well first of all. i seem to have a lot of problems with coming up with sentences or forming sentences in general. for example when i’m talking to americans or whatever i usually don’t really know what to say. but i fully understand them!! and when i’m about to say something. it’s almost as if i didn’t know any words… like. i don’t know any other english words other than the basic stuff. how can i improve?? please help me. thank you
Sounds like you just need to practice. Maybe find a friend who can video call you a few times a week just to chat until you’re feeling confident?
yes most likely. thank you!! i also need to read more to expand my vocabulary
your vocabulary is fine. your active vocabulary needs to grow. that’s why you can passively understand most of what you read and hear. your production of the language is what you need to improve.
that’s practice. Speak as much as you can.
I teach English as a foreign language and if any of my students wrote the same way you do I’d cry with joy. You have no problems with accuracy but if you’re having trouble speaking then it’s fluency you need a hand with. Conversation classes would be a good place to start or as someone mentioned just chatting to someone over the phone or zoom.
Also if you really want to expand your vocabulary, try learning lists of phrasal verbs. Even my most advanced students find them difficult, but native speakers use them all the time so it helps with understanding and will make your English sound more natural.
noooo i don’t have a problem with fluency. i just don’t know what to say!! when i think of words in my mind. i have no idea how to say them. i don’t know of any cool or good phrases in english and when i read in english. i usually struggle with reading some words and i end up reading something else entirely. hmmmm… and thank you so much for that
Maybe watch some movies and steal good lines. When I hear someone use a phrase that I like I steal that and try to add it into my vocabulary.
I don’t know what language you natively speak, but I would love to learn! Pm me if you’re interested and we can call and just talk. That’s typically the best way to learn the finer details of a language, just speak with a native speaker regularly. As far as grammar and vocabulary, though it doesn’t always show in my comments, I’m quite adept.I also used to be a tutor for a ton of people, although I never taught anyone English, so I’m quite good at teaching and communicating as well.
thank you very much!! i speak spanish natively. and that’s really good. i hope those years of being a tutor have given you a lot of knowledge and experience!!!
I recommend reading with a Kindle or other e-reader so you can look up unknown words as quickly as possible.
On the kindle paperwhite, pressing your finger for a couple seconds will pull up the dictionary entry for that word. Sometimes instead of the dictionary it shows the wikipedia article entry if it’s a proper noun.
I read in Spanish on my kindle paperwhite because it’s about 20-50 times faster to look up a word on the screen than it is to switch to a physical dictionary.
Do you watch tv or movies in English? Hearing general dialogue like that may help with your conversation/responses.
People have suggested to me to watch in my first language and put subtitles in the language I’m learning. It works pretty good
It works pretty well*
:)
yes. thank you very much. youtube. everything is on english. i hear in english and write in english. hear in english. etc!! it’s great!! i understand every word they say but i don’t know why i can’t do any of the things i mentioned doing on the post hmmmm
When we learn a language, we learn the grammar and the vocabulary and basic sentence structure. As babies we just learn from hearing it and get a feeling for what sounds right and what responses are normal.
Looking at your responses it seems that you have a good grasp on the english language. Which is good! It means you have all the tools available to you when making conversation. You probably just need more practice. Conversations in non-native languages can be difficult, because you have to come up with an answer on the spot. It’s not impossible, though. You’ll probably stumble for words and make mistakes at first, but that’s perfectly normal and okay.
tl;dr: talk more. Good luck!
- Read books
- Read books
- Read books
As had been said - practice. It’s how native speakers of a language get good at it.
You can improve your vocabulary, comprehension and accent by watching TV shows and movies (I remember meeting Dutch kids on holiday who I thought were American as they learn so much from the screen), and grammar and the like can come from reading. However, that ease of conversation and the speed of your recall of words just comes from talking a lot. Try finding an intermediate to advanced language class where they insist on people talking in that language all the time.
If you’re the kind of person to think in words, try to practice thinking in English.
If you’re interested in videogames at all, playing some multiplayer games could help. TV/books are great too, but I think chatting online would give you a realistic dialogue to learn from, and having a common goal with the other players should give you plenty of opportunities to contribute to the dialogue.
And as a bonus, you’ll probably learn lots of creative insults haha
check open discord communities for practicing languages. i know they are out there.
Alternatively, look for english speaking discord communities that you identify with or share interests.
Put yourself in positions in which you have to speak English a lot. Do you live in an English speaking country? If so, then go to social events. No? Go to events in which speaking English is the point (like language cafes, etc.)
And please use capitalization when writing :)
the capitalization thing is on purpose. i’m so sorry!! i don’t capitalize words or use commas. it’s how i type
this message was edited and here is why: i am very sure that the name of what i do is called “typing quirk”. and that’s what i do yes!!! thank you!
Doing that won’t help you with your English, but ok, penguin of doom.
I learnt english by reading books. That might help, although reading can be quite a passive activity, so you might want to couple it with some writing activities to make sure you’re actually doing something so it sticks better. I’m also not sure how well that will work for your specific problem of struggling with conversations, but tbh I’m not great at speaking to people irl myself (although that applies in my first two languages—english is my third—as well so I don’t think it’s a language barrier thing so much as my brain thing) so I dunno what would help with that specifically.
A friend of mine who was learning English said that translating song lyrics from her native language into English really helped, 'cause you have to kind of get the meaning across and not just a literal translation of the words. Dunno if it works for everyone but she swore by it!
I think that singing English songs would be very, very helpful. It forces you to use the phrasing, pronunciation, and emphasis of a native English speaker.
I think that’d only help improve your confidence, because you could so easily be translating wrong thinking you’ve done it right, then establishing what you’ve wrongly said as a habit.
That requires you to interact with music in your native language which for people from most countries would be rather unpleasant
When learning another language, it’s really normal for your comprehension to be way better than your production. Input > output. Just keep talking to people and consuming English media and it will come to you. The more you increase your input, the more fluently and naturally you’ll speak – it won’t sound like you’re speaking from a textbook.
Like you I also struggle with vocab though. What I like to do for focused study is watch a show or some piece of media and pick out some words I want to learn in context and make flashcards from them.
My Spanish and especially my French are like 1000% better if I have had a little alcohol to drink. It’s not an awesome tool and I don’t use it anymore, but it definitely helps build confidence that I kept after drinking.
Eh. This is stupid don’t do this.
Read as much good, entertaining, engrossing, addictive fiction as you can.
For example if you like sci-fi, read The Expanse series. It’s 9 books. Thousands and thousands of pages, and it’s all entertaining.
Doing this will make you better at composing sentences of all types, short, long, simple, complex, future tense, past tense, complex construction, you’ll encounter hundreds of examples of each when you read a novel.
As most others already said, the best solution is immersion, ideally by talking with someone. If you can’t find someone to speak with that would make it quite a bit harder to improve, but not impossible.
For your situation (being able to understand but unable to express yourself in English) I’d reccommend the stereotypical “think in english”. I’d recommend talking with someone (ideally a native speaker, but even a fellow learner is incredibly efficient, followed by writing a diary abd participating in online forums (like you currently already are!).
It’s best to have input from someone else who can correct you if you make a grammatical mistake, give general advice on what sounds ‘more natural’ or ‘better’ in the language and answer any questions you might have, as well as help you if you’re “missing one word” (from personal experience when learning a language it’s rarely a ‘it’s at the tip of my tongue’ situation. It’s more like I just don’t know this one word and I need someone to give it to me).
Another thing I can say about your problem is I also suffer a bit from it. Whenever I try to talk in German I need a few hours to ‘warm up’ - to just get my brain to switch to German and having a speaker on the other side really helps. I can hear the language to jog my memory and the other side can (and often does) give me input on what they think I might be trying to say. (I’m a B1-level speaker so not even close to fluent but more than enough for doing basic interations within an environment open to helping with language issues).
What I liked to do when I was actively learning German was trying to come up with different ways of saying ‘the same thing’, seing how they differ in their meaning, potential usecases, complexity, grammar, etc. It helps with vocabulary as well as the “thinking in German” part, as languages differ greatly in the ways they package the same message and taking a comparative approach helps greatly with being able to (casually) converse later. Having a fellow learner or a fluent speaker give you multiple variations of the same thing and analyze the differences for/with you would be a godsend for this approach.
