When Should We Start To Speak In A Foreign Language?

[desi]

When should we start to speak in a foreign language?

When should we start to speak? When we want to.

I haven't spent a lot of time on Steve's site. But after listening to what he had to say, I plan to in the future.

He is very commonsense...

Edited March 9, 2010 by desi

[SoftWater]

Wow, these "polyglots" seem to be coming out of the woodwork thick and fast

But I agree, he gives sensible advice. It occurred to me after listening to him and reading the comments on his blog by a poster called 'Jacob', that between the two of them they make more sense of the merits of AUAs 'silent method' approach than AUA's own theoretical explanations.

Totally crossing threads ("How many fluent farangs are there?"), if you haven't checked out David Long (AUA's director) speaking pretty flawless Thai, go take a look a this http://www.youtube.com/user/davidvlong. My wife says that what makes his Thai so good is not so much his pronunciation, but his ability to talk 'like a thai' in terms of word choice and appropriate humour (a good example of how, as others have noted, cultural knowledge plays a big role in fluency).

[desi]

I've read Steve's book (you can get it online for free) and his method is similar to Luca's (Luca is another polyglot). Their methods suit how I learn (albeit sloooooooooowly).

No, I hadn't seen David's video (thanks for passing that over). When I remember, I've been reading his blog (he's just getting warmed up).

'cultural knowledge plays a big role in fluency' absolutely.