Why You Still Can’t Speak Your Target Language (and the 3 Best Ways to Fix the Problem)

For most language learners, speaking is by far the most difficult of the "four skills" (listening, speaking, reading, and writing). The other three are a certainly not a piece of cake either, but speaking presents a number of unique challenges:

• Speaking happens in real-time: Unlike listening, reading, and writing, you don't have time to look things up.

• Speaking entails social stakes: There are immediate consequences for linguistic mistakes and social gaffes.

• Speaking is more complex: You have to decipher meaning amid slang, accents, background noise, etc.

All of this can be extremely difficult and requires an immense amount of practice. And most learners don't get enough practice, and especially not of the right kind (more on this below).

So the good news is that there is nothing wrong with you.

You are not bad at learning languages and you don't lack the "language gene" (if you're comprehending this blog post, you've learned at least one language to a very high level).

But you do need to make some important changes in the way you approach language learning. In other words, you are not the problem. Your method is.

The 3 Big Levers of Fluency

The key to overcoming the unique challenges of speaking is pulling the following three big levers of fluency.

① Time

Depending on your target language, you should budget roughly 1,000 to 2,000 hours of study time to reach a conversational level of fluency.

So the first step is to honestly assess how much time you've already put in, and then set realistic expectations about how much longer it will take to reach your goals.

💡 See the tips, FSI language classifications, calculations detailed in my post 7 Ways to Master a New Language Effortlessly While Juggling a Busy Life.

Second, take an honest look at how much of your total study time is actually spent practicing speaking. Chances are good that the vast majority of your time is spent on input (reading and listening) and almost zero is given to output (speaking and writing).

This is because input tends to be much more comfortable. You have time to look things up and you don't open yourself up to making mistakes. But no amount of input can ever replace the need for output. You need both to get fluent in a language.

I suggest tracking exactly how much time you spend on the four language skills for at least two weeks. You may think you have a fairly balanced language diet, but will likely be surprised how skewed the numbers are toward passive exposure.

② Intensity

The total number of hours you spend actively immersing and practicing each day is certainly important, but the intensity of this time is even more consequential.

Watching a foreign TV series on Netflix with English subtitles can help teach you a few words and model natural grammar patterns, but it won't get you fluent any time fast. It's simply not intense enough to move the needle much.

To see results, you need to increase the intensity. For a start, turn off subtitles or captions. The lack of a visual crutch is much more difficult, but it has the advantage of being significantly more effective and direct (more "directness" below).

But for even greater intensity and efficacy, do everything you can to practice communicating in real time:

• Visit restaurants or stores with staff who speak your target language.

• Work with online tutors through a site like italki.

• Chat with native speakers through HelloTalk.

• Practice with an AI-powered avatar using Teacher AI.

③ Directness

The third—and arguably most important—lever is directness.

The best definition I've seen for the concept can be found in James Clear's preface to Scott H. Young's great book Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career:

“Directness is the practice of learning by directly doing the thing you want to learn. Basically, it’s improvement through active practice rather than through passive learning. The phrases learning something new and practicing something new may seem similar, but these two methods can produce profoundly different results. Passive learning creates knowledge. Active practice creates skill.”

If you want to speak a language well, you have to spend a lot of time directly practicing speaking. Not just listening. Or reading. But actually speaking!

Sounds obvious, right?

Sadly, such directness is rarely the case.

More often than not, language education (whether in a formal class or a modern app) is an exercise in indirect learning.

• The vast majority of the time is spent learning about the language, not practicing in the language.

• Learners memorize long lists of words and grammar rules instead of using them in context.

• Students are tested on memorized facts instead of assessed on communicative ability.

The result?

• Despite a 1,000-day streak and 500,000+ XP, the disciplined Duolingo user is unable to order food or have even basic Spanish conversations during a trip to Mexico.

• Despite 10 years of English classes and a high TOEFL score, the Japanese college graduate panics during a job interview at an American company.

Again, there is nothing wrong with either of these learners. They simply have been putting their time, energy, and money into ineffective, indirect approaches.

Given such methods, a lack of speaking ability is all but guaranteed.

Had they directed their efforts at directly practicing speaking instead of tapping away in apps or taking expensive classes, they could unlock effortless, rewarding conversations with native speakers.

And so can you!

The choice is yours: do you want comfort or fluency?

If you choose the latter, it's time to pull the three big levers of fluency, and start giving your target language the time, intensity, and directness it deserves.