It’s generally a good idea to do a bit of warming up before physical activity, especially sport. It also helps to do some warm up exercises before playing a musical instrument – I usually play a few scales before launching into other pieces on the guitar and piano, for example – and vocal and physical warms up are a good idea before singing.
I wonder if there are equivalent exercises you could do before using a language you’re learning. Speaking is a physical, as well as mental, activity, so some warming up might be useful. Maybe this could involve practising the sounds of the language at different pitches and speeds, putting them together in various combinations and just playing about with them a bit. You could focus on particular sounds or combinations that you find challenging. It could also involve going over very familiar phrases and having mini conversations with yourself. Maybe it could also involve playing with inflections, playing with verb tenses, noun cases and so.
When I was learning the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), I found it helped me to sing the different vowel sounds at different pitches. I haven’t tried this with particularly languages yet, but might give it a go.
Do you do anything like this? Do you think it is / would be helpful?
