so, i was in class the other day and started to get a mild hit.  as it worked up to a 3-4, i grabbed my trex, injected, and attempted to carry on.  to my surprise, (and to the surprise of my language instructor) i started speaking arabic far more fluently than i ever had before.  as the headache was going away, i was thinking, "WTF"?  i think it was the adrenaline that kicked in as a result of being surprised by a headache for the first time in a while.  im not too worried about the headache as it corresponds to a day of me forgetting my meds at home.  either way, i was able to recall enough words to carry on a lively conversation in arabic with my teacher and my classmates, while bouncing my knees and just feeling distracted. 

unfortunately, my mind slipped back into the state of "oh god, whats the word for _____ again?", in which it normally resides.

they tell us that learning a language at DLI is like drinking water from a fire hose, through a straw.  i usually feel like i somehow picked a fire hose that sprays molasses.   still though, i just tried to count the words i have learned in the last month and i finally just gave up at over 900.  i still dont see how that is possible, even though i have the stack of index cards i wrote staring me in the face...

I suspect that the pain is working to distract you from thinking too much about speaking arabic and making you just speak things. I find that I can speak better german when I'm hungry, tired or after a beer or two. It is as if the distraction makes you use your subconcious to truely speak in the foreign language and not your conscious mind to do an automated translation from your native tongue to / from the foreign language.

Just keep practicing it as much as you can, doing whatever works well for you and you'll get better and better.

Language learning is a complex and non-linear process where you will go through moments of seemingly sublime performance, and then inexplicably revert back to a babbling idiot a moment later. I've been living in Japan for years now, and I still have moments where I stumble saying things my 2 year old rolls off perfectly! ;D

Also, memory has very little to do with fluency. You could memorize 10000 words and still be unable to communicate effectively.

...oh, I'm sorry, this is a cluster headache forum!

i just realized that i posted this in the wrong place.  oh well...

it must have been the distraction.  when i wake up in the morning, i am usually babbling in arabic while thinking im speaking english.  i did the same thing years ago when i learned spanish.  i have no idea what i actually say, i only remember the last few words i tried to say and what they sounded like.  its like my brain is turning into scrambled eggs and it just spits words out in fits.

i bet a recording of myself when i wake up would be worth a laugh... :P

My comment was more about my rambling on language than about the appropriateness of this particular thread. I actually like these kind of discussions, even if they are tad off topic. 8-)