Postby PeterMollenburg » Fri Jun 24, 2022 11:31 am
I'm going to recommend a few things.
1. Speaking aloud as much as possible when carrying out your learning.
So, if you're reading and there aren't others to disturb, do it aloud. If you're doing any kind of focused study through a course, or through audio in which you pause and replay to aid in developing your listening, speak the phrases aloud. Read the book aloud, read every phrase you come across in your textbooks, read aloud sentences you have paused to verify your listening.
Jeffers mentioned shadowing and I've done a lot of this in the past. However, I first listened and ensured I understood everything first, repeated everything after pausing each sentence in my coursebooks first and then moved onto shadowing the dialogues of the courses (eg Assimil). Whether this is shadowing or not, I'm unsure, but whatever your method, if you're speaking aloud, surely it's going to help.
So I guess speaking aloud takes care of training your mouth/memory to the sounds of the language, but if you're not totally unfamiliar with the language or your far from the beginner stages, what else could hold you back?
2. Interpreting/translating studies in your routine.
There are some activities that could aid your memory, your recall in order to prime your Spanish mode so it's more prepared when needed. Work with flash cards or translation exercises come to mind. Flash cards can help with recall and perhaps this is where you could try the 'island' thing someone else suggested or simply enter whole phrases. I'm not a huge fan of flash cards at this point in time, but they can be very useful/motivating for some.
Perhaps you could use a bilingual text or bilingual textbook (depending on how difficult you find it or what your preference is) and while reading (or listening to the audio) of the English text try to translate (either aloud or written) into Spanish. In fact, I'd recommend varying the translation activity (from audio to speaking your translation aloud, from written to spoken, written to written etc). I'd do this line for line. Listen to/read one line in English, translate into Spanish and do this consistently as part of your study routine.
Why? Well, if you predominantly function in your native language (most people do), then translating could be something you're doing normally, even if you're not fully aware of it. So if you train yourself to get better (more accurate, quicker) at it through regular translation, you're going to do a better job of speaking Spanish, I'd like to think, if caught on the fly. These kind of activities are still going to help even if you function entirely in Spanish without ever translating. Speak aloud as much as possible and you could use flash cards btw as your translation activity.
Finally, something that could be harder, perhaps even impractical to put into action, but worth mentioning...
Speaking Spanish in your head as much as possible
We all do some form of chit chattery chatterboxing in our heads. I've often wondered if it's possible to switch your main chatterbox language. If you can do it more and more and more, chances are you might switch to operating in your head almost entirely in Spanish. I'd say this would be better for advanced learners and even still somewhat tedious at times, given there are going to be phrases that you say to yourself that you wouldn't know how to say in Spanish, then you're going to have to look them up. Can we get to a point where we can eventually switch the chatterbox language entirely? Well, even switching it 50% of the time, might mean your brain is much more primed to actually speak Spanish when you're suddenly called upon to do so.
Good luck!
9 x