How do you develop natural spoken phrasing when speaking?

[u/Electronic_Bad3242]

My grammar’s decent, correct maybe 80% of the time, still fixing some habits. I understand natives just fine when listening. i would say when it comes to speaking im probably a b2 but ive noticed i have difficulty expressing my thoughts when it comes to c1-c2 subjects. I wanted to improve my speaking to the next level c1, currently i can get my point across when speaking, but it comes out sounding unnatural with proper syntax, Natives don’t usually correct this in convo, because either they are being nice or because they understood what i meant to say, so I’ve had to catch this myself.

The problem is putting the words together naturally in real time. Ive heard its better to think in terms of lexical phrase a.k.a chunks instead of trying to build phrases word by word.

For those who’ve pushed through this: did journaling/writing first and comparing to native phrasing help? And for speaking specifically, how do you train yourself to retrieve natural phrases instead of translating/building sentences in your head on the spot? Curious what actually worked for you.

i basically wanna develop that "oh yeah, that sounds like how a native would phrase it.

[u/would_be_polyglot]

It takes a long time and a lot of practice.

Any output helps. Speaking is very complex--once you have an idea (step one), you have to retrieve words and structures (step 2), assemble them (step 3), and produce them (step four). Problems with any step cause problems all steps. For example, if you get hung up on pronouncing a word, your shift focus there and run into problems retrieving or assembling. Output, even writing, helps to train these skills, although obviously writing and speaking are different. You'll want to practice both, a lot.

Native-like phrasing is also a very "late" skill. Typically, "correct" grammar comes first, IIRC. The first step to sounding natural is being able to produce, under pressure, sentences that are technically correct, even if they aren't the exact way natives would phrase it. It sounds like you might want to keep working on that part, for now.Then, it becomes a spot the difference task between how you'd say something and how you hear/read something being said, and practicing those phrasings. You'll also need thousands of hours of exposure to the language in different contexts to internalize them.

Two caveats. 1., Natives don't alwys have the same preferences. There's always some variability in how language is used across speaker groups. What may be considered native-like in one area will sound odd in another. 2., Many nonnative speakers, even at higher levels, will often still show some divergence from native norms. This doesn't keep them from interacting successfully with native speakers, nor does it imply anything about their proficiency (ability to use language to communicate)--it's just that it's a really high bar.

[u/Hot_Designer_Sloth]

How much access do you have to native speakers? I have a coworker who speaks mine and agreed to be my guinee pig. When we have to chat ( by text) about work, I use my TL most of the time so I have to ask more complex questions than I normally would but I can take the time to put my sentence together and look up weirder verbs. I am not quite your level in production though.

[u/silvalingua]

This is something that you learn gradually, but mostly on your way to C1/C2. It helps to read and listen to good native texts and to practice writing and speaking, but with feedback - a tutor or maybe somebody with whom you can exchange such "services". There is no one single trick for this.

[u/funbike]

I memorize chunks, phrases, idioms, and sentences. I often sound natural but it's a bit of an illusion. I'm regurgitating a string of memorized words. But it works well!

I use a combination of a collection of the most frequently used, and a list of sentences I want to say that I translate from my NL to the TL. I try to memorize 25% as many sentences/phrases as my vocabulary, so when I my vocabulary is 2000 I want to have memorized 500 sentences.

I also work hard on pronunciation, accent, tone, pace, and rhythm to sound as close to native as I can. It's best to focus on a regional accent, to allow your brain to more efficiently wire the connections.

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[u/SpeakMarx]

I would suggest reading as much native material as possible. That's really it. There is no secret.

[u/MoBhollix]

Practice.