Conversations with native speakers

Hello everyone,

Today I would like to talk about how better to get conversations started.

When we learn languages, we always want so much to speak with native speakers – but at the same time, we also worry about it. Will they understand us? Will they find what we say interesting? Will they get frustrated with us, or bored, or both?

Lots of these sort of thoughts go through our mind. Even if we are lucky enough to have friends who speak the language we are learning as native speakers, it doesn’t mean that we don’t still think these things.

Another difficulty when speaking another language is that after we have said something, it is often difficult for us to remember what we just said! In our own language, we remember what words we say better than when we say something in a different language. I think this is because we are busy trying to think of correct words to use and make sure we are understood, so we only remember the ideas of what we were talking about, not the actual words we used to say it.

Often, we have little or no chance to speak with native speakers. We practice in class, at home, with friends etc, but unless we live in the country or can visit it, then the opportunities for speaking the languages we are learning with native speakers can be quite rare. Even when we visit the country, or find a native speaker to speak with in our country, maybe we don’t know who we will speak with or how long we will have to speak with them, or what we will need to say.

So, what can we do that gives us a little more confidence to speak with native speakers when we have the chance?

My opinion is, whenever we have the opportunity, we should take it, but also be very kind on ourselves and do not try to make it into a “language test” that we must “pass”.

I also think that we should not expect so much from the people we speak with. They might be very busy or have other things on their mind.

Negative experiences always make us question why we even want to learn the language. For example, someone ignores us, or says something we don’t understand, or doesn’t seem interested. We have to understand that not everyone is interested in languages and that people have their own lives to get on with. I’ve had some experiences like this over the years.

This is where a relaxed attitude can be very useful. Enjoying the opportunity to speak a different language however well we can, should always be a positive thing. So we must do our best to make sure that any conversations we have are as positive and pleasant as we can make them. We have a lot to do with making sure this happens.

So here are some ideas for helping any conversations we have with native speakers be as pleasant as possible:

1. Don’t expect to have a very interesting conversation, it might be a quite ordinary even a bit boring conversation. Many people just want to “pass the time of day” which means they just talk about very ordinary things such as the weather. So, be prepared to talk about the weather…a few useful phrases can really set off a conversation well:

“ Oh, isn’t it cold today?” “What a beautiful sunny day!” “Oh, it’s very windy today isn’t it?”

These sort of friendly openings are called “icebreakers” and nearly everybody does this. So why shouldn’t we do it also?

2. Remember that many, many people love to talk about themselves and what they are doing, subjects such as their family, their work and their hobbies. If we allow people to talk about themselves first, then we can have a perfect opportunity to listen and it gives us time to get used to the person’s accent, their preferred speed of speaking and we can get to know more about them quickly. So, maybe a conversation would go like this:

(you) “Hello, how is it going?”

(other person )“Oh, very well thanks. I’ve been busy and many things are happening at the moment, I have a new job, a new house. My kids are enjoying school and very soon we will be going on (continued)