german2k01 wrote:I have a counter-question. When I was a zero beginner I tried interacting with native Germans for once I could not understand them at all also I could not produce a single cohesive sentence which is understandable as I was not exposed to the language extensively. My language device was empty. Hence, my question for you is, is it necessary to be in an "incubation period" where you try to absorb a lot of language through watching TV and reading books, let's say, a year or so then go out and start practicing that passive knowledge. As per my own observation at work or dealing with workers in shops; I am now in a better position to understand what they are saying and I have a better stock of phrases to try out in a given situation than I was before the incubation/silent period. Even without extensive speaking practice under my belt, I am able to use better collocations/phrases that I have acquired through watching TV shows, etc.
I agree with you at some point I need to speak, but again communication is a two-way process if you can not understand what others are saying to you how can you even reply or speak?
Of course you need a preparation period, I don't think anyone would disagree with that. I wouldn't expect any adult learner to just drop themselves cold into an L2 situation and be able to function. It would be absurd. How could a 'zero beginner' even interact or hope to interact? It's like reporting for work as a biochemist when you've not even so much as read the Wikipedia biochemistry article!
Your particular situation of being in the target language country is a bit different though. Different from someone busy learning the language outside a place where the language is the daily currency of communication. That last tends to be less pressured, more controlled and structured - specifically because they are not required/expected to speak the language unless they choose to. So, yes, you must do a course or two (or three) and read a lot and watch TV and listen - to media and real-life speech.
However I think the interaction can start when you need it to start. What does that mean though? Probably not religiously abiding by some holy polyglot's pronouncement that says: "the theory is... you can/should remain silent for the first year". Silent? Does that mean e.g. never going to the supermarket and answering the robotic questions from the cashier? "Zahlen Sie bar? ... Möchten Sie die Quittung?" Even when you know what they are and know the possible answers? This despite the fact that just yet one might feel they can't chat freely to a neighbour? Training the recognition of real-time speech and response benefits from as early a start as possible. Expect to fail half the time, to look incompetent for a while. I'll tell you a true anecdote...
When I started learning Dutch in Belgium I'd pretty much completed Hugo 3 Months and was halfway through Hugo 'Further'. I was by this time living in the border region and worked four days a week further south where I could get along fine in French. But we already had a plan to move north and later to NL. So I bit the bullet and joined a work agency to work on my free day. Lied about my CV so I could apply for basic jobs (pill packing factory, private post sorting...). On the first day of this I was with some people who were given tasks and then this fellow said in a typical accent: 'oké, loop even mee...' Now what? Was I even sure I knew what he'd said? Did I know those words, that phrase? There wasn't the time to do much thinking. And that's a soft situation, because the guy was already turning and walking and any fool knows at that point that the aim is to follow. Direct questions are harder because you have to gasp them and formulate an answer within a reasonable space. It's one thing to have memorised questions from a book, but they can appear in real-life as contorted varieties in unusual accents.
I screwed up so many encounters: at a sandwich shop; when the builders came to our apartment, where I used the male 'vriend' (mijn vriend is er niet vandaag...) instead of 'vriendin' when talking about my partner, so they assumed I was gay; when I caught a train. I mispronounced the word onbekend as 'on-bay-kend', even though I already knew the German cognate. For who-knows-what reason.. that 'beker' (beaker) is said 'bay-ker' maybe? Just a lapse, who knows. But this fades away as you go along and it's partly because you are accumulating knowledge from all sources and employing it. The old-school world used to call it 'learning on the job'. And I say this because the gap between course material, fiction/non-fiction, media listening and talking to people in actual life is real. And that it's as well to start dealing with it from about the time you think you've absorbed enough language you'd need to function as a tourist. That is not a huge amount. 'Incubating' the beginning from zero to basic knowledge is expected. Incubating the entire process to come out a competent speaker with minimal failures is, to mind at least, fictional and misguided. Nothing worth acquiring is acquired without a struggle.
