrung in Kopenhagen wissen, die Sie in einem Short zusammenfassten, beziehungsweise warum die Dänen lieber auf Schwedisch sprachen, als Sie auf Schwedisch sie ankamen, aber erwiederten lieber auf Englisch, als Sie auf Dänisch zu unterhalten versuchten?

I'm learning Bengali, but none of the best language learning platforms offer it. Despite the fact there are nearly 300 million speakers!

Dear Sir How do you make a second language learner speak? How long does it take?

I have listend your spechs in Spanisch. Please Talk in Spanisch for your Fans. You do that Well.

Nice sir, ❤

My reason for being afraid to speak Italian is that I'm Italian-American. When I was growing up in New York, I was constantly told that we're in America now. We have to speak English. If I tried to speak Italian, I was ridiculed, criticized, or simply ignored. It was really difficult to get past all of that and finally begin to mutter a few words with my face red and my head down.

I have very much trouble to speak in English with young people(

I can read and write Arabic well but I have fear to speak ..reason is there is no one to speak too..I usually speak to myself. No one around me speaks Arabic and only sometimes when I go to a Middle Eastern shop and speak a little Arabic and the shop keeper gets all excited and happy...but he speaks a Yemeni dialect and I speak Fusha( Standard Arabic)..but i still have fear, not because I lack humility or patience but because there isnt a chance to practice..no one speaks Arabic in my country unless one is a foreigner who runs a middle eastern shop. I can say it right away in Arabic.( i dont have the opportunity to speak in Arabic) ليس لدي فرصة لاتكلم باللغة العربية.

I have been learning this language since I was high school. However, I speak a little bit but no more, as well as I have ability to undrerstand when the people speaking it even native teachers. furthermore, I have capabilty of trying to speak alot with my co-workers and buddies. Besides, improving your speaking is crucial technique require to speak alot with out rules of English like grammar, and cohorence of sentences. Overall, I highly reccomend every learner to make more and more baractice, baractice makes perfect.

Steve, have you heard of the JAM Technique [Just a minute] where you pick a topic to speak about for 1 minute without stopping. After the first minute, you write down the key points of what you talked about then do another minute. You add more ideas that you can use then speak for the third minute. I imagine this technique would be worth trying, but I think it would depend on the language level of the person. Obviously, there will be mistakes but wouldn't it be a good idea to use a microphone and transcribe the speech into text using software? One could correct the grammar and vocab, revise them, then do the three 3 minute exercises again. I think it would be worth trying. There are 100's of different topics one could use to practice. What do you think of this method Steve?

Speaking is how grammar error habits are formed. That’s the fear. My Czech speaking grammar is deplorable and people walk away from me or hang up.

Cómo entro a las clases para aprender inglés, quién puede ayudar por favor.

I don't know where else to message you, but I hope you check out comments. I know this isn't exactly your focus but it is related to what you are doing. What I am trying to learn is to learn to speak correctly. That might sound weird, but after years of running away (I am now 26) I am trying to solve my stuttering issue. Now before 11 yo I was speaking fluently, after an incident when I was repeating sounds while being excited, which led to me being mocked, imitated and laughed at. After that point, as a child in sensitive age, I developed a fixation on my speech. Now all this wasn't clear to me until now. Stuttering was some invisible force for quite some time, something beyond me. I don't have actual problems with speaking. When reading aloud I can do it fluently, and there are situations when saying something spontaneously I do it fluently, but majority of times I stress about speech... I think about words I am going to say, and I fear them. I've come to a point in my life that in some situations I am pretty much mute, while having no actual problems with speech.. the block I created was in my head all along, and I was also trying to fight it, I was wrestling with myself. It has really impacted my life, my career, pretty much everything bad followed it. Speaking is a basic part of life, and it is hard to imagine losing ability to do so, especially without any actual physical problems. What I am trying to do now as a first step is just turning on audio recording and speaking and trying to stop mind that was for so long trying direct and analyze everything. My perfectionism really took it's toll. While speaking I just let my natural and automatic, spontaneous speech just come through. Speech shouldn't be planned, it just happens, like breath or heartbeat happens on its own, that is how I should let myself just build confidence in my natural speech. Over time I should expose myself to various situations, and keep that part of my mind quiet and just observe without judgement or expecting things to be perfect. When speaking to a recording I stumble a lot, there seems to be some struggle inside still trying to take control, and also not being confident, but slowly I am getting better. Now, I don't know the actual question I would ask, maybe some insight from someone that has learned to speak 20 languages, there surely was problems along the way with perfectionism and doubting one's abilities. Love your videos, and I my major challenge to learning more languages is my ability to speak in my native one. English is not my native language, and I never speak it, I just learned it naturally on the internet because of my interests, and I would also like to learn another language, travel, talk to people, and actually get good at talking in English which I avoided doing.

Дякую за гарне відео, добре мотивує Thank you for the nice video, it's motivating Vielen Dank für das gute Video, sehr motivierend Merci beaucoup pour ce bon vidéo, il motive très bien 😊

❤❤❤

👍👍👍👍👍👍

This basically applies to all the cultists in the Japanese learning community that makes such a nonsensically big deal and exaggeration for pitch accent and wanting to sound perfect. They can argue all they want ad nauseum but even natives say it's not as important as some make it out to be. A couple of arguments that I would say point out the flawed logic are the facts that quite a few words overlap and therefore will share exactly the same pronunciation, and that even in Japanese exist many words that have multiple meanings. Either way, the only way to discern the right meaning is through context. Take for example the word ロケット which can either mean "rocket" or "locket", the only way to tell is through context. This is is just one of many examples. There's also the fact that I have heard many Japanese people on KZfaq and sometimes in real life speak English...many of them make some minor mistakes. So we have a double standard where English speakers don't mind them making mistakes, but when some Japanese learners speak, they for some reason are obsessed with sounding perfect when Japanese English learners do not seem as concerned. So you cultists out there, explain yourselves to the class.

Thanks. Guys, don't forget to comment.

Thanks, Steve. I suspect that even when we have a reading vocabulary that far exceeds the amount that would be generally considered to underpin fluency, we may find that we are very slow to recognise words when listening. In effect, we can have a low 'listening vocabulary', which somehow needs to be raised if we are to improve our speaking. I'd be interested in your thoughts on this.

Skill Speaking (Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking) Not speaking (only reading and listening) You can still come up with simple words and phrases. (I have noticed from my limited 6 year experience) Speaking has not been developed enough. Cloze sentences Are easy to do. (more vocabulary based learning) Mixed sentences Think though the sentence order. (How much this helps speaking I don't know yet.)

Hello

Confidence doesn’t come for free.

So it seems like a lot of discussions like this end up focussing on the bottleneck of having sufficient amounts of comprehensible input. I was a nerdy child who read a dozen (english) books eack and somehow read at over 800 words/min. Learning Russian I struggle. I have a public library that is full of Russian books that are too difficult. I have some fairy stories about toads that want to be circus performers that are simply dull. How do we find easy content at an appropriate level that is fascinating?

I love reading these mini stories in Egyptian Arabic! I've been struggling finding joy in reading some books that I have, but these are for sure helping me bridge the gap from where I am to where I want to go.

💯💯💯💯💯💯🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥💥💥

Yes, sometimes you must think you're a Rapper, always right when babbling (Speaking) 😂

Speak to someone every week on italki. Make your mistakes with them then go native

i'm afraid to listen 🤣it's my weakness.

You’re like the internet’s language learning grandpa

231019

You have to speak alot

❤❤❤