Huge gap between speaking and reading skills

[amandagmu]

Does anyone else have a huge gap between their reading/recognition of characters and 口语? I'm finding myself frustrated in that I seem to be able to handle formal writing and even internet forums without a problem, but when I go to speak 口语 (because I need to speak quicker than typing or writing anything) I screw up some of the simplest stuff. Does anyone have any advice on how to fix this issue? And please don't say make Chinese friends, because I have Chinese friends and they rarely if ever correct what I'm saying (unless I ask them to!). Although I am taking one-on-one classes to correct this I find it boring as hell because I WANT to discuss news topics and my research, but every time I open my mouth I seem to not be able to "think in mandarin" and produce a proper 句子 to transform all that 书面语 into 口语。Help!!!!

[AlexL]

It's funny -- for the first few years I had the opposite problem, that there were lots of words that I could speak but couldn't write or read. Now that my vocabulary is getting bigger, I'm finding my reading is getting better than my 口语。

I recommend watching a simple/clear soap opera (I like the oldie-but-goodie 编辑部的故事, http://www.tudou.com/playlist/p/a50214.html?iid=21156574) and pausing occasionally to mimic what was just said.

Additionally, consider getting an HSK prep book (say, new HSK level 4) and mimicking the 听力 recordings. I recommend level 4 because the recordings are short, and the vocab is simple but not too simple. You don't get a lot of "news report" like readings that you do in the higher level.

Is your problem that when you speak you find yourself using lots of 其s and 之s and that you sound too formal? Or just that without time to think carefully about wording you make lots of grammar mistakes? If it's the second one, you might want to do drills to increase your automaticity with the structures. A great source of drills is FSI: fsi-language-courses.org. Click on "Chinese" and take a look at the tapes and PDF files. It's all in pinyin, and it's all relatively colloquial.

[anonymoose]

To an extent, I have the same problem. But I think the difference between dealing with written Chinese, say on the internet, and speaking with someone face to face, is not so much the language itself, but the speed at which you have to react. If you are writing a post, you have time to think, contemplate the most appropriate word to use, and go back and edit if necessary. With speaking, you have no such luxury without it becoming painfully slow for the listener.

I don't know of any especially effective strategies for overcoming this. I think really it is just practice. But perhaps one thing that is worth doing is noting down the points at which you get stuck, for which carrying around a notebook is useful, and then going over these points when you have time, asking a native-speaker for advice if need be.

Also, 书面语, if used appropriately, can elevate the sound of your spoken Chinese. The difficulty is just knowing when it is appropriate to use 书面语.

[abcdefg]

Does anyone else have a huge gap between their reading/recognition of characters and 口语?

My gap is in the opposite direction. I can converse more easily than I can write and read. Acquiring a balanced skill set is a major challenge. Not sure I really aspire to it even though I usually say I do when asked.

[renzhe]

I think that spoken and written Chinese are two largely separate skills which need to be practiced separately. Sure, there is overlap (grammmar), but the number of people with the gap you are describing (in either direction) compared to the same gap with many other languages (which is much less common and smaller) makes me believe that there is less overlap in Chinese than with most other languages -- phonetic writing might be a large factor here.

It seems that people living in China often tend to have better spoken skills, while learners abroad often find that their spoken Chinese is lagging far behind their written Chinese. So it seems that exposure is the key. You probably need to invest as much time into conversation practice as you did in your written language to see similar results.

[amandagmu]

Yeah, I'm living in China... it's not so much that I don't speak or can't produce words at all. It's what AlexL said, a little bit of the too formal combined with a lot of really simple grammar mistakes (it took me three lessons in one-on-one to produce the difference between 进 and 附近 correctly in sentences, and I still mess it up when I speak, meanwhile in terms of reading I was already onto a newspaper article about a page in length), and a helluva lot of "choosing the wrong word" as I like to call it. You know those words that are really similar, so similar that have precisely the same meaning in English but slight differences in Chinese? You know, like 情况 and 情形? They drive me nuts -- that's the kind of thing people rarely correct another on (especially colleagues or friends of yours) because it's "close enough." Well, I'm sick of "close enough" and I'm tired of always tripping over easy little grammar mistakes.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I guess it might be time to go back to square one in my one-on-one classes and back to repetition drills....

[character]

Perhaps you could try recording yourself talking about a topic, and then later reviewing the recording with your teacher. If you edit out or don't record all the time spent thinking about the next sentence, you might be able to save a lot of class time. It would also let you review your sentences before class to try to identify any problems on your own. Once the number of mistakes decline you could switch back to conversation.

[Gorman]

I've got the exact same problem - my reading and listening are much better than my speaking.. even though I'm living in China.

One exercise I've found helpful is to write dialogs and then go over them with a teacher. Generally, I try to pick a subject I'm interested in and then just write a conversation between two people - including basic greetings, telephone phrases, etc. This has uncovered a ton of basic mistakes I make and is still colloquial enough that 书面语 is inappropriate. And when I stumble over something during the day, I try to incorporate it into the next dialog to get feedback on it. The teacher can often point out better, more 口语 ways to say things as well.

I also try to study TV dramas （奋斗，蜗居，etc.) and when characters say a phrase that I think I could use - I copy it down and memorize it.

Another technique I've just started to use is to look up TOEFL speaking topics. There's a section where students are given a question and then have to speak on it for a minute or two. It's easy to find long lists of topics, and I've found them to be good starting points to write short essays, prepare a short speech, etc.

Hope this helps - and looking forward to reading other suggestions!

[abcdefg]

One exercise I've found helpful is to write dialogs and then go over them with a teacher. Generally, I try to pick a subject I'm interested in and then just write a conversation between two people - including basic greetings, telephone phrases, etc. This has uncovered a ton of basic mistakes I make and is still colloquial enough that 书面语 is inappropriate. And when I stumble over something during the day, I try to incorporate it into the next dialog to get feedback on it. The teacher can often point out better, more 口语 ways to say things as well.

That sounds like a real good idea. And it should work in my direction too (speaking better than reading and writing.) I've tried it on-line with Lang-8, but not with a live teacher. Thanks.

[yialanliu]

Honestly, you just made me realize how often I get complaints that I don't correct my white friends who study chinese.

I think the major problem is that for a native speaker, we get overwhelmed with the number of errors and we just lower the standard that as long as we can understand, we are good.

One way that I would recommend you to practice is to start watching the news in Chinese(CCTV). Hearing good chinese is just as important as using good chinese. Next, studying TV drama is good like mentioned before, but I would highly recommend the news as TV journalists are trained to pronouce accurately whereas in drama, it is okay to throw in local dialect or to sound funny. Last thing you want is to pick up a 小沈阳's accent and not know it's not normal.

[songlei]

same here. give the chinesepod expansion mp3s at intermediate level a try. in the second half of these mp3s there are example sentences preceded by an english translation. this way you can test your feeling for basic chinese grammar and iron out mistakes. it may sound like an insult to your intelligence, but you'll be surprised how often you're wrong (at least, i was surprised how often i was wrong ;) )

[jiacheng]

One thing that I would suggest is that when you review vocabulary/do flashcards/SRS, be sure that you have a test that requires you to produce Chinese from English definitions. If it takes you too long to recall the word, then count that as a miss. Personally, I limit myself to about 20 seconds. This can get difficult when there are multiple ways to express something, but if you incorporate this into your study routine, you won't find yourself fumbling to think up individual words.

[Gurulu]

Dear amandagmu. I think many Chinese people have the same problem while studying English. They can read English literature and write relatively standard English. But many of them can not speak good English as used in day-to-day business situations.

This happens when you learn a language by mainly focusing on words and grammar, rather than on how they work together to generate meaningful sentences. Grammar and words are important. You are off to a good start. Congratulations. But you need internalize the Chinese words more.

My spoken English was poor when I started studying in Singapore many years ago. Being so desperate, I looked for ideas on the internet and tried various ways to improve it, including making English speaking friends, watching Hollywood movies, joining English corner etc. Some were somewhat useful but I did not really benefit all that much. At the end, I found a way to improve my speaking and listening skills: reading aloud appropriate English news for 10 to 20 minutes every day. "Appropriate" means you can understand around 80% of the words or so, so you won't have to spend too much time consulting the dictionary. Then you can focus on how the language is used and what it sounds like. With time, you'll have a good sense of the language. You 'remember' the whole sentence or phrase instead of words or characters. One day soon, when you need to say something, you 脱口而出.

[yellowpower]

Hi

think you're maybe spending too much on reading texts or 'thinking like writing' so what comes out is technically not wrong, but it sounds kinda of bookish. But hey, there's a time for that.

As for kou-yu or bai hua...you might want to watch more TV Chinese talk shows for current lingo and so called typical speech expressions, or popular culture type shows...listening to call-in radio programs about news or other topics where you can hear how different callers express their opinions...the other thing is to watch modern day TV dramas, comedy or othewise. Reading material can be widened to textbooks that focus on kou-yu only (yes, it's not perfect or interesting but you'd be surprise), or popular culture magazines for current 'slang'.

If time permits, watch any modern day comedy TV series, the sword fighting sagas are great but think it's more 'formal speech'. Sometimes for fun I like to read children's books to review basic stuff, they contain many useful everyday situations, question phrasing, and words etc. Cartoons are a hit and miss, unless you can watch the cartoons for teenagers usually dubbed Japanese cartoons.

End of day, it still practice, practice, practice (mistakes can be the best teachers at times)...so continue to have fun while speaking up.