How to Say What You Need to Say in Another Language. “You know those language textbook dialogues? Where people seem to talk more about silverware (“the fork, the knife”) and what color things are more than any real person ever does and, having mastered these locutions, you get off the plane in a place where the language is spoken and can barely figure out how to say, “How do I get outside?””
“Plus you need to be able to get past feeling that actual speakers of the language talk too fast. There are no spaces between words in spoken language, and sentences go by in a stream. But this is no more “too fast” than the sky is too blue. Humans don’t express themselves in carefully paced nuggets of speech. To be able to handle a language means dealing with that reality.
The issue is the intermediate level. What do you do after you’ve done a program that gets you started and takes you through the basic level, like Duolingo or Babbel (or my favorite, less known in the United States, Assimil)? You can take a class, but suppose you want to do it yourself? How do you get past “My cousin has a house” and “I see seven pens”?”