How useful is self-talk in your target language?

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Valddu
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How useful is self-talk in your target language?

Postby Valddu » Mon Dec 31, 2018 6:28 pm

I remember seeing a YouTube video of Stephen Krashen speaking about langauge learning and there was a moment where he said something along the lines of: I used to think speaking to myself in my car in the language I was learning was helpful. Now I don’t.

In contrast, I remember Luca Lampariello discussing in an interview about how he uses lots of self-talk as part of his language learning—to the point that he often fakes receiving phone calls so he can practice in public without feeling embarassed.

How does the community here feel about self-talk in your target language? Is it useful? Does anyone here use speaking exercises or have some kind of method they use to work on their verbal fluency?
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Re: How useful is self-talk in your target language?

Postby Cainntear » Mon Dec 31, 2018 7:37 pm

I find it very useful. Practicing things that I can say gets me quicker at speaking. If I'm going on holiday to somewhere I speak the language, I try to get my "internal monologue" going in that language for a week or two before leaving.
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Re: How useful is self-talk in your target language?

Postby MrsStarez » Mon Dec 31, 2018 8:13 pm

I think it can only be useful. I find my speech is the weakest aspect of my French, and getting used to hearing myself talk in French is useful, and a good way of practising pronunciation.

For one reason or another, I’m not sleeping well at the moment, so to pass the time I’ve been mentally rehearsing how I’d do a work presentation in French, in case the need should ever arise!
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Re: How useful is self-talk in your target language?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Tue Jan 01, 2019 1:03 am

Valddu wrote:How does the community here feel about self-talk in your target language? Is it useful? Does anyone here use speaking exercises or have some kind of method they use to work on their verbal fluency?


I've read numerous posts about self-talk over the years (here and on HTLAL), but haven't really done it myself (not much, at least). A while ago, there was a topic on language islands, and I became inspired to try it out once again. I found that there are languages which I can use in this manner, and languages where I fail almost immediately, despite a lot of input - and admittedly, minor output. The reasons could of course be many, but my immediate feeling was that I should do more of this self-talk, not less.
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Re: How useful is self-talk in your target language?

Postby Ani » Tue Jan 01, 2019 1:29 am

I think it's very helpful. It's even more helpful if you can go look up things when you realize you have gaps.

I don't usually speak out loud, but I'm all for it.
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Re: How useful is self-talk in your target language?

Postby SGP » Tue Jan 01, 2019 6:25 am

Valddu wrote:How does the community here feel about self-talk in your target language? Is it useful? Does anyone here use speaking exercises or have some kind of method they use to work on their verbal fluency?
As for me, I fully "admit" (Big Grand Giant Misnomer) having used self-talk in more than just two or three languages many times, by both of speaking and thinking. Without any exaggerations, I consider it one of the most useful tools for applying one's language knowledge, practicing fluency, and generally practicing to think in it.
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Re: How useful is self-talk in your target language?

Postby Brun Ugle » Tue Jan 01, 2019 8:29 am

I find self-talk immensely useful, especially if I record it (as in our wonderful Output Challenge). For me, the act of recording improves the exercise because it gives me a kind of artificial audience so I can’t just stop talking when I get stuck. I used to do a lot of thinking in my target language. I felt that my thoughts were fluent and didn’t understand why my speech was so much less so, but when only thinking or even talking softly to myself, I could “mumble” my way through bits I wasn’t sure of or skip them entirely, or I would just get distracted and drift off. To record myself, I have to speak loudly and clearly enough for the microphone to pick it up and I have to keep talking. I usually give myself a goal of how long I want to talk, spend a minute or so deciding what I want to talk about, then press record and just keep going til the minimum time I decided on is up. It’s really hard at first, but it gets easier. When I do the exercise regularly, there is a marked improvement in my fluency. If I don’t do it for a long time, my fluency does drop slightly, but less so once I reach a certain level. I find it to be a great warmup when I know I’m going to be speaking the language. For example, if I have a language exchange, I’ll do a recording a little before to warm up. If makes a big difference, especially in a weak language.
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Re: How useful is self-talk in your target language?

Postby Iversen » Tue Jan 01, 2019 3:30 pm

I get tired after a few minutes. Thinking is easier, and I can do it even in public without appearing like a complete weirdo.
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Re: How useful is self-talk in your target language?

Postby devilyoudont » Tue Jan 01, 2019 4:22 pm

I sometimes do self talk while I'm driving. Usually I go over what I will do when I get to my destination, or what I did where I'm coming from.

In terms of Esperanto, self talk was important for improving my fluency and confidence for using the spoken language. I don't have a broad enough grasp of the vocabulary in either Spanish or Japanese yet tho. So I have to focus on narrower sets of topics for those.
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Re: How useful is self-talk in your target language?

Postby SGP » Tue Jan 01, 2019 4:56 pm

Iversen wrote:I get tired after a few minutes. Thinking is easier, and I can do it even in public without appearing like a complete weirdo.
Yes, (verbal) self-talk can be boring after a few minutes. And about that possibility of appearing like a complete weirdo... well, I don't do any language self-talk in public. However, I'd just like to let y'all know that I was born on Alpha Centauri and I also grew up there.
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