I understand Fulani fluently but can’t really speak it, how do I fix this?

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Hi,

I was born and raised in France and my parents are from Mauritania and Senegal and they’re both Fulani. When we were children, they spoke Fulani to us but also French and since they understand French, we replied in French and it's still the case today.

I’m 30 now and I really want to improve my level because I’m trying to get closer to my family and this language is my heritage.

One week ago I came back from Senegal, when I hear them talk about basic, everyday topics, I understand everything. Same thing when I watch Fulani shows on YouTube. The issue is when I try to speak. I can say basic things like hello, good night, I’m hungry, I’m tired, but as soon as I try to explain something or develop my thoughts on a subject, it becomes very difficult. When I try to speak to my family members, I often end up getting frustrated because I switch to french or even english and I'm not able to properly explain my pov and the thing is, I know that if I hear the word or the sentence said by I’ll recognize it immediately. The most frustrating thing is, I always recognize the words immediately when I hear them I just struggle to retrieve them when I’m speaking.

I guess I’m what you’d call a passive bilingual: I understand Fulani very well when I hear it, but I struggle a lot when I try to speak it myself.

I also feel like learning languages isn’t usually that hard for me. I actually learned English mostly on my own, by being really exposed to American/Afro-American culture growing up and consuming a lot of English content as a teenager.

That’s basically the approach I’m trying to recreate with Fulani. I know it’s not exactly the same situation, but seeing how I built my English level back then still motivates me a lot.

What I’m doing at the moment to improve:

  • Sending audio messages to family members daily to practice speaking
  • Watching Fulani shows
  • Writing down words or expressions I hear but don’t use, then trying to reuse them in sentences

What do you think about my situation overall? And what else do you think I should do?

submitted by /u/rama__d
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