How to do a language exchange as a beginner ? Hi everyone,I have been thinking a lot about that recently. I am a beginner in Chinese. I have tried to do language exchanges with Chinese native speakers

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Jennifer

How to do a language exchange as a beginner ?

Hi everyone,

I have been thinking a lot about that recently. I am a beginner in Chinese. I have tried to do language exchanges with Chinese native speakers. I worked on my pronunciation, my Chinese tones, I read things.

But what about speaking? I mean use vocabulary in order to use to think straight in Chinese. I have a limited vocabulary. I am discovering new vocabulary and new grammar patterns each week.

I want to work on what I have already learned in order to master it and, of course, learn more from that.

But, I am wondering how to do that efficiently. I am afraid of scattering.

Would you have some advice ?

28 mai 2017 20:17

Commentaires · 13

I want to thank everyone for their answer! You gave me several good ideas for my next exchange!

I am less confused now.

@Andy Your message made me laugh very much! :-)

29 mai 2017

Language exchange as a beginner is certainly difficult. At this point I've only had one language exchange partner and thankfully she is super patient with me. My first conversation attempt felt like a complete train wreck and I was mostly at a loss how to say anything. The good news is that it can only get better with practice :)

What I try and do is think ahead before the exchange about a topic or two that will likely come up. i.e. what did I do last week. I look up a bit of vocabulary, put a few sentences together and then try it all out. Invariably I will make some mistakes and/or the conversation will quickly veer off into something I have little or no vocabulary for. This is where a good language partner will help you along.

It also depends a lot on what the language proficiency of your partner is in your language. For me, my partner speaks English much better than I speak French, so I can just throw in an English word if I get stuck. If that doesn't work, we both start using Google translate to try and figure out the correct words.

The key is to realize you are both going to make mistakes, have misunderstandings, and sometimes get a little lost. Just be patient and keep trying :)

29 mai 2017

I remember the first language partner I had, we still keep in touch from time to time. I'm learning Spanish and I put an ad on Gumtree seeking a Spanish speaking language partner to do exchanges face to face. I got a reply from a Spanish guy, my level was very low and I explained to him that I had never actually spoken the language. The guy already had a decent level of English and I was embarressed to talk to him in Spanish, but he was so helpful it didn't matter, he'd been there, done that, got the T shirt.. He started by asking me basic questions that I had to answer in Spanish, and later we used to describe what we saw in photos. I still remember some of the mistakes I made in those exchanges, saying that the woman in the solicitor's office wanted a divorced man instead of saying she wanted a divorce, saying she was hot instead of saying she was a good person. Haha, great days, jump in and start speaking, if you find the right partner you'll have a whale of a time.

28 mai 2017

Or you can try listening Chinese news, watch Chinese TV program, film, drama. And learn singing Chinese songs. And also talking to Chinese people is important.

Because I am learning English now have same problem as you. I am listening BBC radio now every day when I am on train or bus.

6 juin 2017