Practicing your language in real life

When you are studying a language, one of the most difficult things is to begin conversations with speakers of the language you are learning. Whether it is ordering a cup of coffee in a coffee shop, selecting a meal in a restaurant, asking for directions, or buying a train ticket, it can be very scary to interact with people in the real world!

Here are some tips for managing conversations:

1. Many conversations are based on routines that you can practice in advance. For example, in a coffee shop, they will ask you what you would like to order. Be prepared to know how to answer all the questions in advance: What kind of drink would you like? Tea or coffee? Hot or cold? With cream or milk? With sugar or honey? Rehearsing a conversation in advance and thinking of the vocabulary you might need will help you reduce your anxiety.
2. Many native speakers of a language are not used speaking with people who are beginning to learn their language and they tend to speak too fast or use words or idioms that you may not know. You can use some strategies to manage these situations:
   • Ask people to slow down a bit. People are often not aware of the fact that they speak too fast for a learner to keep up with.
   • Ask for clarification if you don’t understand something. For example: I didn’t get that; could you repeat that please? Or: I don’t understand that word. What does it mean?
   • Check for comprehension. If you are not sure that you understood something correctly, check with the other person(s) in the conversation. For example: Did you mean….? Or: Did I understand this correctly?
   • To help with your pronunciation, you can also repeat words and phrases that you heard. Often, the other speakers will then repeat it again.
3. A final tip is to simply relax and not worry too much about whether you make any mistakes. Just try to get your meaning across in whatever way might work. You can, for example, point at items on a menu, use gestures, or describe what you are ordering or buying (for example, if you don’t know the word for “stamp” in the post office, you could say “the little thing you put on an envelope”). Focus on fluency in conversations and don’t worry too much about the grammar or the pronunciation, as long as you manage to communicate. Check out our post on accuracy versus fluency.