How do I break through in conversation
I'm a beginner, principally doing self-study via the internet, some CDs and books. For a long time I would hear the language spoken, in person or on TV and hear a wall of sound. In watching Spanish TV, listening to radio, my CDs, videos and the like, the "wall" is less imposing. I now can hear individual words, phrases and rhythms. That's a start but I still freeze up and get stuck in my head (trying to figure what I should say) when a Spanish speaker begins talking directly to me. I get somewhat stopped after saying ¿Y tú?
Any thoughts on how to get unstuck and breakthrough (I'm getting ready to enroll in a conversation only class in the hopes to face this directly). This is more an ontological (way of being) question than linguistic - hope y'all can help!
Gracias!
2 Answers
It would be great if you join us in The Island thread. This topic comes up a lot in that thread.
I do understand your frustration. I think everyone freezes up at first. To be honest, the only way to get over the fear is to just face it. For starters, learn a few opening phrases and one or two to tell the other person you only know a little Spanish, etc. Then just get started. It is going to be intimidating at first, but once you get over your initial fear, you will begin to relax.
Spanish speaking people are usually very helpful and patient when it comes to beginners. The two best groups to speak to are children and teens (because they love teaching people who are older 
) and people who are learning English. When you speak to someone whose English skills are on par with your Spanish skills, you feel so much more comfortable.
¡Buena suerte con tu practica! 
Watching TV in Spanish with English subtitles and vice versa helps but you really need to just start talking. A conversation class is great. But I suggest that you form a "study group" of classmates and spend at least and hour a day, every day talking and listening. to each other. Try to find student who are native spanish speaker and are learning english so you can help each other.
I will get a lot of comments on this but here goes. Don't worry about grammer, conjugation, male vs female pronouns etc. Just talk and listen. It will take a while and will vary with each person but the wall will start to come down and as it does the grammer starts to come to you almost automatically. Then go back to learning to apply the rules of grammer.
Remember, very few of us native english speakers use proper grammer all the time and yet our friends understand what we are saying and we understand what they are saying.
Vocabulary is more important than grammer initially because you need it to start braking that wall of sounds into words. So lots of flashcards as well.
