Intermediate to Fluent
(see my thread on Beginner to Intermediate)
The intermediate student has a good vocabulary (2000-3000 words or better), and may have a reasonable comprehension.
BUT, when you speak, you are stuck with one or two word sentences -- gracias, bien, que tal.
So, how do you break out of this and carry on a real conversation.
I have recently been reading some advice from a very successful language teacher, and let's see his suggestions.
- Create a real life dialog that you can use every day.
You first ask a question that leads into your story. "What do you prefer, a small town or a large city?"
native speaker answers
"Well, I enjoy living in a small town, but the big city has many interesting places to visit. For example, a few years ago my family visited the blah blah blah...." You go on and give details of what happened.
You then test our your story here in this forum for corrections, and with your Spanish friends to get it right. Memorize it, practice it until you feel comfortable giving it to strangers.
Repeat the process until you have ten or more dialogs -- "My hand is in a cast because....", "How many are in your family? I have four boys and two girls....." etc
You learn how to enter each dialog with your "bait" or question. If the native speak gets into a topic that you know little about, you try to switch gears and gradually get into one of your stories.
Of course this is just a start, but it gets you out of your "hola, muy bien, que tal" conversations.
8 Answers
That's all fine and dandy, but IMO that's not the preferred solution to the problem.
People get stuck in two word sentences for one simple reason, they're not actually talking to anybody.
People to need to stop being Spanish students and start being Spanish speakers. That's the real reason people get stuck in two word sentences.
Find a real person to talk to, face to face. If for some reason that's not possible, find a pen-pal and exchange emails, make friends on Facebook, find someone to Skype with. Do something that puts you in real life conversations and put the books to the side. Better yet, do all of the above.
We learned our native language by actually speaking to people, and we need to learn our second language the exact same way. The "secret" to learning Spanish or any language is to speak it as much as possible.
Is a child in the first grade considered fluent in his/her own language.
Their vocabulary and grammer usage is limited but they are communicating.
So, how do you break out of this and carry on a real conversation?
Simple, you do it exactly like you do it in your own language.
Or are you stuck with two forms also in your language?
EDIT:
everybody faces pretty much the same problems in both languages, or just learning a language, period.
The thing is what are you going to do with all the knowledge you already know in your language?
I like the idea of "bait" that focuses on starting off with a question instead of a statement. I think that alone makes this thread worth the price of admission. In any language this is a good idea rather than to start off with the me-me-me song.
There's nothing wrong with trying to manage the topic when you're restricted by vocabulary. I'm quite sure I've been on the other side of that equation many times. It's not just about gringo learning Spanish, right?
You must learn to crawl before you can run a race.
In case this will give support to others, despite the age of the original thread!
Some of you will remember me from several years ago, as Galsally. (Couldn't get an email to change password on that one) I spent several years learning Spanish on SpanishDict, with the OU, and many other sources. For example, I watched the Spanish telenovela Amor en Tiempos Revueltos for at least a year. (very helpful)
Very little of my learning included actually conversing, joined in with a couple of Skype sessions on SpanishDict, that's all.
Then recently I've had a couple of years of disillusionment - many factors. Hadn't been to a Spanish-speaking country and didn't see it happening.
This year - I had an unexpected visit to Vigo in Galicia, to support a family member who was in hospital there! Very few staff spoke English, and those that did, really not very much.
I started practising my español as soon as I knew I was flying, installed a Spanish Dictionary on my mobile, and off I went.
I'm not going to say I was fluent, but oh yes the Spanish I had learned did me proud, I used it in the hospital, in the hotel and in the shops with great success, my parents thought I sounded "like a native" and I always managed to communicate what I needed to say!
So. do not give up. The human brain is incredible, it was as if the Spanish was stored in this area that, once unlocked, became free-flowing almost instantly.
Now I just need to keep it up and return to Spain whenever I can.
¡Feliz Año Nuevo 2017!
Several posters are upset because they want me to give a complete solution. If your own method of "just talking" is working, please continue to use it.
I believe it's not a bad thing to develop scenarios like this, but in my experience they tend to quickly break down. There are just too many variables in day to day conversations.
Talking is the key, and in my opinion, it really should be with a native speaker. Conversations with other students are better than nothing, but it's like getting golf lessons from a duffer. You just practice bad pronunciation.
