Knowing a lot of vocabulary and still cannot speaking

lina   Fri Mar 31, 2006 12:43 am GMT
Hello to evryone who is willing to help me in english speaking.I know english grammer about 60% and i know a lots of vocables but still i'm not able to speak in english even i'm not able to do the daily comunication. I understand everything what is writing but i can not speak it. I dont know where is the problem.
Guest   Fri Mar 31, 2006 3:06 am GMT
Well, your writing needs some work too. Your post has several errors.

[i know a lots of vocables] = "I know a lot of vocabulary"
[even i'm not able to do the daily comunication] = "I'm not even capable of daily communication"
[everything what is writing] = "everything in writing"
[dont know where is the problem.] "don't know what's the problem.'
lu   Fri Mar 31, 2006 3:11 am GMT
You need practice
thuy linh   Mon Apr 03, 2006 2:26 am GMT
Hello!!! now I'm a second years' student .And I feel very very sad because I can't speak too.Although I can read everything in writing,I don't know why I can't speak. Many people talk to me " Practice English every day" but I can't express my idea by English .I think we have to talk about everything around us whenever.
Jim C, York   Mon Apr 03, 2006 2:35 am GMT
You need one of those clever regulars on this forum to explain some good tips. They keep talking about things like [Y@L/] I think that system is designed to help, Though I dont understand a bloody word of it!

As far as your writing goes, it looks good so i shouldnt think it will be too hard to improve your spoken word. Maybe try going to one of the online dictionarys where they have audio clips and repeat the ones you have problems with, given your writen ability you should be able to form sentances with ease.
former ESL student   Mon Apr 03, 2006 7:04 am GMT
thuy linh:
"Although I can read everything in writing,I don't know why I can't speak".
Exactly! The more you write and read the better your writing abilities and understanding of what you're reading become. So - start listening and repeating!

Buy an audio course for beginners, which contains very short and simple dialogues.

Play it by very small portions, so you are able to repeat it; go back to the same unit several times until you can say it correctly.

While listening and saying try NOT to read the text. Use the book when it's absolutely necessary, only after you already tried several times and some words still remain unclear for you. Why? - because your purpose is listening and understanding with following repeating, not reading and understanding.
For the same reason if you use video materials always remember: subtitles are not your best friends, better to turn them off, at least when you listen your lesson in the first and second time.
Covering 2-3 dialogues daily you'll be surprised by great results pretty soon.
You can ask me: how do you know that it's the right way to learn? Actually our teacher in ESL school taught us this way. He was a wonderful teacher.
Travis   Mon Apr 03, 2006 9:49 am GMT
>>You need one of those clever regulars on this forum to explain some good tips. They keep talking about things like [Y@L/] I think that system is designed to help, Though I dont understand a bloody word of it!<<

What you are describing is X-SAMPA, which is a system related to IPA for precisely transcribing pronunciations in *any* language (actually, I wish IPA and consequently X-SAMPA were a little more precise at times, but that is another story). The reason for its and IPA's use is to enable the transcription of pronunciation in a fashion that does not have the vagueness of using any language's own orthography for transcription purposes (which has come to be called "fauxnetic" here). However, X-SAMPA tends to be used rather than IPA here, as it does not require the use of specialized fonts to support it and it is often much easier to enter than it.

On the other hand, though, many transcriptions here are not likely to be useful to those insistent on "standard" pronunciations, as they very often reflect individuals' own speech. At the same time, many are often mistaken when they seek "standard" pronunciations, as such really do not exist as specific quantities. For example, in the case of General American as a standard for American dialects of North American English, the matter is that it is actually very vague in nature rather than being anything specific. And even with Received Pronunciation, in the case of English English, it has changed over time and does have a number of different coexisting variants at the present.
Travis   Mon Apr 03, 2006 9:52 am GMT
Actually, that said, I in particular do not recommend that one use some of my own pronunciations, as many quite strongly differ from much of North American English as a whole in a whole range of different manners. (Then again, many dialects look much weirder when one looks in at close range at them.)