May be you you are one of those students who have reached a good level of the language BUT you’re hesitating when trying to speak Luxembourgish or you are drawing blanks …. WHY? Well …..
you might know a good number of Luxembourgish words which you have written down in your notebook… but then it’s difficult to put them together into sentences when you speak – Right?
First of all, it’s a LOT of work to put together an entire sentence word by word. It takes a lot of time, and it makes your speaking slow.
Second, a lot of questions come into your mind:
- Am I using the right words?
- How shall I build my sentence properly?
- What if I can’t finish my sentence?
- Is the grammar in this phrase correct?
- What if I make a mistake? Will the other person understand what I’m trying to say?
These doubts and worries can STOP you from speaking, or make you nervous to try!
So my first tip that will help you speak Luxembourgish fluently and confidently is NOT to focus on memorizing words or grammar rules.
Instead, focus on learning PHRASES
Let me show you why this is so powerful.
Think about one of the first phrases you learned in Luxembourgish: “Wéi geet et Iech?”
You learned this expression as a complete phrase.
So now, it’s easy to say it automatically: “Wéi geet et Iech”
You DON’T need to think about whether to use the word “dir,” “mir,” or “si.”
You DON’T need to debate about the conjugation of the verb – if it should be “ginn” or “geet” or “gitt”
You don’t need to think about any of that! You can just say it quickly and naturally without worrying about mistakes – just like a native Luxembourgish speaker.
The reason is because you learned it as a phrase, a complete phrase, instead of putting together the individual words by yourself.
AND
you can as well try to learn longer sentences such as:
Ech stinn op. – I get up.
Ech stinn ëmmer um 6 Auer moies op. – I always get up at 6am.
Dat hänkt of. – It depends on.
Dat hänkt vum Wieder of. – It depends on the weather.
And then memorise these longer sentences. It will force you to think a full sentence and this will reduce hesitation. Because you will be used to speaking in longer sentences. If you practice single words, then you will always be thinking in single words.
You can get fluent faster if you focus on learning Luxembourgish phrases – the same phrases that native speakers use every day.
Also, make sure that you are spending more time with the whole language. Now the whole language means not just doing grammar and vocabulary exercises in your text book but actually spending time reading and listening to real Luxembourgish. Now I am aware that this is not easy in Luxembourg.
So how can you learn useful Luxembourgish phrases?
- You can start by reading the lessons about 55 Common Phrases (beginners – intermediate – advanced) on my blog. In these lessons, you’ll learn hundreds of common phrases that you can use with confidence… WITHOUT having to think about how to put the words together!
- Then if you are a BEGINNER an easy and efficient and motivating way to learn phrases is to take the Courses A1 Foundation & A2 Consolidation. The lessons in these courses are based on phrases that are used in day-to-day situations. And you will stay motivated by practising together with me!
- And if you are at an INTERMEDIATE level the only way you can become more fluent is by spending time with the whole language reading and listening to natural spoken Luxembourgish. Therefore I have created the online course Short Dialogues – The Short Dialogues Course has more advanced conversations that are full of common expressions used by native Luxembourgish speakers. It teaches you the phrases in context so that you’ll be able to remember and use them – and become more fluent in Luxembourgish as a result.
I hope you liked it and found it useful. And …. why not sharing this lesson with your friends:-)
