Lesson Transcript

Want to speak your target language with confidence and impress native speakers?
When learning to speak a new language, you have lots of things to think about, including grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Because you're thinking of all of these things AND trying to speak, it can be difficult to communicate with confidence, especially in the beginning. This is why it's helpful to make confidence-building exercises part of your language learning process.
In this video, you’ll learn 7 ways to boost your confidence
One: Read out loud
This might seem pretty basic, but it's a great way to practice speaking.
Reading aloud lets you practice speaking without having to think about grammar or things to talk about. Reading out loud lets you focus on your pronunciation and the rhythmn of the language. It can help you learn to speak more smoothly and quickly -- without even thinking about it.
If you’re using our lessons, read the dialogue out loud as you listen. You can read along with the dialog tool, the lesson notes, or the transcript.
Two: Read like a child
This might sound strange, but think about children learning to read. They go slow and sound everything out. Maybe it takes two or three tries before they read a new word smoothly, and a few more tries before they can read it at a natural pace. This example applies to language learning too. If you find a complex sentence in something you're reading, read it slowly at first, then speed up. With practice, you’ll be able to say it easily.
It might feel a bit silly to speak very slowly, but this kind of practice can help you identify tough sounds you might miss or say incorrectly when reading quickly.
Three: Use the Dialogue Breakdown Tool
If you are using our site, this is a great tool to take advantage of.
It breaks down lesson conversations into individual lines. You can listen to the audio for each line, learn what each line means, and you can re-read and review as much as you want.
Four: Use the voice recorder to record and compare yourself with native speakers
Just click on the microphone icon next to each line in the Dialogue section. You can use this tool to perfect your pronunciation if you like, but this is also something you can use to work on speaking with confidence at native-level speed.
You’ll find this tool in the Dialogue section of all of our lessons.
Five: Repeat and review old lesson conversations
Reviewing what you have studied in the past is the best way to make sure you maintain what you have learned.
Go back to older lessons, download the lesson dialog tracks, and re-listen to the conversations again and again. Or you can re-read the dialog lines from previous lessons until you’ve mastered them all.
Six: Shadow conversations. Repeat what you hear out loud.
This tactic is important but it can be tricky when you’re doing a brand new lesson. If you're reviewing dialogues from lessons you've done, though, it's super easy to do.
Just listen to the dialog and repeat what you hear. "Shadowing" means mimicking the speaker as soon as they speak; following their intonation and rhythms as closely as possible.
Seven: Send recordings to your Premium PLUS teacher
If you want to speak with confidence, there’s no better confidence boost than feedback from a native speaker. And you get just that with a Premium PLUS teacher.
You can record yourself reciting a lesson dialog (or any dialog of your own) and your teacher will give you specific tips on how to improve.
From the tips your teacher gives you, choose at least 1 and practice, practice, practice. Being able to react quickly and with confidence in a conversation is typically not something you can do on your first try, but if you continue practicing, you'll gradually find yourself speaking with ease.
And for even more ways to build your speaking confidence, check out our complete language learning program. Sign up for your free lifetime account by clicking on the link in the description. Get tons of resources to have you speaking in your target language. And if you enjoyed these tips, hit the "like" button, share the video with anyone who's trying to learn a new language, and subscribe to our channel. We release new videos every week! I'll see you next time.
Bye!

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