Imagine spending months - or even years - studying music theory, then being disappointed and frustrated that you couldn't actually play the piano yet!!!
This is the situation of language learners. They spend months - or years - studying the theory of the language they want to learn - grammar rules and vocab lists - only to find they can't actually speak it well.
In the case of learning the piano no-one would be surprised by these disappointing results. It's obvious that to be able to play the piano you need to practice actually playing the piano. Theory alone will never get you there.
The same is true of learning a language. Speaking a language is a skill, and like all skills, it can only really be learnt through huge amounts of practice. Theory might help a bit, but only practice can actually teach you to speak.
Real life conversation is not the best way to practice, until you have mastered the basics.
Just like you wouldn't leap straight into playing concertos, you need to build up all the necessary skills step by step.
At the piano you would start with playing single notes, then simple combinations of notes, scales, and chords, building up to playing simple tunes, and gradually moving on to harder and harder pieces.
Eventually once you have mastered the basics of the way the instrument sounds, and how music actually works, and have built up a large store of pieces you can play well, you would be ready to improvise.
Real life conservation is improvisation, and just as a musician must have a high level to be able to improvise well, so a language learner needs to have a really good sense of how the language works to be able to improvise (converse). And that sense of how the language works, what sounds right and what doesn't, can only come through lots and lots of practice.
No-one would tell someone the basics of music theory and expect them to be able to improvise well on an instrument.
Language learners need to practice the sounds of the language- the most basic building blocks of spoken language- over and over until they have got them.
Then short words. Then short phrases. Then longer phrases, and short multi-phrase "chunks". In each case they must PRACTICE and NOT STUDY.
Practice means hearing how it should sound (from a native speaker) then practicing saying it like they say it. This is hard, very hard at first, and takes many, many repetitions. It is also a failsafe method to improve and eventually get good at any skill. It doesn't depend on talent. If you are "bad at languages " you simply need more practice at each stage than someone who is "good at languages " but with enough practice you will reach your objectives. As they say in yoga "practice, and all is coming"
Again, PRACTICE not STUDY:
*Study results in theoretical knowledge
*Practice results in practical ability
If you want to speak a language and not just know it in theory then you MUST PRACTICE IT.
Like a musician must practice their instrument.
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