I remember being sent by my parents to Germany, when I was a kid, where I stayed with a German family for 2 weeks. My command of German was pretty pathetic, but

I remember being sent by my parents to Germany, when I was a kid, where I stayed with a German family for 2 weeks. My command of German was pretty pathetic, but that didn't stop me from engaging in a (in hindsight, hilariously insensitive from both sides) debate about whether the Swiss were more evil than the Germans (my hosts unwisely decided to claim that Switzerland was evil because of the Swiss banks... I couldn't resist such a gaping wide opening for counter-argument, and the ensuring argument included me retorting that I felt that given the history of Germany, they were hardly in a position to call other countries evil, considering they had slaughtered millions of people around Europe not all that long ago). I was 12 or so, I think. Anyway, the point of this: I think adversarial conversation is more a matter of mindset than of mastery of the language. If anything, not understanding half of what is being said helps to encourage adversarial conversation on both sides :-) With respect to your problem, yes, total immersion is a good solution (imho, disclaimer, etc). Travel to that country and stay away from English speakers, and speak only that language for a month. If I'm right, you'll build the mental wiring necessary to speak that language in any circumstances (whether you're understood is then just a matter of practice).