My friends speak Dutch and for a while. I’ve been trying to learn Dutch. We can text in Dutch (very casually) and when they speak to me in Dutch I am able to understand what they are saying (or at least pick it apart to understand generally what they are saying) . but when it comes to me trying to say Dutch words or speak Dutch my brain all of a sudden has no memory of everything I’ve learned.
I have a friend also whos mom speaks Portuguese and he understands her completely but he responds in English and doesn’t really speak Portuguese himself?
Why does this happen??
In: 9
There’s passive and active vocabulary. you can understand passive vocabulary but wouldn’t be able to use it in spontaneous speech. Think of watching a science lecture in your native language where you’ll understand 95% of fancy words used but a lot of them are probably not in your everyday vocabulary. In a language you’re learning, all words you “learn” are in this category at first, you only know them passively. To get better, you need to practice speaking until they come to you automatically, at this point these words are in your active vocabulary. Reading and listening are passive vocab usage, while writing gives you loads more time to think of what words you need to use. Also there’s usually more practice of writing since all workbooks, writing exercises etc don’t practice speaking, just writing
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