You have studied for months. Someone asks you a simple question and nothing comes out. This is not a sign that you have learned nothing — it is a predictable thing that happens to almost everyone, and it has a specific cause.
Your attention is doing two jobs at once
Understanding a sentence in a new language takes nearly all of your working memory. Composing a reply takes the rest. When someone is waiting, a third job appears: monitoring how you are being perceived — and something has to give. That is why the words arrive five minutes later, walking away. The pressure is gone and the capacity comes back.
Silence feels longer to you than to them
A two-second pause feels endless when you are the one searching. To the other person it is barely noticeable. Most learners rush and stumble trying to fill a gap nobody else registered. Give yourself permission to pause. Say the equivalent of ‘one moment’ in your target language and the pressure drops immediately.
The only real fix is repetition under pressure
Practising silently never rehearses the thing that actually breaks. You need to speak while somebody waits, often enough that it stops registering as a threat. That is exactly what a tutor you can talk to at any hour is for — hundreds of low-stakes repetitions without an audience and without a bill.
Expect the first few conversations to be uncomfortable. By the fifth, you will notice yourself finishing sentences you would previously have abandoned.