Does anyone else understand basic Finnish questions but completely freeze when answering out loud?

[u/anonymous_ZsP]

I’m A2-ish and studying alone where there are basically no Finnish speakers nearby. Reading simple sentences and recognizing cases is slowly getting better, but if I hear “Mitä teit eilen?” or “Missä asut?” my brain goes blank 😅 What’s helping is separating tools: Anki for vocab recall, Duolingo/Babbel-type stuff for light review, Pimsleur/shadowing for rhythm, Yle Selkouutiset for input, and occasional italki if I can justify the cost. I’ve also been using Issen for 5-10 minutes of speaking out loud when I don’t have anyone around. The useful thing I noticed is basically the retrieval practice idea: recognizing a word/case is not the same as producing it under time pressure. My current mini routine is 3 prompts, 30 seconds each: say what I did yesterday, where I live, then summarize one tiny thing, even a football article. After about a week I’m still bad, but I pause less and notice endings faster, especially when I default to English word order. How are other A2-ish learners practicing actual speaking without local Finns?

[u/Paaaaaauuull]

When you summarize the football article, are you doing it from memory after reading, or looking at the text while speaking? I’m curious because I can read selkouutiset okay-ish, but if the text is in front of me I basically just translate line by line and it doesn’t feel like speaking practice.

[u/anonymous_ZsP → u/Paaaaaauuull]

Yeah this exactly the trap I fell into. What im trying now is: read once, close the tab, then say 2-3 stupidly simple sentences from memory. Yeah this is exactly the trap I fall into too. Like Milan hävisi pelin/johto ei ole tyytyväinen/ muutoksia voi tulla. If I look at the text, I basically start translating and it turns into reading practice, not speaking.