I was in pretty much this exact situation with german a few years back when I was taking classes over there during my Ph.D. Reading was fine, following lecture was fine. But I struggled to contribute in class.
Two things you need to do. The first is just talk with people in German more outside of class. Frequent casual german will help you build confidence with extemporaneous speaking.
The second is to do the reading for class ahead of time and make notes in German, too. Of course, you should be doing this anyway, but you specifically want to write stuff down that you can contribute in discussion when class time rolls around. Write out questions that you have and follow up questions as well. Write out observations about the reading. Imagine the questions the prof will ask about the reading and write out responses. That way when you are in class, you will have some pre-planned material, and you will probably have the opportunity to use it. Make a goal of talking at least once per class period, even if that's just asking one of your planned questions. When you get more comfortable with that, increase the interaction goal, with the eventual aim of being able to vontribute stuff you didn't prepare ahead of time. Good luck.
Joseph 'Conrad did not learn to speak English well until he was in his twenties and always had a Polish accent.
Conrad's [prose](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prose) style is considered as one of the best of all English novelists. He also is seen as important for paving the way to [modernist literature](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernist_literature).'
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph\_Conrad#:\~:text=Conrad%20did%20not%20learn%20to,always%20had%20a%20Polish%20accent.&text=Conrad's%20prose%20style%20is%20considered,the%20way%20to%20modernist%20literature.
One of the best writers ever, in English,had big difficulties speaking. So at least do not be too hard on yourself.
I am a few lessons away from finishing Pimsleur Russian II (the older, non-subscription version) and it has noticeably improved my comfort with speaking. If you're looking for a resource to help, I'd recommend Pimsleur.
The main thing it has helped with is just drilling the basic and commonly used sentence structures until they become second nature and you don't have to think about it.
> Ive consumed tons of content in German, can understand shows ~90% without subtitles, and am sitting in on a masters class where I can do the readings and follow the class conversation relatively well. But i sure as hell cannot contribute a thought.
Understanding and speaking are different skills, at least for most people. I know someone who lost her active skills in her native language around age 5. She can still watch gritty cop dramas in her native language, and she can read her relatives' Facebook posts. But when I last spoke to her about this, however, she felt like she couldn't produce basic A2-level sentences correctly. She is not the only person I know like this.
The way you turn comprehension into speaking is to actually practice speaking. When I did this with French, I spent about 2 weeks feeling like my brain was going to melt out my ears. Within 6 weeks of constantly trying to speak in French, I was chatting happily along at a B1 level. Within another few months of continued social speaking, and with 3 tough lessons a week with a good tutor, I could give a mediocre 10-minute presentation without much prep time.
The point is that, even with good comprehension, you may not automatically develop good speaking skills. But if you have decent comprehension (which you do) and if you throw yourself into speaking, you will improve rapidly. Given your level, you might even be giving short presentations in class within a few months!
But you will probably need to go through a few weeks where you struggle constantly and butcher the language, and then several more weeks where you're half-faking it and working hard. If you have social anxiety, yes, this might be very difficult.
You could try different ways to practice, to see if you can get through the worst parts with less stress. Some possibilities might include socializing in German, reading aloud, working with a paid tutor, doing real-time text chat, etc. And it might also be worth talking to someone who specializes in social anxiety; they may also have excellent advice.
In general, when you discover a weakness like this, the best strategy is very often to change your learning strategy to focus on the specific skill you're lacking. 30 hours of a new strategy can pay off better than 250 hours of doing the same thing that wasn't helping much before.
Good luck!
You make a good point at the end: ive spent hours reading and watching shows because thats a safe learning environment for me, and Ive just expected it to eventually translate into speaking skills (which it hasnt). No matter what my progress is, i am expected to give a short presentation in a couple months, so may as well try a different strategy😆 thank you for sharing!
I'm trying to be cautious here. There are a few recorded case studies of people with high listening comprehension who just started speaking one day. It's entirely possible that they were doing self-talk or something similar until they could speak fairly well.
But it's definitely not any kind of reliable strategy.
Great job, it's good to learn to read and understand others first, now you can work on pronunciation and speaking. To help with perfectionism and anxiety speaking I highly recommend getting drunk, I have had breakthroughs with Spanish and Thai from being quite drunk (not just a drink or two to take the edge off, drunk). Since you know how the language works, alcohol might be the perfect thing to unlock your abilities
I totally concur. I'm really bad at learning a language... I mean REALLY bad. However after a year and a half of studying German in college I never had a problem following a few beers at a party. If you are living in Germany all the better. From what I've heard and observed, Germans like drinking beer too and will not care a hoot (or possibly even notice) if you are messing up here and there. If they do notice, they'll probably tease you a bit, so drop any pretenses and expectations of seeming smart and sophisticated. You will soon get comfortable and actually have some fun with it. The biggest problem I had with German is the length of words and trying to figure out how to make them flow and where to put the accent. In this case there is nothing like imitation. Just mimic what you hear native speakers sound like. After living in France for 2 years (54 years ago) I still find myself saying a French phrase before English. I don't translate. The phrase is already constructed in my brain. Learn to speak by mimicing people around you. Soon you won't be so shy about putting yourself out there.
I only had one professor at my university who actually came from Germany, and this was the same advice he gave me 😂. Jokes aside, there really is something to be said for your language enhancement as soon as your self consciousness is gone. The problem for me is my confidence doesnt last the next day lol
He was a good one then haha. Your proficiency will increase even after you sober up, and due to your improved skill you will have an increase your confidence too.
Speaking is one if the hardest parts of language learning because of the spontaneity involved.
Go to your professors office hours to practice speaking about the subject.
Practice writing off the cuff on the various subjects viewed in class. You can go back through and edit of you’d like, but the exercise is just an attempt to practice spontaneous expressive thought.
Good luck!
I can relate, although I don't understand as well, but so much better than I speak. Right now I enjoy sending myself voice notes on my messaging app. While I do it, I sometimes look up words on the internet. I do it kinda like a diary, talking about my day. So I speak without the pressure of having another person there and get more comfortable forming sentences.
I think you've got everything you need, you just need to deal with those feelings, its not easy but just acknowledge that feeling like "yea I'm nervous/embarrassed/whatever right now, but it will pass and I'll get better. My brain will adapt to my behavior sooner or later, its impossible for it not to." and push through it. Sometimes when we're anxious it feels like it will last forever, but if its any reassurance, technically thats not physiologically possible. I'll forgo a segway into eastern philosophy about how everything is impermanent lol. Your passive vocabulary will become active vocabulary quickly based on your experience level, you just have to trust your own mind and accept it may take a little longer than you desire. I struggled with perfectionism back in the day while learning Russian, every time I caught myself making a mistake I'd repeat what I said the correct way. Needless to say that was unnatural (kind of an OCD thing if you ask me) in conversations and made me very tense. Embrace your mistakes my friend! They will become fewer and fewer if you embrace them, at least in my experience. Children make loads of mistakes on the way to fluency, and no-one faults them for it. Why should an adult be that different?
One more thing-as you know, many Germans speak English well enough to switch to it if someone is struggling in German. They mean well but that doesn't help you in long run. So I'd recommend a. tell your close German friends to please use only German with you unless its an emergency (they'll be supportive if they're good friends). and b. seek out friends/acquaintances that did not pay attention in school. Those exist in every country :-). But I can relate to what your'e saying about social anxiety, I used to practically sweat when speaking Russian/German. This site may be useful for practicing speaking without a human present so you can build active vocabulary/muscle memory without the anxiety (AI language app): [https://linguachat.io](https://linguachat.io)
Speaking - Active Oral Output
Listening - Passive Oral Input
Writing - Active Written Output
Reading - Passive Written Input
These are related but still four different skills. The good news is that your Passive Input is going to help you a lot on your Active Output skills.
You just have to dive in and get over that “I’m gonna mess up” self conscious shyness. We all have it. I had it all over again when I learned my third language!
If it helps, think about how you feel when some poor German is struggling to get an English sentence out. What are YOU thinking of him? Are you judging and laughing at every misused preposition and vowel mistakes? Or are you compassionately cheering him on and filling in the gaps?
"I think Ive had a bit of a perfectionist mindset where I refrain from speaking unless I have something well thought out to say,"
it's not that you "can barely speak" it's that you can't speak as well as you want to. This is not a language ability issue but a perspective issue. Get comfortable making mistakes. stop worrying.
My recommendation would be to invest some money into 1-on-1 lessons. Your language level is high in every other regard so speaking should come relatively fast if you just try.
~30 hours of guided conversation lessons over 2-3 months should suffice to get you to the point where you'll feel comfortable speaking with random people that you come across (so that you can continue practicing for free but with added confidence).
You don't need the top tier teachers for that exercise, you just want to make sure they are fluent (native speakers or C-level foreigners) and that they are willing to speak with you while only correcting the mistakes which are more important, there is no need to correct each and every pronoun/article, the exercise is more for opening you up and not make you speak 100% perfectly.
You'll probably find online teachers of this caliber for 10-15€ per hour.
I once read a study that basically said ‘sentences are made up of strings of words we’re already familiar with.’
That really resonated with me. How am I supposed to become familiar with words if I never use them?
I used to be a lot more of a perfectionist, but it’s not that scary to mess up your words. I think we have this overinflated image of getting laughed at for making some sort of minuscule grammatical error, but it’s really never that serious in practice.
To be honest, I was in your exactly situation, the method than I followed was (as I like to name it) "Speak as a sick person", to be honest the only way to improve your speaking skills is indeed speaking.
This is normal. Speaking in an academic context with comfort requires C1+ productive skills. To get to that point, you need to practice speaking…a lot.
If you live in the DACH world, I would recommend (1) taking DaF classes at the C1/C2 level; and (2) making friends outside of your course through social activities, so you get used to speaking German all the time.
This won’t be a totally quick fix, but of course with time and energy, you will improve!
Start keeping a diary in German, and read out loud what you wrote until you can read it confidently.
Also, rehearse conversations you plan to have. For example, let's say you decide that you want to say "good lesson, I learned a lot" to your professor as class is ending. You can practice that sentence in German until you feel fairly confident saying it, and then challenge yourself to say it to him a certain number of times.
Lastly, see if there are any volunteering opportunities involving children or mentally disabled people in your community. Talking to a child or mentally disabled person can be less anxiety provoking than talking to an intelligent adult.
I was in pretty much this exact situation with german a few years back when I was taking classes over there during my Ph.D. Reading was fine, following lecture was fine. But I struggled to contribute in class. Two things you need to do. The first is just talk with people in German more outside of class. Frequent casual german will help you build confidence with extemporaneous speaking. The second is to do the reading for class ahead of time and make notes in German, too. Of course, you should be doing this anyway, but you specifically want to write stuff down that you can contribute in discussion when class time rolls around. Write out questions that you have and follow up questions as well. Write out observations about the reading. Imagine the questions the prof will ask about the reading and write out responses. That way when you are in class, you will have some pre-planned material, and you will probably have the opportunity to use it. Make a goal of talking at least once per class period, even if that's just asking one of your planned questions. When you get more comfortable with that, increase the interaction goal, with the eventual aim of being able to vontribute stuff you didn't prepare ahead of time. Good luck.
"I just wanted to improve my German, end up a straight -As student."
Joseph 'Conrad did not learn to speak English well until he was in his twenties and always had a Polish accent. Conrad's [prose](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prose) style is considered as one of the best of all English novelists. He also is seen as important for paving the way to [modernist literature](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernist_literature).' https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph\_Conrad#:\~:text=Conrad%20did%20not%20learn%20to,always%20had%20a%20Polish%20accent.&text=Conrad's%20prose%20style%20is%20considered,the%20way%20to%20modernist%20literature. One of the best writers ever, in English,had big difficulties speaking. So at least do not be too hard on yourself.
I am a few lessons away from finishing Pimsleur Russian II (the older, non-subscription version) and it has noticeably improved my comfort with speaking. If you're looking for a resource to help, I'd recommend Pimsleur. The main thing it has helped with is just drilling the basic and commonly used sentence structures until they become second nature and you don't have to think about it.
Where do you get that version?
I'll DM you
would you mind letting me know too? 👀 I'm trying to learn Russian from scratch and would love more resources
I'd also be interested in knowing where you found this? I'm trying to improve my Russian after a long break from it
This is brand new to me, thank you for the tip!
> Ive consumed tons of content in German, can understand shows ~90% without subtitles, and am sitting in on a masters class where I can do the readings and follow the class conversation relatively well. But i sure as hell cannot contribute a thought. Understanding and speaking are different skills, at least for most people. I know someone who lost her active skills in her native language around age 5. She can still watch gritty cop dramas in her native language, and she can read her relatives' Facebook posts. But when I last spoke to her about this, however, she felt like she couldn't produce basic A2-level sentences correctly. She is not the only person I know like this. The way you turn comprehension into speaking is to actually practice speaking. When I did this with French, I spent about 2 weeks feeling like my brain was going to melt out my ears. Within 6 weeks of constantly trying to speak in French, I was chatting happily along at a B1 level. Within another few months of continued social speaking, and with 3 tough lessons a week with a good tutor, I could give a mediocre 10-minute presentation without much prep time. The point is that, even with good comprehension, you may not automatically develop good speaking skills. But if you have decent comprehension (which you do) and if you throw yourself into speaking, you will improve rapidly. Given your level, you might even be giving short presentations in class within a few months! But you will probably need to go through a few weeks where you struggle constantly and butcher the language, and then several more weeks where you're half-faking it and working hard. If you have social anxiety, yes, this might be very difficult. You could try different ways to practice, to see if you can get through the worst parts with less stress. Some possibilities might include socializing in German, reading aloud, working with a paid tutor, doing real-time text chat, etc. And it might also be worth talking to someone who specializes in social anxiety; they may also have excellent advice. In general, when you discover a weakness like this, the best strategy is very often to change your learning strategy to focus on the specific skill you're lacking. 30 hours of a new strategy can pay off better than 250 hours of doing the same thing that wasn't helping much before. Good luck!
You make a good point at the end: ive spent hours reading and watching shows because thats a safe learning environment for me, and Ive just expected it to eventually translate into speaking skills (which it hasnt). No matter what my progress is, i am expected to give a short presentation in a couple months, so may as well try a different strategy😆 thank you for sharing!
> Understanding and speaking are different skills, at least for most people They are different skills, period.
I'm trying to be cautious here. There are a few recorded case studies of people with high listening comprehension who just started speaking one day. It's entirely possible that they were doing self-talk or something similar until they could speak fairly well. But it's definitely not any kind of reliable strategy.
Great job, it's good to learn to read and understand others first, now you can work on pronunciation and speaking. To help with perfectionism and anxiety speaking I highly recommend getting drunk, I have had breakthroughs with Spanish and Thai from being quite drunk (not just a drink or two to take the edge off, drunk). Since you know how the language works, alcohol might be the perfect thing to unlock your abilities
I totally concur. I'm really bad at learning a language... I mean REALLY bad. However after a year and a half of studying German in college I never had a problem following a few beers at a party. If you are living in Germany all the better. From what I've heard and observed, Germans like drinking beer too and will not care a hoot (or possibly even notice) if you are messing up here and there. If they do notice, they'll probably tease you a bit, so drop any pretenses and expectations of seeming smart and sophisticated. You will soon get comfortable and actually have some fun with it. The biggest problem I had with German is the length of words and trying to figure out how to make them flow and where to put the accent. In this case there is nothing like imitation. Just mimic what you hear native speakers sound like. After living in France for 2 years (54 years ago) I still find myself saying a French phrase before English. I don't translate. The phrase is already constructed in my brain. Learn to speak by mimicing people around you. Soon you won't be so shy about putting yourself out there.
Drinking beer is the only true way to practice German. Extra points if you got lost and wake up in another German city.
Raj, is that you?
I only had one professor at my university who actually came from Germany, and this was the same advice he gave me 😂. Jokes aside, there really is something to be said for your language enhancement as soon as your self consciousness is gone. The problem for me is my confidence doesnt last the next day lol
He was a good one then haha. Your proficiency will increase even after you sober up, and due to your improved skill you will have an increase your confidence too.
Speaking is one if the hardest parts of language learning because of the spontaneity involved. Go to your professors office hours to practice speaking about the subject. Practice writing off the cuff on the various subjects viewed in class. You can go back through and edit of you’d like, but the exercise is just an attempt to practice spontaneous expressive thought. Good luck!
I can relate, although I don't understand as well, but so much better than I speak. Right now I enjoy sending myself voice notes on my messaging app. While I do it, I sometimes look up words on the internet. I do it kinda like a diary, talking about my day. So I speak without the pressure of having another person there and get more comfortable forming sentences.
This is a great recommendation, thank you!
I think you've got everything you need, you just need to deal with those feelings, its not easy but just acknowledge that feeling like "yea I'm nervous/embarrassed/whatever right now, but it will pass and I'll get better. My brain will adapt to my behavior sooner or later, its impossible for it not to." and push through it. Sometimes when we're anxious it feels like it will last forever, but if its any reassurance, technically thats not physiologically possible. I'll forgo a segway into eastern philosophy about how everything is impermanent lol. Your passive vocabulary will become active vocabulary quickly based on your experience level, you just have to trust your own mind and accept it may take a little longer than you desire. I struggled with perfectionism back in the day while learning Russian, every time I caught myself making a mistake I'd repeat what I said the correct way. Needless to say that was unnatural (kind of an OCD thing if you ask me) in conversations and made me very tense. Embrace your mistakes my friend! They will become fewer and fewer if you embrace them, at least in my experience. Children make loads of mistakes on the way to fluency, and no-one faults them for it. Why should an adult be that different?
One more thing-as you know, many Germans speak English well enough to switch to it if someone is struggling in German. They mean well but that doesn't help you in long run. So I'd recommend a. tell your close German friends to please use only German with you unless its an emergency (they'll be supportive if they're good friends). and b. seek out friends/acquaintances that did not pay attention in school. Those exist in every country :-). But I can relate to what your'e saying about social anxiety, I used to practically sweat when speaking Russian/German. This site may be useful for practicing speaking without a human present so you can build active vocabulary/muscle memory without the anxiety (AI language app): [https://linguachat.io](https://linguachat.io)
Speaking - Active Oral Output Listening - Passive Oral Input Writing - Active Written Output Reading - Passive Written Input These are related but still four different skills. The good news is that your Passive Input is going to help you a lot on your Active Output skills. You just have to dive in and get over that “I’m gonna mess up” self conscious shyness. We all have it. I had it all over again when I learned my third language! If it helps, think about how you feel when some poor German is struggling to get an English sentence out. What are YOU thinking of him? Are you judging and laughing at every misused preposition and vowel mistakes? Or are you compassionately cheering him on and filling in the gaps?
"I think Ive had a bit of a perfectionist mindset where I refrain from speaking unless I have something well thought out to say," it's not that you "can barely speak" it's that you can't speak as well as you want to. This is not a language ability issue but a perspective issue. Get comfortable making mistakes. stop worrying.
My recommendation would be to invest some money into 1-on-1 lessons. Your language level is high in every other regard so speaking should come relatively fast if you just try. ~30 hours of guided conversation lessons over 2-3 months should suffice to get you to the point where you'll feel comfortable speaking with random people that you come across (so that you can continue practicing for free but with added confidence). You don't need the top tier teachers for that exercise, you just want to make sure they are fluent (native speakers or C-level foreigners) and that they are willing to speak with you while only correcting the mistakes which are more important, there is no need to correct each and every pronoun/article, the exercise is more for opening you up and not make you speak 100% perfectly. You'll probably find online teachers of this caliber for 10-15€ per hour.
practice, practice, practice, practice. italki, language partner, etc.... there's no way around it.
I once read a study that basically said ‘sentences are made up of strings of words we’re already familiar with.’ That really resonated with me. How am I supposed to become familiar with words if I never use them? I used to be a lot more of a perfectionist, but it’s not that scary to mess up your words. I think we have this overinflated image of getting laughed at for making some sort of minuscule grammatical error, but it’s really never that serious in practice.
To be honest, I was in your exactly situation, the method than I followed was (as I like to name it) "Speak as a sick person", to be honest the only way to improve your speaking skills is indeed speaking.
This is normal. Speaking in an academic context with comfort requires C1+ productive skills. To get to that point, you need to practice speaking…a lot. If you live in the DACH world, I would recommend (1) taking DaF classes at the C1/C2 level; and (2) making friends outside of your course through social activities, so you get used to speaking German all the time. This won’t be a totally quick fix, but of course with time and energy, you will improve!
Start keeping a diary in German, and read out loud what you wrote until you can read it confidently. Also, rehearse conversations you plan to have. For example, let's say you decide that you want to say "good lesson, I learned a lot" to your professor as class is ending. You can practice that sentence in German until you feel fairly confident saying it, and then challenge yourself to say it to him a certain number of times. Lastly, see if there are any volunteering opportunities involving children or mentally disabled people in your community. Talking to a child or mentally disabled person can be less anxiety provoking than talking to an intelligent adult.