While it’s true that learning a language to a high or close-to-native level takes a lot of time, it’s also true that you’ll see a lot of people truthfully claiming to be conversational in many languages.
It’s common knowledge that language learning progress is significantly faster at the beginner and early intermediate stages. You can get very far with basic grammar and a small vocabulary. Often, the true barrier to being conversational at that level is skill speaking and listening and having the confidence to try.
If you’d like to be conversational in a lot of languages, you can do so without needing any special technique or talent.
In fact, much of it is just good language learning where the learner has fully integrated the previously discussed language learning principles and focused heavily on conversational skill.
There are usually three things going on when you see people who seem to be proficient in lots of languages.
They learn and focus on the aspects of language most useful for conversation and have mastered skills that make them sound fluent to native speakers.
They learn faster by shaving off many of the aspects of language learning not applicable to these goals.
They will focus on pronunciation, be well practised at speaking and also have a confident manner of delivery.
They may not be as proficient as they seem to you as a non-speaker of a language. It is very difficult for non-natives to judge someone’s skill with a language. Simply speaking confidently and with a good accent will make you sound fluent to non-speakers.
They have a life/job situation that enables or has enabled them to get a lot of practice in a language or languages.
Some people are lucky and grow up with three native languages. Others are immersed in an immigrant community.
Some make sacrifices and move around the world a lot to work and learn languages, and others work in tourism and have plenty of chances to practice in their home country.
Everyone is different.
Reaching a conversational level in a lot of languages is surprisingly doable. The fastest appreciable change in skill occurs at the late beginning and early intermediate stages of language learning, so going until just past this point can get you the most bang for your buck in conversation skill.
The problem with this is that most people wouldn’t consider this fluency, and getting better begins to take significantly more time.
Regardless, instead of learning one language to a very high level, you can instead be something like conversational in four.
It still takes a lot of time to do, so be prepared to dedicate some serious hours. If you still like the idea of powering through and reaching a low but useful level in a lot of languages, read on.
Reaching a conversational level as fast as possible
Reaching a conversational level initially looks like learning a language normally, so it will be good to familiarise yourself with the main ideas in our Guide to Learning Languages.
Any good language learning guide will tell you to emphasise using comprehensible input (texts and audio) as much as possible, and this is something you should do.
Where this technique differs is firstly, what you don’t do, and secondly, how early and aggressively you practice listening and speaking. The speed aspect of the technique is achieved by cutting non-essential aspects of language learning.
First, cut out advanced grammar. You can do a lot with the simple stuff.
The same goes with words. Ignore the rare, long, and complex words. Focus on those words that are most useful and easily learnable.
You only really need the most common thousand words to make yourself understood in a basic conversation.
You can refine your list further by specifically learning the kinds of words involved in conversations people might have with you. These tend to be words that cover reasons for learning, goals, inspiration, interests, and your opinions about the language.
Finally, focus on learning some natural-sounding phrases. This is an important tip for all language learners. Pre-learned phrases can be very helpful and make you sound more fluent.
For example, many common phrases and filler-words (such as “it’s like”, “after that”, “in short”, “and so”, and even just “umm”) can sound quite different in other languages and not use vocabulary that directly translates to the English equivalent.
Learning these is important and will make you sound much more natural.
Now onto skills. Focus less on reading and writing in favour of speaking and listening. You will need to focus very strongly on getting lots of speaking practice through conversation.
In addition, you will need to get good at listening, so focus on that, too. Listening is a difficult aspect many learners leave till later due to its difficulty. You won’t have that luxury.
Next, learn good pronunciation. It will go a long way towards helping you sound fluent, even if you flounder in a lot of other areas.
Good pronunciation generally takes a lot of practice. Many guides and resources will discuss it; you need to focus on it.
One trick, which you should not use if your goal is to improve rather than show off, is to direct the flow of conversation.
When talking with someone you can push the conversation towards familiar topics.
This will help ensure you have a successful conversation.
Your goal should be to be able to speak at a close to natural pace without too many unnatural pauses, occasionally busting out some pre-learned filler words/phrases when you get stuck.
With a lot of work, you can do this in about 4-12 months, depending on the language and your time commitment. In five years you could theoretically impress all your friends with a good basic level in 8-10 languages.
If you’re learning for travelling, then many of the same ideas apply. In addition to the top 1000 you can learn travel phrases and words related to your experience in the country.
