Sustaining conversation

[Scoobyqueen]

as above

[Don_Horhe]

Increasing your vocabulary and putting what you've learned into practice. There doesn't seem to be any other way.

[Guest realmayo]

Suggest: get some real-life conversational sentences and practise them, learn them, substitute-and-extension them. Think about how you'd usually say the same thing and compare the two: identify what makes them more complex than your usual conversation .... Chinesepod dialogues are a good source of examples (free of course).

[muyongshi]

One of the ways you can do that is by taking one of the sample sentences from your book and add words (no matter in front middle or back) and just see how many different variations you can come up with and how long you can make it. Just be sure to pay attention to accuracy.

[monto]

Good question.

Many Chinese native have the same one.

But it is something as Chinese say

可遇不可求。

[paystrong]

I guess the most effective way is to read as many books written in Chinese as you can，you‘ll definitely improve your Chinese a lot after that，trust me，as for the real conversations ，try to find some natives ，talk with them,be bold:mrgreen:

[jsasdfg]

Just talk---Practice, practice, practice.

[Long Zhiren]

Join Toastmasters and start giving speeches on a regular basis.

[imron]

Is there a Chinese equivalent of Toastmasters? I know they have a Toastmasters in Beijing and other Chinese cities, but from speaking to a Chinese friend who had been to a few events, apparently it's English only.

[simonlaing]

Sometimes if you want to have long conversations with people, you can practice telling them stories of what happenned to you. As you're telling it you can add adjectives (de bu de liao 不得了) , (+死了sile) and explain your feeling at different points.

This way you can say something simple in an easy way.

Think budweiser AD with the Booming voice, (He went to the refrigerator).

Also look at two of three chinese words with almost the same meaning and figure out which which ones would fit in different situations.

Ask deeper questions of the stories your chinese friends tell you.

Good luck,

have fun,

SImoN:)

[Long Zhiren]

Is there a Chinese equivalent of Toastmasters? I know they have a Toastmasters in Beijing and other Chinese cities, but from speaking to a Chinese friend who had been to a few events, apparently it's English only.

Well. That's a problem.

It's about time they get it in Chinese!

[Lu]

I'd check their website. Don't know about China, but in Taiwan they have clubs for every likely language, from English to Hakka. Good chance that there are Chinese Toastmaster clubs in China.

[imron]

Just had a quick look then. The first few clubs listed in Beijing all seem to be English only.

[doumeizhen]

What helped me was watching movies that were in my field, pausing after every sentence, and repeating them. Also, I have found Dale Carnegies advice to be tried and true: People enjoy nothing more than talking about themselves. Learn to ask questions and listen and people will want to talk to you.