PSA: Conversation may not be as useful as you think

on

To preface this post, I spent approximately a year half-heartedly learning Spanish a while back. In doing so, I spent two months in Guatemala at a Spanish school, which only focused on conversation, where I spoke for a total of 120 hrs.

In addition to these hours, I was 'immersed' for another 10 months in Mexico, and probably did another 100 hrs of active study (albeit with inefficient methods). I was left with a B1 after this year-long journey.

Flash-forward a few years, and I've decided to learn Italian, but with a far more deliberate approach. This is what I've done in 3-4 months:

  • Studied 2k double-sided vocab cards and 700 phrase cards with Anki (100 hrs)
  • 10 hrs of grammar study
  • 10 hrs of conversation with italki tutors
  • 5 hrs of pronunciation practice (playing and recording audio clips of myself speaking while trying to imitate a native's speech)
  • No immersion, bar playing some Italian podcasts on my way to work

I just landed in Rome last night and had an hour-long conversation in which I spoke about things that I wouldn't have been able to speak about in Spanish (I was explaining the benefits of high refresh-rate curved monitors, the benefits of sleeping on the floor, and just some general COVID-related chit-chat).

Granted I couldn't speak about these things too quickly, due to a lack of automaticity, but I know that this will only take a few weeks to address. Once this is up to scratch, I'll be confident in saying that my Italian is better than my Spanish.

After this, I've now realised that I was far too focused on conversation when I was learning Spanish.

​

What I think conversation is good for:

  • Listening practice
  • Automaticity
  • Identifying the phrases, grammatical constructs and words you need to learn
  • Solidifying previously learned vocabulary

​

What I think conversation is inefficient for:

  • Vocabulary and phrasal acquisition - conversation hasn't provided me with much new vocab unless I was noting down everything new and Anki-fying them - simply storing them somewhere in my phone's notes was not enough
  • Grammar
  • Pronunciation - some people can get away with solely using conversation to improve their pronunciation (esp. children), but as for me, I need feedback in order to improve. During my conversation practice in Guatemala, my intonation probably improved, but my pronunciation of individual words didn't progress much at all
submitted by /u/DoctorNootNoot
[link] [comments]

from Tikilluaritsi | Languagelearning https://ift.tt/3lJvYzR
via Learn Online English Speaking

Comments

Post a Comment