What's your limit?

Thursday, March 21st, 2013 - What’s your limit?

Did you know that speaking and listening in a foreign language for long periods of time can be mentally exhausting, especially if you are not reasonably fluent?

Each learner has a limit: they are able to hold an everyday conversation with a native speaker for at least 8 to 10 minutes. What kind of topics would an everyday conversation include?

Question: Can you think of other verbs to substitute “hold” in the phrase “hold a conversation”?

But when the discussion starts to extend to more serious and dense topics: that’s when learners start feeling one of the following:

the words don’t come

the mind goes blank

the language sounds unnatural

the speech gets slow

the foreign accent gets  stronger

the anxiety builds up

What can be done to build your language stamina, to help you speak for longer than 10 minutes? 

Some suggestions:

attend classes regularly

listen to podcasts

watch movies

chat with people on Skype

improve fluency

Doing something regularly, or being a regular, does not guarantee anything, don’t you agree?

But what about the person on the other end of the conversation - the other speaker, the NATIVE speaker? What role do they play in the communication exchange?

Can we talk about speakers that are LISTENER-FRIENDLY or STUDENT-FRIENDLY? In other words, do some speakers speak in a comprehensible manner or kindly try to understand what you want to say?

It is known that you can improve your fluency, but you ARE fluent

improve my fluency

be fluent

An aspect of fluency in any language has to do with pronunciation, of course.

How do you pick up the difference in sound between the pairs of words below and archaic for most?

sin x scene/seen

ship x sheep

chip x cheap

chit x cheat

shin x sheen

(sheen = glow, shine, illumination

to be sheeny)

to undergo/to suffer/to go through/to experience/to weather a crisis

READY TO GO BEYOND YOUR LIMIT?