I can understand but I can't speak

When I first started to use comprehensible input, I often saw this type of comment come up on YouTube or in the material I was reading. It was something that, at the time, I didn’t really think was possible. Surely if I’m able to read or listen to a word and understand it, then I’m capable of using it in a sentence with a person?

The very first face-to-face conversation I had in Spanish was with a colleague of mine. This conversation only lasted a few minutes, and it was full of errors and pauses, but I left feeling very proud of myself. This was my first ever in-person conversation in Spanish, so I knew it wasn’t going to be great, and he also caught me off-guard because he spoke such good English that I didn’t know he was actually from Costa Rica. After I mentioned that I was learning Spanish in a casual conversation with him, he decided to switch to Spanish to test me. Given these circumstances, I left feeling proud of myself.

It was my second conversation that frustrated me the most. After discovering comprehensible input and using it for a few months and realising that I was able to read and listen to a considerable amount of Spanish with few problems, I was ready for another conversation. It was about an hour long with a friend from HelloTalk, and it was a definite improvement on my first conversation. However, I was very frustrated. I was frustrated because I knew that I could read and listen at a much higher level. I had the words in my mind, but I just couldn’t use them. This was when I realised that being able to understand the language but not being able to use it well was a very real problem. But why does this happen?

Image by Robin Higgins from Pixabay 

Passive vocabulary vs active vocabulary:

We all have a passive vocabulary and active vocabulary. Our active vocabulary consists of words and structures in a language that we understand so well that we have it fully automated in our brain and we're able to use it in a spoken conversation without really thinking. Our passive vocabulary consists of words and structures in a language that we understand well enough to be able to understand it when we read or hear it; however, we don’t have it automated enough that we can easily use it in a spoken conversation. We read and listen to the language, so we end up with a pretty good passive vocabulary, which is great because we'll be able to recognise these words. However, we haven’t practiced them enough to be able to use them yet.

Change in pressure:

When we have to speak, there's generally someone waiting for us to finish what we’re saying. This can make us more nervous when we have to speak in a language that we’re learning. We’ve all experienced being nervous before and know how much it can affect us. Have you ever had an exam and suddenly forgotten a lot of what you thought you knew? When you’re reading and listening, there’s nowhere near as much pressure. If you’re reading a message from a friend or listening to them speak, there’s an element of nervousness because you know you’re going to have to reply, which could make you nervous. However, when you’re reading a book or watching Netflix, there’s absolutely no pressure. If you don’t understand something, it doesn’t matter. When you speak to someone face-to-face, the addition of nerves can significantly impact your ability to speak the language.

Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay 

Mouth needs to adapt to new movements and sounds:

This is another thing that I didn’t really believe at the start. Our mouth contains muscles, lips, and a tongue that combine to create the sounds we want to make. It’s obviously accustomed to producing the sounds in our native language that we’ve made for most of our lives. However, when we learn a new language, there’ll be new sounds and combinations to master.

The letter ‘r’ sounds different in English, Spanish, and French. In Spanish, the tongue is used to produce the r, and in French, it’s with the back of the throat. You’ll notice this problem more when you have to try to use new sounds in a sentence instead of an isolated example. When I started speaking to myself during my dead periods of time, I realised this the most. When trying to form a sentence, any sounds that my mouth wasn’t used to making were very difficult to perform naturally. If I just tried to make them on their own, it wouldn’t be as difficult. But as soon as you try to use them in a quick exchange of words, it becomes a lot more difficult and takes time to master.

 

How to solve this problem:

Practice, practice, and more practice! Learning a language is a skill, and to improve any skill, you have to practice. You have to put yourself in situations where you need to produce the language. Please don’t see this as a reason to stop reading and listening. You need to continue to do this because the more you hear and read these words, the stronger they’ll be in your mind. However, you need to start producing these words yourself as well.

My first tip is to speak to yourself. You can try to speak to yourself during periods of the day where your body is busy but your mind is free (e.g. driving, cooking, in the shower etc). I often do this when I’m in the car, and I talk about the things that I’m doing and my plans. For example, “I am going to the gym, and after I need to go to the supermarket”. At the beginning, these will be very simple sentences. The more you read and listen, the more you’ll discover what you’re able to say.

In the early stages of trying to talk to myself, it was difficult to get these words out quickly because I would need to break them down and think about them. However, I continued to do this every day, and now words like these come out of my mouth without me needing to think about them. It was just a case of me using them consistently that helped turn these words from passive vocabulary into active vocabulary. The more you speak to yourself, the more you’ll realise that these words come out without you needing to think. That is the key. When you can say things without really needing to think of them, you have moved them into your active vocabulary.

Another tip is to take notes on vocabulary that is useful for you when you read and listen. When you have a moment to yourself, you can have these notes in front of you and try to form sentences with them. This tip is obviously a bit more limited (you won’t be able to do this in the shower, and you definitely shouldn’t do this while driving), but it’s still very useful to start getting your mouth using these words that you want to incorporate into your life.

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay 

The above tips help solve the problem of getting your mouth used to the sounds and starting to move your passive vocabulary into active vocabulary. However, speaking on your own obviously doesn’t involve the pressure of speaking with someone. This is why you have to throw yourselves into conversations and start to get used to the pressure.

Find someone you can talk to in the language (friends, family, colleagues, language learning apps) and just try your best. It’s always better with somebody you’re more comfortable with at first; however, it’ll still be a big step up. You’ll notice how frustrated you get when you can’t really say a lot, but the only way to improve this is to simply fight through it. This is a slow process, and you won’t turn from a beginner to fluent after two conversations. You have to accept that it’ll take time, but every conversation you have will move you one step closer to achieving your language goals.

 

Summary:

Being able to understand but not express yourself as well as you’d like is a common problem that all language learners face. Comprehensible input is great for building up our passive vocabulary, but eventually we need to start using it. Speak to yourself every day to get yourself used to the sounds of the language. This will give you more confidence and ability to use the language, which you can then try to apply by talking to a person face-to-face or on the phone. This process will make you nervous, but it’s essential to go through this phase in order to improve. You’ll find that, bit by bit, you’re able to use the language more and more, and you’re feeling more confident.

 

Key vocabulary:

Come up – appeared

Caught me off-guard – surprised me (another way to express this is “took me by surprise”)

Passive vocabulary – vocabulary that we understand when reading or listening but we have problems when trying to produce it ourselves

Active vocabulary – vocabulary that we understand so much that we’re able to produce it ourselves

Automated – the language is locked in to your mind that you can use it without really thinking about it

Bit by bit – slowly and steadily