I’m at a point when my reading and listening are very good and I can watch shows and read books without always having to look up words. My speaking on the other hand is awful, while I can understand grammar, I can’t use it and make mistakes even “conjugating”. Everyone keeps saying to do shadowing but I’m confused as to what role shadowing is supposed to play. It sounds like shadowing is only useful for practicing pronunciation but does it actually help you be able to form sentences on your own? I’m just really confused because I feel like you wouldn’t be practicing actual production by just regurgitating what someone else is saying.
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Shadowing’s goal is to get you speaking at a natural speed, as well as perfecting the pauses and intonation needed for native-like speech.
If you’re having a hard time formulating sentences because of poor grammar, don’t shadow.
Find a tutor and practice formulating sentences. Simple at first, and then more complex. Built up to strings of sentences and then moving into paragraphs.
I’m pretty sure it has to do with muscle memory. The idea is to be speaking without having to focus on the words you should be saying.
Currently, you can’t do that on your own, but you can do it with training wheels in the form of shadowing. It’s not the alpha and omega of the process, but it’s a really good tool if you aren’t turned off by it.
There are plenty of other ways though. Like rote memorization! (Or music to some degree)
Shadowing only helps with perfecting your accent and speaking at a faster, normal speed.
To help you with sentence building it’s a combination of more immersion (a lot) and doing your own writing and speaking whenever possible…also jumping in online communities of natives (not for language learning)
I’d also get a tutor when you reach a point where you feel semi comfortable outputting so he can help you finesse the skill a bit more
Also, if you can already read without looking up too many words, you could try reading a book at the same time as you listen to the audio book version. Try to keep up with native speaker speed while still understanding as much as possible without looking up words…. This will help you with faster comprehension which will help in a conversation
>I feel like you wouldn’t be practicing actual production by just regurgitating what someone else is saying.
That is actually what production is, 99% of the time. You will never be “formulating sentences” from the basic grammar rules when you are speaking fluently. Instead, you will be repeating known-good ‘chunks’ of language that have been validated by other speakers and inserting the specific context-sensitive information on the fly.