Just because someone can speak a language, it doesn’t always mean their reading and writing abilities are on par with their verbal communication skills.
Language proficiency is measured in several different ways.
In order for you to reach native-level fluency, you need to balance your time between all the foreign language skills.
In this post, I’ll show you 19 great tips for improving your reading, writing, speaking and listening skills in foreign languages, so that you’ll see a steady improvement in your abilities.
How to Improve Speaking Skills in a Foreign Language
Speaking in a new language can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be! To boost your speed, confidence and overall fluency in speaking, keep the following tips in mind.
1. Improve Your Pronunciation and Accent
One of the biggest reasons why people feel uncomfortable when speaking in a new language is because they sound drastically different from natives. That discomfort goes away once you perfect your foreign language pronunciation.
It’s completely normal to sound awkward when you’re a beginner or an intermediate learner. To be honest, there are even advanced learners out there who still haven’t quite nailed their accents yet.
Rather than obsessing over that awkwardness, put the work in to improve your accent. By taking the time and effort in refining your pronunciation, communication between you and native speakers will eventually improve, ultimately boosting your confidence in the language.
2. Find a Language Exchange Partner
If you aren’t ready to casually converse with native speakers or are too anxious to attend language meetups, find a language exchange partner instead. This language exchange partner could be a friend who happens to be a native or fluent speaker of your target language. It could also be a fellow learner interested in studying a language you’re proficient in.
Aside from meetups, you can search for a language partner online through language exchange websites and apps, perhaps participate in some language exchange on Skype. You can also go on WhatsApp for language exchange to connect with like-minded language learners.
If this type of social interaction is just not your thing, you can always find a language tutor to help you with speaking, in addition to the rest of the language skills.
3. Always Read Out Loud
Reading is obviously a very important language skill. Though if you ask me, silently reading in your head is a missed opportunity for improving your verbal communication skills.
Whenever you find yourself reading any kind of text in your target language, say the words out loud! It doesn’t matter if you have a book in front of you or if you randomly spot a vocabulary sticker on your fridge—if you see words in your target language, vocalize them.
Volume isn’t totally necessary for this exercise. If you’d rather whisper because you’re reading in a public space, that’s totally fine. What’s important is that you practice the mouth movements to help you feel more comfortable when speaking in a foreign language.
4. Speak Often—and Make Mistakes!
If you want to know how to speak a language fluently, be vocal as often as possible. Any opportunity you have to speak in a foreign language, do so! Talk to fluent speakers, make those mistakes and learn from them.
And when you fumble on a word or translation, try your best to describe it in conversation rather than resorting back to English. By doing this, you stop translating in your head and start having a natural conversation instead of spitting out textbook responses. It’s achievements like these that push you closer towards language proficiency.
I should add that you don’t have to be with other people to practice speaking. In fact, when you’re on your own listening to or watching foreign media, you’re more than welcome to do language shadowing exercises to learn how to speak as naturally as the natives.
How to Improve Listening Skills in a Foreign Language
To make sure you pay attention during your listening activities, choose resources that you’re actually interested in. You’ll be more devoted to the content when you listen to language audiobooks that aren’t only appropriate to your level but also fall under genres that you genuinely enjoy.
The same goes for foreign language audio and video clips. When you listen to and watch foreign language videos that align with your interests, hobbies and whatnot, you tend to pick up new words and concepts quicker because you’re invested in the topic.
Whether you enjoy pop culture or like to keep up with the news, FluentU has an extensive library of authentic audio and video clips. On this platform, you get to learn languages through your interests, making your language learning journey entertaining yet educational.
FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.
You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.
Every video is equipped with both foreign language subtitles and English subtitles, so you have all the information you need for comprehension.
6. Diversify Your Listening Resources
Don’t forget that while you’re watching foreign news and movies, you’re also listening to the language. Although some might consider those examples as unconventional ways to learn, you’d be surprised with how much you can pick up from unlikely sources, such as international films and foreign language cartoons.
Here are some resources you could try:
YouTube is a great place to find all kinds of content in foreign languages, so try searching for things you’re interested in in your target language and see what pops up.
Streaming sites like Netflix and Disney Plus have options for listening to foreign language dubs on your favorite TV shows, which can be a great way to practice your listening skills.
Coffee Break Languages has a range of options available for podcasts and other listening resources that you may find helpful.
7. Don’t Forget about Passive Listening
Active listening is crucial for learning a new language. Arguably, so is passive listening.
Passive listening language learning is language immersion for the subconscious mind where you’re mentally disengaged with the audio. An example of this would be listening to foreign language audio for entertainment purposes or falling asleep to foreign language songs.
Although passive language listening is hotly debated as a method of learning, you can’t deny that it’s an effortless way to immerse yourself in the target language. By immersing your subconscious, you’re basically covering all the bases in order for your brain to retain the language.
How to Improve Reading Skills in a Foreign Language
Reading, both foreign language e-books and books on paperback, broadens your understanding of the target language as you discover the subtleties between the written and spoken forms.
8. Take Advantage of Parallel Texts
Bilingual e-books exist for you to transport yourself into the world of foreign literature without having to toggle between the story and a dictionary. Additionally, parallel texts allow you to see how words interact with each other in a descriptive setting.
Parallel texts are perfect for both intensive and extensive reading purposes. For an intensive reading activity, treat each chapter as a lesson where you take notes on new vocabulary, grammar or syntax.
Once you’ve got a good grasp on vocab and grammar, you can move onto extensive reading, which simply means reading for pleasure.
9. Read Like a Child
Need another less intimidating way to practice reading in a foreign language? Go for easy language books. You know, the ones that use simple language and are filled with tons of pictures.
Dual language children’s books let you embrace your inner child, learning language basics in the most adorable, imaginative and uncomplicated context. In all honesty, learning a new language as an adult can be complex and boring at times. Thus, reading children’s stories helps you dial back on the seriousness of language acquisition. It also lets you have some fun with it.
Children’s literature is an escape and an easy way to track your progress. Just as teachers do in school, you can use graded readers to level up your reading and thinking skills in your target language.
10. Venture into Comic Books
Believe it or not, you don’t have to love superheroes or be a graphic novel collector to benefit from foreign language comics. In fact, comics are ideal for visual learners, as the graphics offer picture translations of the comic captions.
First, skip the pictures, skim through the captions for unknown vocabulary, do basic translations and make a prediction about the plot. Next, read through the story, compare it to what your prediction was and then reflect on the story overall.
11. Read Literature You’ve Read Before
Bilingual parallel texts are blessings for language learners. But once you reach a certain stage of fluency, you need to progress from bilingual books and move on to foreign language reading material.
To ease the transition, don’t dive into the deep end with new literature. Instead, opt for stories and books that you’ve read before. That way, you don’t get lost in all the foreign words since you already know the plot of the text.
For news articles, one of the foreign language reading strategies you can implement is reading related articles in English beforehand. Doing so will provide you with contextual information needed to understand the foreign language headlines.
How to Improve Writing Skills in a Foreign Language
Lastly, let’s discuss the ways to enhance your writing skills.
12. Write by Hand Whenever You Can
Whether your target language uses symbols or the Latin alphabet, the fastest way to improve your writing skills is simply writing by hand.
Because many of us are learning through our gadgets these days, it’s more important than ever to put a pen to paper as much as we can. If you don’t have a pen and paper, just hand write it on your phone’s note taking app.
Daily writing exercises can be as small as jotting down a list of groceries or as extensive as writing a book review. It’s less about the word count of each writing exercise and more about the frequency of writing to build that muscle memory.
13. Keep a Journal
A language learning diary is an effective way to monitor your writing skills and is generally very convenient for daily writing practice.
If you have no idea how to keep a language journal because you can’t even write full sentences in your target language just yet, that’s okay! The truth is that you don’t have to be fluent to keep a language journal.
The earliest entries in a journal always begin as a tracker for new words you’ve learned in your lessons. Once you’ve obtained enough knowledge to formulate sentences, you can start using foreign language writing prompts to guide your entries.
14. Install Foreign Language Keyboards
In order to write in a foreign language, not only do you need to learn how to write by hand, but you also need to learn how to type in that language. Typing Cyrillic on your phone or computer is a completely different experience from typing in English.
Foreign language keyboards aren’t just about the symbols. Even if your target language does use the Latin alphabet, having that foreign language keyboard installed on your devices is still extremely helpful since it instantly detects the right spelling in that language.
15. Have a Native Speaker Provide Feedback
You could be writing every day. However, that daily foreign language writing practice wouldn’t be as productive without feedback.
Traditionally, feedback comes from language teachers and tutors. So what happens if you’re studying independently, with no authority figure to grade your assignments?
Text exchanges with a language partner would take care of that. If you want to go old-school, another option would be to have a foreign language penpal and communicate via snail mail. Whatever method you choose for feedback, be sure to pay attention to the colloquialisms in the correspondences and request for your language partner to mention any glaring mistakes in your writing.
How to Improve Grammar and Vocabulary in a Foreign Language
Vocabulary and grammar are the building blocks of language skills. Proficiency in those areas automatically improves reading and writing. Moreover, it increases your confidence in speaking and helps you recognize words and structures in conversations.
Enhancing your grammar and vocabulary is critical for boosting foreign language skills, and there’s a myriad of language learning systems you can experiment with to help build that foundation.
Regardless of what language system you set up for yourself, make sure you keep these tips in mind.
16. Immerse Yourself in the Language
Language acquisition isn’t about adding another skill to your CV. To learn a new language means to open yourself up to an entirely new, unfamiliar world, as language intertwines with its country’s history, culture and social customs.
It’s essentially a lifestyle change because you can’t immerse yourself in the language without immersing yourself in the environment.
Think about how children learn a language. They learn it in school with teachers and friends, and they learn it at home with their parents. Children absorb new words and phrases quickly because they’re completely surrounded by the language. Immerse yourself likewise and you’ll be acquiring a language like them in no time.
17. Turn Language Learning into a Game
Tests and quizzes totally take the fun out of learning a new language. Yes, assessments are necessary to see if you actually know your stuff, though why go with the common vocabulary quiz when you can challenge yourself with a game?
Foreign language games are board or card games that can be played with native speakers or fellow language learners. They’re also great as a family bonding activity if you’re learning a language together.
Games can also be a solo activity. There’s a whole collection of language learning video games and apps you can find online to fit your needs.
18. Watch Foreign Language Media
The truth of the matter is that foreign language media is one of the most underutilized secrets of grammar language learning.
If you’re wondering how to learn a language by watching movies, there are tons of ways to do so. You can watch dubbed versions of movies you’ve already seen, memorize songs from the soundtrack or change the captions on the streaming service to your target language.
Another strategy is dividing the film into half-hour chunks, writing down new words and structures as you watch each segment. This also works well with television shows since episodes are much shorter.
19. Give Yourself a “Word of the Day”
To stay on top of vocab practice, make it a habit to learn one word a day.
By giving yourself this little language learning challenge, you’re turning passive vocabulary into active vocabulary. Rather than memorizing words on flashcards, you find ways to apply the new terms in your day-to-day life. You can do this by incorporating your “word of the day” in conversations or in an entry in your language journal.
You don’t even need to read or write the word down, although it’s good practice to do so. Just thinking about the word is enough, given that you’re recalling the definitions and formulating sentences with the word in your head.
Wow, that was a lot to go through but so worth it! By separating the language skills, you have a better understanding of how to develop each on its own, as well as a skill in conjunction with another.
Now that you have all the tips and tricks to advance your foreign language skills, fluency is just around the corner! Just keep at it!
And One More Thing...
If you dig the idea of learning on your own time from the comfort of your smart device with real-life authentic language content, you'll love using FluentU.
With FluentU, you'll learn real languages—as they're spoken by native speakers. FluentU has a wide variety of videos as you can see here:
FluentU has interactive captions that let you tap on any word to see an image, definition, audio and useful examples. Now native language content is within reach with interactive transcripts.
Didn't catch something? Go back and listen again. Missed a word? Hover your mouse over the subtitles to instantly view definitions.
And FluentU always keeps track of vocabulary that you’re learning. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. You get a truly personalized experience.
