Writing and talking in German

Hello,
I am in my fourth semester of German in college (beginning 1 and 2, intermediate 1 and currently in intermediate 2) and I have been on LingQ for about 50 days. I can read most of the lessons in the beginner 1 - 2 sections on LingQ with about 80% or greater understanding.

I find myself unable to write basic sentences in German without first writing them in English and then translating and I completely unable to speak in German using basic sentences.

Please share any advice you may have on what I should focus upon to build up my ability to write and speak in German.

Thanks.

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Keep studying.
Read and listen more.
Do some grammar exercises and be patient.
There are no shortcuts.

Hi, learning languages is based on four skills: reading, listening, writing, speaking . You have to study all four of them individually to reach a level like a confident B2. In schools and universities often you learn reading and writing and for the other skills is not enough time. (In my case, after 9 years of learning English in school I went to Australia and I was able to understand everything the Australians said, because my teachers always spoke in English, but I could not call a hostel to get a room, because I could not speak! In school I would say maybe five English sentences all year… .)
So you have to do that on your own.
Talk! Find a German exchange partner. You will find a lot of Germans (in real life and online) who would love to practice their English. So you could talk 15
min in English and 15 min in German.
Or find an online tutor with whom you just want to practice talking.
Or start with an audio diary (I just heard about that method yesterday in a podcast). Record youself for 5 minutes daily while talking about your day and how you felt. Listen to that recording and maybe retry that recording afterwards with the same content but with less breaks.
And write! To start you could write a few lines every day about what you did that day and later write about random topics. There are platforms for that online e.g. here at lingq or at “journaly.com” where people can correct your texts, if you want. It gets easier the more you practice!

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Thank you for the response and the suggestions. I have never heard of Journaly before. It looks interesting.

Thank you for the encouragement and the suggestions.

Thanks for your sharing. You can read some good morning words in German that will practice your German better. I did it on the website https://schonespruchekurz.de/

Never heard about it either. It looks interesting.

Well, I’m in the process of learning as well but I can say that it’ll come.

Basically you improve your writing by writing and your speaking by speaking. :smiley:

Reading improves your speaking as well but you need to break the ice at some point and start speaking and use only what you need to form your sentences. Don’t put yourself in trouble when you speak and use the few words you know to express your thoughts. Same for writing.