How to start speaking?

Hey everyone, I feel like attempting to hold a basic conversation in french. I “know” 2000 or so words, more or less and feel like I’m able to understand sentences when said at a reasonable speed. So my question is, how should I go about doing this, when trying to speak to myself in french I almost go blank but yet I can understand a lot. I was thinking of just memorizing key conversation pieces and going from there, would this be a good way of going about it? Reccomendations welcome, I noticed one hindrance I might have is that for the majority of my studying french on lingq I’ve used Charles Baudelaire and Lao Tzu, so unless our conversation is about death or spiritual enlightenment we would have very few things to talk about

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Just dive in. So long as you don’t do this The Annoying Orange (Original) - YouTube you’ll be fine.

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" I noticed one hindrance I might have is that for the majority of my studying french on lingq I’ve used Charles Baudelaire and Lao Tzu, so unless our conversation is about death or spiritual enlightenment we would have very few things to talk about"

I don’t see the problem. I learned most of my French from violent video games (like Skyrim and Fallout) and TV-Series (Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy) and I can talk about much more than swords, Ak-47s and Meth.

“So my question is, how should I go about doing this, when trying to speak to myself in french I almost go blank but yet I can understand a lot. I was thinking of just memorizing key conversation pieces and going from there, would this be a good way of going about it?”

Some people say that you must “speak from day 1” and some people propose studying the language for a few houndred hours before you say anything to anyone. Both “methods” seem to work. I think your “level of fluency” when you speak is mainly influenced by three things:

  1. Your passive skills (listening comprehension, passive vocabulary etc.)
  2. How many conversations you already had (in French)
  3. How many conversations you had in other foreign languages

Personality/temperament is an important factor. How rigid you are, if you mind being interrupted and corrected, etc.

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Yeah, definately. I focused on input/experience because they are tangible
—> Input+speaking practice= fluency

I don’t know if being corrected helps and if I should or shouldn’t mind being corrected. Being corrected doesn’t seem to help me. Or maybe it does and I don’t realize it. Maybe some people like being corrected because they think that being corrected helps them. maybe it doesn’t.

I know that more input leads to better output and that more experience makes me feel more relaxed and confident (which leads to better output)

Personality/temperament is an important factor. You’re right about that. But can we do anything useful with this information?

Of course. In life people do make adjustments and grow. Not sure about those who cry or get enraged because a Frenchman good-naturedly corrects them during chats, though.