The grand majority of language learners think that speaking their target language will make them better at it. It’s not weird that they think that; half the world tells them to do it and they simply believe half the world. Fact is that speaking only makes you better at ONE thing, and that is… speaking itself. Yes, if you want to learn how to speak you need to speak, but in reality it’s only the last step in the progress on how to learn to speak. Everything starts with listening, analysing the things you hear, read, write, and only then you’re ready to speak. And then, still, you won’t learn much speaking as you’re only reinforcing the things you already know. How does that work?
It’s actually pretty simple. If you want to say a word you first need to know that word. In other words; you need input first. A kid doesn’t talk and can’t even talk although it wants to. The problem? He/she didn’t get input first so isn’t able to produce, it simply has to take first. That’s also the problem with classes and teachers in general: they teach you a word or two and expect you to use it right away. But with a few words you can’t produce anything useful let alone the fact that you have no idea how you should sound or what structure to use for your phrase. It’s simply useless talking in the first few months of your language learning. No really, I’m dead serious on this: DON’T TALK IN THE FIRST FEW MONTHS. NOT. A. WORD.
Like I said; speaking and expecting to get better at Spanish is just nonsense. That doesn’t mean I don’t promote the practice of speaking in order to get better at speaking itself. Everyone comes at a point when he/she wants to speak, mostly because that person got so much input from native sources that the target language (in our case Spanish) becomes so natural that he (she) NEEDS to speak it, simply because the environment dictates that. Only then it’s time to speak, but there are some things you should thing about, and those things are:
- Don’t speak too fast. Speaking as fast as a native hispanohablante may look cool, but as soon as you’re making mistake after mistake you don’t only look dumb, you’re also reinforcing those mistakes and after a while you think you’re speaking correctly (but you don’t, but somehow you made up your own dialect of Spanish with weird rules that only you understand).
- Think before you speak. No really, think a bit before you’re going to say something. And don’t only think about the structure of what you want to say, but also about what you want to say (Don’t believe me? Go ahead and say everything and you’ll see that in the end you’re stuck).
- Listen carefully. Often you won’t know how to say something or you have an idea but aren’t sure (remember point 1 in that case), but you’ll be amazed by how often native speakers use the structure you were looking for at the right moment. Use those structures and learn from them!
- Ask a native speaker to correct you. This is something many people forget. Yes, they speak with a native. Yes, they get better at Spanish. But often they’re making (small) mistakes. And if those mistakes don’t get corrected by a (native) speaker you’ll only reinforce them (see point 1).
- Use simple language. I never thought about this, but this article really makes sense. We often are too eager to create complicated sentences, just because it sounds “cool”. Don’t get too extreme though, no one wants to sound like Tarzan (remember “me Tarzan, you Jane”?).
- Enjoy it. Last but not least; only speak if you enjoy it. Most learners think they need to speak (while they don’t) and therefore don’t enjoy it (which is bad). Get input first, feel the need to speak, speak and you’ll enjoy every minute you speak.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
It seems a bit counter-intuitive to me.
Speaking helps you put things in your memory together. Also, if you are speaking to a native speaker, it helps you learn new words because usually when you miss a word but are still understood, the native speaker would tell you that word. Also, you are going to know exactly how that words is used (since it was your thought) which can’t be achieved so easily by listening.
You just learn words, remember the structure of the language better and learn to “get it over the net” one way or the other. Most importantly, it also gives you a sense of achievement which encourages and motivates you to learn the language even more.
You saying exactly the same as me (speaking reinforces the things you know), but just in other words. I’m not saying you shouldn’t speak at at, but speaking too soon can ruin a lot of things: grammar, accent, etc. Just as a random (advanced) language learner with a bad accent, and often they will tell you it’s due to speaking too early.
Hmm. I can’t see the harm in letting beginners speak. OK they won’t be able to say much but what’s the harm in a por favor or a gracias? Do you want them to be rude and say nada? And I disagree that with a few words you can’t produce anything useful. How about ¿dónde está el baño? for starters? I’d say that was pretty damn useful! If you never practise speaking, how are you ever going to be any good at it?
I also don’t think asking native speakers to correct you is a very good idea.
A. maybe they don’t want to – why should you impose on them to teach you Spanish?
B. you’ll get demotivated and depressed by your mistakes and you’ll speak less,
C. you probably won’t remember the corrections next time anyway,
D. You’re breaking up the flow of the conversation and it’s hard enough to keep the flow going when you are a learner.
E. People are only interested in the content. Who cares about the grammar unless it’s too wild?
Wow Kevin, I don’t want to bash your comment or you, but this attitude it the problem why most people suck after taking a class. 1) They accent sucks big time. Why? Because they were forced to speak. 2) They don’t get corrected. You promote (in your comment at least) two of the worst ways of learning a language; speaking from the beginning and not getting corrected. You don’t want to demotivate people? How does that work if you can’t say anything meaningful after a few years of learning? That’s how you frustrate people.
People who simply shut up in the beginning (if you don’t live in a Spanish speaking country there’s absolutely no need for you to speak Spanish) and get loads of input instead, are fluent within two years (I’m speaking in general here, there are people who need more time as everything depends on the amount of input). They aren’t frustrated because they didn’t get to speak in the beginning, but are happy instead because they’re FLUENT now.
Again: I’m not saying you shouldn’t speak at all. But it won’t harm you simply shutting up the first two – three months and getting input instead. You say people get demotivated if they see the mistakes they make. Well, that’s simply because they shouldn’t speak.
Ramses: Well, I am still undecided about the issue but not getting corrected might not be such a bad idea and Kevin might be right (or partially right) on that one.
For example, check out this blog post: http://bit.ly/1KTG8
Well, one could argue with it (as I have done) because it “seems wrong” but I don’t have the empiric evidence proving one way or the other and perhaps the idea does indeed have some truth in it.
I think what one really needs is exactly some good unbiased research on those issues (i.e. whether speaking / correction helps or not) because otherwise it’s just a bunch of arguments without any substantiality to them and it doesn’t help much.
Ok, I have no research results, but I do have proof of several bloggers who learned their target language to fluency and simply decided to shut up the first few months. People who spoke from the beginning and have a good accent? No so many. Thomas of Babelhut.com spoke from the beginning and he says it ruined his Japanese accent for life. Makes you think…
About the correcting part: if you decide to speak from the beginning and aren’t willing to receive corrections, you’ll end up not speaking the language. Is it that simple? Yes, it’s that simple. Also, I partly disagree with Krashen on this. Even native speakers receive corrections from time to time. In the beginning (as kids) they receive a lot, and this keeps getting less as they get older. I do agree that many people won’t learn from corrections, but if you add the correction you received into your SRS (the correct phrase, of course) you can certainly learn from it. Personally, I learn from corrections I receive. Why? Because I ask again for the correct form, think a bit about it, maybe add it to my SRS and simply don’t make the mistake again (okay, maybe not never but mostly not).
Ramses, I didn’t mean that you should be forced to speak but rather you should speak if you feel like speaking. And only things you know how to say. I agree you need lots and lots of input. As regards to correction, it is well known that children ignore explicit correction – I’ve seen it with my own children. And correcting adults would be just plain rude. So how do you correct your mistakes? With the input you mention. You notice how native speakers say things and you copy them. The more input you get the less likely it is you will make mistakes.
I did agree with other points you made though.
I can see how this would seem counter-intuitive considering how we’re taught to learn languages in school, but it makes a lot of sense when thinking about it. I really enjoy these types of posts – it makes me think about how I learn languages and how better to learn them.
Speaking early doesn’t necessarily ruin your accent. I’m pretty sure there is no correlation. Whether you have a good accent right off the bat or not, it depends on how keen your ear is. However, your accent can improve. Your friend whose Japanese accent sucks, I’m sure it’s convenient to blame it on “talking too early,” but he can still improve. It involves using your ears and the muscles in your mouth. The fact that he didn’t realize he was speaking incorrectly is unrelated to speaking early. It has to do with his ears.
I teach English as a foreign language. If someone’s pronunciation comes out wrong the first time, you can play with it, work on it.
Perfect grammar is not all that important especially if you have been dropped into a foreign country. It’s more important to get your point across (survival) than to sound fluent but not know any words. Have you never talked to someone who has imperfect English? After a little while you barely notice. I agree with Kevin that it’s not fun to correct people all the time–the content is the most important.
And the order of listening, reading, writing, speaking is not natural. Did you learn to write before you learned to speak English?
Also, when reading this, I got the vibe that “this is the ultimate truth, this works for everyone!!!” I never believe information sold like this.
Well Josh, many linguists disagree with you (being Stephen D. Krashen one of them). You can think whatever you want, but without proper research your points make no sense at all. I agree that you can improve your accent, but why wouldn’t you try to right it pretty much right the first time? Just like Barry Farber in his book “How to Learn Any Language” says: Why would you go to the trouble of fixing your accents afterwards, if you can get it down from the beginning with juuuuuust a little bit more energy”. Sounds logical to me, and research has shown that it’s simply that way.
About the “ultimate method” thing. I’m not presenting it in that way, but because I know it works it may look like that. If you want to follow classes and spend only an hour per day on your target language that’s fine by me, but don’t come here and say it’ll give you fluency as well, as it won’t.
Right on!! Excellent article! You are exactly correct! Listening HAS TO come FIRST! What is amazing is that practically the whole world has it backwards and many will continue to do so even after reading this article.