The Case for Conjugations (and some other tips)

The Case for Conjugations

As soon as someone starts talking about languages, the word "fluent" gets tossed around a lot. People often mistake "fluency" for what I call "competence." Many define fluency as "if I had to survive using the language I could do so."

That's not fluency. Even "talking to everybody easily" when everyone has a similar relationship to you is actually quite simple. I went to school in Mexico and could eventually understand classes and discuss them in Spanish, and I could talk about basic things and order food in Spanish. 

But if I had to ask someone to repair my car or fix a leak in a drain pipe, I'd be up the creek. When I started developing deeper relationships with people who didn't speak my language, I found just how rudimentary my Spanish was. I was blessed to have a good friend who was patient enough to sit with me for almost an hour over several occasions to talk and let me stumble around and help me. Here's what I learned about basic fluency:

1: If you want to sound fluid (not fluent), master conjugations. Practice them every day, even if they seem useless sometimes. I knew all the vocabulary to talk about certain topics, but I would get to a verb and stop for ten seconds fumbling over which conjugation to use. Once I could conjugate better (I'm still learning) conversations got a lot easier.

2: Practice every day, and be intentional. Plan ahead what you're going to do and set mini goals. If you want to be able to have a conversation with a chef, study food and kitchen related things, then go practice with the chef. If I stayed longer I might have studied mechanics and then tried to practice at a repair shop.

3: Surround yourself with people who will build you up and keep you accountable. In my case, I had translators everywhere. I wasn't forced to learn the language. But I had a roommate who didn't speak English, and a few friends who didn't. So I made it a point to talk to them. Some weren't patient, so I stopped trying with them until I got better. 

3.5: Be confident: I misused three months just studying and not speaking. Big mistake. Going back to point 2, if I had made it a point to apply everything I was learning in a real world setting, I would have done a lot better. I know because that's what I do now.

TL;DR: If that's the level you want, practice conjugations, be intentional with your real-world practice, surround yourself with support, and be confident.