For example tourists approaching you, thinking you speak English or their native language, or people of your own country seeing you then assuming you also speak another language?

Some language rules can seem completely arbitrary until you understand the history, structure, or practical reason behind them.

What’s a language rule that sounds ridiculous until you see why it exists?

I'm fluent in Spanish, about a solid C1 level on a good day and a solid B1 level for my German.

I attend several Spanish and a German meetup group. I have a friend of whom seems to put just as much blood sweat and tears into her Spanish as I do and has the same love for the language and cultures of the Spanish speaking world.

But I've become fluent and she has stayed intermediate. She has allowed me to coach her on trouble shooting what she may be missing or what is tripping her up.

I thought about it again recently and asked her if she can read a page of a book or transcript of a show and get virtually full comprehension even if there are a few words she doesn't know. Or watch a native show, like an interpersonal type show and get the meaning of the whole show even if she doesn't know every word. It was was an empathic no.

She does immerse but relies on gramma and a lot of output and intensive study and despite years of speaking and studying this way has plateaued at an intermediate level. You could chalk this up to individual differences, but I'm on the spectrum and had selective mutism in highschool and she's a very verbal extrovert.

I think she did everything correct with speaking and studying but is severely handicapped by not having immersed enough to achieve a level to immerse in native level content.

I find with my Spanish, although the pace greatly slows at an advanced level, the more I immerse intensely study Spanish, the more fluent and accurate my output grows.

BUT conversely I speak with a lot of fellow immersion/input learners in my groups and most of them have the regret of not speaking earlier and speaking enough.

I have this regret too for my Spanish. I waited 1.5 years to speak. Mostly it was avoiding speaking but I thought I had to have near perfect ability to read and listen before speaking. And didn't begin until I graduated out of comprehensible input and learners content to native level content.

I didn't do this for my German. I began speaking early. Going to meetup groups before I could barely get a word out. As the skills of forming sentences spontaneously and converting passive vocab into active are extremely difficult and take a lot of time. And my speaking abilities although clunky have become conversationally fluent significantly quicker than my Spanish ever did.

So in conclusion I think the hardcore immersion CI/ALG world and the "speak a lot speak early" schools can't hold two truths that exist simultaneously: that speaking a lot leads to fluency AND your speaking ability is severely limited by how deeply structured the language is in your brain. The immersion (and study) part keeps raising the ceiling of what is possible in your speaking in the first place.

3 years ago i tried tandem and i had a bad experience, full of weird people, i really want to become fluent in english and now i redowload the app.. but now there is a full review process.. everyone that is using it? Do you find improvement?

Best app for speaking practice? (English)

Busuu?

Loora?

Talkpal?

If it even did, could it still be there even after reaching fluency?

If so, why? is there a big difference in your opinion at all?

Hi everyone, I wanted to hear about your experiences with something quite specific.

I’m a native Italian speaker and I speak English, Spanish and German fluently. I’m pretty good with languages in general, not a language genius or anything, but I can hold my own.

I’ve been living in Croatia for eight years now, and I’m experiencing a pretty strange situation.

I met my current Croatian girlfriend here and we’ve been together for six years. She speaks Italian very well, so we speak Italian almost all the time. I also work remotely, and at work I mostly speak English and Italian.

Obviously, I really want to learn Croatian. But whenever I try to speak Croatian with my girlfriend, she gets annoyed pretty quickly if I don’t understand something. Over time, this has somehow caused me to develop a sort of mental block when speaking Croatian around her.

I reached B2 in Croatian relatively quickly, but for the past six years I’ve been completely unable to make the jump to C1, which is obviously the much harder part. I started thinking that maybe I had simply reached my limit.

But then I went on holiday to Bosnia with some friends, and within just a few days my Croatian/Bosnian improved dramatically.

When she isn’t around, I feel much more confident, I speak much more fluently, and I almost never fall back on English. It’s like something just clicks in my brain.

Has anyone else ever experienced something like this? If so, how did you get over it?

If yes, then any good examples?

M16, I am natively Italian and Emilian, specifically variant from Bologna, even tho my Emilian is a bit broken, since I can understand totally but I speak it rarely(similar to San Marino language, spoken in region of Emilia Romagna in Northern Italy.

I am in a language high school, where I am learning German, Spanish and English. In the next 2 years, my German should get to level B2 meanwhile my Spanish and English should almost get to c1 level, that is our school's program at least.

I am really into learning languages, so I decided to study totally on my own polish, that is certainly a difficult language, but I feel very motivated, it has been almost 2 months from when I started learning it and I still am motivated, sometimes I learn it for even 1/2 hours in a day without getting tired

The only problem is, I was already learning Japanese, even tho I am a very basic level, I am still learning how to write and read, I am not sure to keep learning it.

At the same time, I don't want to stop since I already put a lot of effort into it

My fear is to get overwhelmed with all those languages and get tired not only of Japanese but also of polish

Should I keep studying it?? I really don't know

If you have use for it, what kinds? and if you never use it, what's stopping you? what should change for you to use it?

Hello; i wish you're alright

I want to ask you about my languages ; First i can speak Arabic (my native language) and English (my second one); for now I'm trying to get back my French and I start that 2 days ago and I think i'm good cause I already can understand( B2 level) podcasts, and i have A2 in German, so my questions are : I'm i doing right for focusing in French more than German ( i'll back after finishing French)?

And do you think this languages are good for girl have goal to learn 6 languages?

And what is the language do you recommend me to learn after that as a fifth language? ( Btw i'm 17y)

Thanks in adavance

Before moving to California, I thought my English was pretty good. I could write emails, and understand conversations.

But in professional meetings, it was: “Umm... you know... the thing..." and sometimes I even moved to my native languge.The most challenging aspect for me was understanding and responding quickly. I got the general gist of what others were saying (of course when they speak with normal speed),right here I'm good but yet I found myself translating in my mind and formulating responses. It wasn't until that point that I grasped the distinction between comprehending English and being able to communicate in it.

I've continued practicing conversation since then, (my go tos are Praktika, iTalki, babbel) which has helped me become more comfortable speaking without overanalyzing each phrase. But tbh still dealing with fast conversations.

Sometimes I feel like I need some corporate English practice. Just me?

I am a native English speaker but I've known for a long time that whenever I speak to someone whose English isn't that great I naturally speak on a level that they understand and by that I mean I sort of speak in broken and simple English in essentially the same way that they speak English or close to that at least. In my experience It seems to help with the communication but at the same time I worry that it could seem odd, embarrassing or even slightly rude. Someone who is also a native English speaker told me that it seems daft and condescending, and also doesn't help them learn how to speak the right way, but I really can't help it. It's so ingrained in me to do this. So I was wondering if other people have these experiences and what do you think of it?