How to improve your speaking skills and gain confidence in a new language
You might be very extroverted, but as soon as you try to speak a new language, you feel nervous.
You’re shy or afraid that you’ll make a mistake in front of a native speaker. What if they laugh at me? you think.
Fear when speaking a new language is very normal when starting out. It’s healthy and OK as it drives us to be conscious of correct grammar and vocabulary usage. I think it’s because we don’t want to be seen as inferior or stupid, and learning a language brings us down to a baby’s level again. It’s important to remember that babies and kids aren’t afraid of making mistakes — the more they mess up the faster they learn!
You’re probably reading this because you’re looking for a practical way to get over the fear of making mistakes. Me telling you it’s OK to make mistakes is not going to help.
When you’re at an intermediate level, you may feel like your vocabulary doesn’t improve and “dries up”.
This is absolutely normal. In most cases with language learners, we can understand listening much better than we can produce speaking — that’s just the process and you’re not lacking behind or doing something wrong. Listening and speaking go hand in hand. In fact, I made a video about it here — it’s in French but there are subtitles. I hope it gives you some insight!
This post is about speaking, but improving your listening skills will also improve your speaking over time, but of course you have to practice speaking as much as you can, with your tutor and with others. Here’s a video I made about speaking practice on your own.
Talking around a topic
You can also speak around a topic, so that it doesn’t feel like you’re lacking in vocabulary so much. Instead of saying “I went to the doctor and got a medical scan yesterday”, you can say “I was sick. I went to someone who helped me” or something along those lines, to get your point across and then learn new words like that from your tutor.
Prepare in advance
I also suggest preparing phrases and vocabulary in advance before your sessions with tutors or friends.
When I was working as a design intern at a Japanese company, I was VERY scared that I wouldn’t understand anything during meetings and presentations. It’s impossible to know what words to expect, but luckily I had an idea of what we would be talking about. It helped me a lot to look up words I suspected I might hear during the internship. I built vocabulary lists and example sentences of design-related vocabulary. In this way, I taught myself.
You may even want to write out a full conversation the way you imagine it going. I do this for job interviews in foreign languages a lot. I have taken many job interviews in Japanese and Korean, and to ease my nerves, I like to write out what I expect my interviewer to ask me, and how I’ll answer accordingly. It’s an effective way to learn new vocabulary, too.
Find a safe space to practice
Just like practicing a speech for a presentation, you can practice using new words and phrases in a safe environment until you’re ready to use it with a native speaker. This could be talking to yourself, a pet, a chatting partner online, or a tutor on italki. I used to talk to people on voice apps like Saito-san and Goodnight, but I’m not sure if they exist anymore. There are now apps that have audio rooms in them for language learning, such as HiLokal and Tandem. I highly recommend at least sitting in and listening until you feel ready to speak. Once you’re ready to speak to strangers on apps, you’ll definitely be ready to speak to people in the country of your target language!
Take it easy
Also, remember not to take language learning too seriously. Your goal is to communicate with others, right? It’s counter-effective to worry about using the right words and grammar each time you try to say something. Rather be natural and throw in a bunch of words hoping it makes sense, instead of staying quiet and missing the point of communication. Your listener will more often than not help you in the right direction.
Analyze the situation and go easy on yourself
What helps is to identify WHY you’re afraid of speaking a language. It could be because you’re too shy or because you don’t know enough vocabulary. It’s great advice to tell someone to start speaking a language from day one, but for some people, a combination of shyness and lack of vocabulary makes this nearly impossible. Remember to be kind to yourself — if you don’t feel ready, take some more time.
If you use the wrong particle, grammar structure or word, what’s the worst that can happen? People will either correct you, ignore the mistake because they understood you anyway, or, in the least likely scenario, be a bit confused and ask you to repeat — which is a good opportunity to learn from the error. If people laugh at you, that’s a reflection of them as a person, not you.
Shadow and listen a lot
For improving pronunciation, listen and shadow audio content as much as you can.
If you’d like to practice speaking skills, shadowing is an excellent way to do so. Shadowing means listening to audio and repeating exactly what and how the native speaker says something. If it’s intimidating to repeat something that’s long and above your level, start with beginner content. You can find language lessons on YouTube and repeat what the teacher says. I like the Easy Languages channel because the videos are always in a natural setting and there are bilingual subtitles. Slow down the speed, and pause after each sentence, recording yourself.
A polyglot I admire is Prof Alexander Arguelles (I’ve mentioned him before in my post about the Polyglot Conference). He has an in-depth video explanation about shadowing here.
Apps for shadowing
I suggest trying LingoPie if they have the language you are learning. The more you watch and listen to content, the more it’ll help you speak. Moreover, LingoPie has audio flashcards that you can click on and hear the sound, so you can repeat the words one at a time. You can check them out here.
There are also apps that have built in audio like Speakly or even my own app, Kaards.io for German. Repeat these words and record yourself and compare the sounds.
Shadow with podcasts and transcripts
As for shadowing with podcasts, this works well when you have a transcript alongside a video or podcast. It’s important to be able to see what you hear and repeat.
Specifically for Korean learners, I recommend the Spongemind YouTube channel and Podcast. Johnson from Spongemind creates transcripts for each episode that you can request. We had a chat on his channel before and you can request the transcript for it directly from the Spongemind site.
For Hungarian learners, Hungarian with Sziszi is a great podcast and her Patreon site comes with transcripts to the podcats. You can Google and find her content online.
Practicing without native speakers
A key part of learning a language to fluency is practicing with a native speaker. Talking to native speakers helps you improve pronunciation, learn natural grammar, and broaden your vocabulary. However, when we learn a new language from scratch, it’s sometimes difficult to find people near us who speak the language we are learning. How then, can we learn and practice a language without the help of a native speaker?
Remember, listening, talking and speaking go hand in hand, so the more you try the following tips, eventually the better your speaking will become.
Talk to yourself, pets or Siri
Did you know you can change the language that Siri speaks? Sometimes when I’m bored, I change the language and have a nice chat in different languages with Siri. You don’t need to worry about making mistakes — a robot won’t judge you — and you can test your pronunciation and grammar to see if Siri will know what you’re saying.
Talking to yourself is fine too — if you make sure to look up words you’re stuck on! You can also talk to your pets, like asking your dog if they’re going outside, telling your cat you’re going to give it new food, etc. This helps you think of words you might not know, and reminds you of words you’ll use often in daily life. Ask yourself questions about what you’re doing, describe what you’re thinking, or write your shopping list in your target language.
Write something and get corrections
Two apps I use to get corrections on my writing on are HiNative and HelloTalk. All you need to do is post something you’ve written and there will be a bunch of people who are ready to correct your mistakes. Take the time to thank them, write down what you learn, and maybe say hello to start a conversation. Alternatively, you can try other language exchange apps like Tandem or a website like MyLanguageExchange or Penpalworld to meet native speakers and practice talking to them.
Follow native speakers on social media
Whenever I learn a new language, I make a point of following a bunch of Twitter and Instagram accounts of people who speak the language I learn. If they post content relevant to my interests, it gives me a way in to comment on something and maybe message them to start an online friendship. Don’t be shy to contact native speakers online if you have stuff in common! If you’re struggling to find native speakers, you can connect with fellow language learners online too — there’s always something you can learn from someone who’s also learning the language you are.
You can also learn a lot from fellow language learners who aren’t native speakers. It’s OK if you’re both still learning the language — it’s still an opportunity to practice and learn from each other. Twitter, again, is a lovely place to meet language learners!
Thank you for reading! If you enjoy my thoughts, consider buying me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/lindiebotes or visit my website www.lindiebotes.com or Youtube channel for more.
