Think about a few conversations that you had: those interesting, when time went by quickly or those boring ones when you were waiting for it to finish. What made the difference between those involving [wciągające] and those which you didn’t want to take part in. People? Topic? Place where you talked?
I believe that your STATE OF MIND matters the most. While speaking to someone our mental state is heard before the words. It is this invisible something that makes conversations nice and enjoyable or hard and boring.
There are also those visible signs like smile, body language that influence our talks and there are countless books about this topic.
Let me tell you my own story with conversation and experience while speaking a foreign language. When I went to the USA for the first time and wanted to talk with people. I knew about body language so this thing was, let’s say, fine. Another thing was finding the right words in English. I made all the effort to find eloquent and sophisticated [wyrafinowane] vocabulary that I learnt at school. So I started and when I got the answers I thought: „What the hell, Americans use simple words, not too complicated.” What about grammar and all those 15 tenses, conditionals and reported speech – I could easily forget about 50% of information of what I was learning during language courses.
So what was needed to communicate well?
1. Vocabulary- basic and everyday words
2. Grammar- yes, it is important but to start with 4 tenses is enough.
3. Knowledge about American culture: all the time happy and smiling. Whenever I asked: „How are you?” They said: Fine, great or fantastic. Differently than in Poland.
4. The most important was………practice, practice and practice. It makes perfect. I talked with more and more people and it was the best way to learn how to speak.
So just as you tried to learn to walk or ride a bike – it is the same with language. Start, continue till you are satisfied with you level and then practise. Find possibilities to speak to foreigners on Skype or live, it can be also your Polish friend who is learning and talk together to each other as a way to practise.
I guarantee that this way will improve your language skills a lot.
Let’s stay in touch and share your learning experience.
