Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[zephyrblows]

Firstly, should I post this topic in this forum? If not, I'm so sorry.......

I've studied English for nearly 8 years. But I find every sentence I say is...TERRIBLE! I have to think about how to express my thoughts or feelings correctly before I speak, and tragically, I still keep uttering sentences full of grammatical mistakes! Moreover, the most unendurable thing is I KNOW those sentences are definitely wrong...AFTER I speak them out. I feel so depressed, and I think my confidence is collapsing.

Oh, please...could someone tell me how to speak English like a native speaker? I CAN READ, I CAN LISTEN TO PEOPLE, I CAN WRITE, BUT I CAN'T SPEAK~~~><!!!

When you think of a sentence, which come into your mind first? A noun? A verb? Or something else? How do you know immediately which tense to use? How do you adjust the relation between a subject and a verb? How do you add an adverb into a sentence in no time? How do you decide when to use "the","a", or add "s" after every noun you think of?

With my best appreciation to anyone answers my questions...

[iitimone7]

zephyr - It is obvious that you are extremely frustrated. I am a native speaker of english and I don't always get it right the first time, either. The point is, you're trying and you seem to be doing well! Don't give up. It is completely true that students are life-long learners. When one turns their brain off to learning, it's time to die. keeping working at it!

Let me start a new post and try to explain some basics. iitimone7

[CP]

Well, certainly you have no trouble expressing yourself in good English, and if your only problem is in speaking easily, you have really accomplished a lot in 8 years. English is very hard to comprehend and to create, and you can comprehend the written and spoken word, and you can create the written word -- that is really great!

Obviously, you cannot improve your spoken English unless you speak it as much as possible. I suspect from your writing style that you may try to speak in long, complicated sentences. The long sentences are harder to compose and speak without pausing or making mistakes, for native speakers as well as for ESL'ers. So I would suggest trying to keep your sentences short.

Most people do not speak in overly complicated sentences, so your short sentences won't seem out of place. You will probably make very few mistakes, and you won't lose anything in communicating your thoughts, because you just have to express each thought in a short sentence, followed by the next short sentence.

Your spoken English is probably better than you think it is, and your mistakes probably not nearly so bad as you imagine. Native speakers make mistakes all the time, too.

You can ask people to correct you, if you like, or you can explain that you are trying to learn to speak better, so you know you will make mistakes. Most people realize what an effort it is to speak a foreign language -- I'm trying to learn German right now, and I'm sure I make many more mistakes than you make in English. They will admire you for trying your best to speak with them in English.

As for your questions about speaking English, it is the same as when you speak your native tongue. You have the idea that you want to express, and most of the words come without too much effort, until you try to make up a long, complicated sentence. Just take the idea that comes to you and say it simply, and trust that your grammar is probably right most of the time.

Keep trying, don't worry too much about mistakes, and don't be depressed! Think of how much better you speak now than 8 years ago!
_________________
You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb

[iitimone7]

zephyr - This is difficult to write, rather than to explain it speaking to you, but here goes...

When you are thinking of something to say, the basic construction is the same. A noun comes before the verb most of the time.
A dog sat on a log. You could also say 'One dog sat on one log', but it is more common to use 'a' in front of the noun. If there is more than one dog and more than one log, then you add an 's' to the end of the word.

It would not sound correct if I were to say ...Dog sat on log. The listener needs to know which dog or how many dogs sat on which log or how many logs. In the same construction you could say 'The dog sat on the log' which means almost the same thing.

You could also say...'Three dogs sat on a pile of logs'. In this sentence, you are telling the listener specifically which dogs are sitting on which logs - there are three dogs and they sat on a pile (more than one) of logs.

Using this same construction, you could also say 'Those three dogs sat on that pile of logs'. In this sentence you may be standing on the sidewalk explaining to someone that 'those' (plural) specific dogs were sitting on 'that' (singular) pile of logs, as you are pointing to the dogs, then pointing to the logs.

I hope that helps a little. iitimone7