Knowing when to speak

This is going to be the last post in the eight weeks series, I have a lot more to say about conversation and a few more things about tones and reading/writing etc.but hay-fever has kicked, in, time runs out and a want to learn languages rather than write about what is happening. This post is a follow-on from my post: Doubting to speak Thai.

There has been quite a lot of controversy online recently about when to first speak the language you are learning, some say straight a-way, right at the beginning. There is a legitimate concern that some people are never ready to speak, never get over the nerves and insecurity of speaking a new language and never feel they have absorbed enough grammar, vocabulary etc. However going from this concern to "speak straight away" is a big leap and a rather lazy fix. In many fields of learning there is a possible "short sharp shock" approach to get over barriers of nerves etc. but usually they are discredited, you have to be careful sometimes it works, sometimes a phased approach to build confidence is better.

So how to work out when to speak, how to deal with the amorphous "when you are ready". Well for my case I have worked it out. Firstly I don't have as big a barrier to overcome as the first time, I know I can speak Chinese with people. In trying to speak Thai right from the start I found what made me uncomfortable what made it unpleasant and at what stage all that when away.

Firstly vocabulary, I don't expect to be able to say very much at all at first, but I do want to a basic set of common phrases that I "just know", that can come to mind without really thinking and that sound reasonably native in my head (so hopefully my pronunciation won't be too horrendous). I do not want to be suddenly forgetting how to say "sawat dee krap" etc. I do not want to have a little collection of phrases and words swimming around in my short term memory that I have recently "crammed there", that is uncomfortable.

I want to know that those phrases I know, I have a reasonable chance of understanding when I hear them, that I can recognise them in a radio broacast or TV program, if I can't do that how will I know that I can learn anything new. I should only be thinking hard to pick up or say new things.

I want to have a feel for variations and breakdown of the things I know, the person I am about to talk to has not "read the script".

For me with Thai, that took about six weeks, not a huge amount of time, if this was my first language then maybe 2 months, 3 months, but a finite goal still. But what if you HAVE to speak because of X or Y, then simple just speak after all you HAVE to. Maybe my criteria are not quite refined for the general population but it should be possible to come up with a better defined set.

If an individual chooses to not speak until later, if that is a choice not made by fear or indecision but a conscious choice because of belief that it will harm their learning, then that is fine of course.

There will be more on conversation, much more.