9 Reasons AI Is the Fastest Way to Improve Your Speaking Fluency
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9 reasons why AI is the fastest way to improve your speaking
You've probably seen clickbait titles claiming to offer the fastest way to do this or that, only to find that they fall short.
But this post isn’t one of them.
I truly believe AI is the fastest way to improve your language skills.
I experienced this firsthand when I rapidly improved my Spanish speaking skills for an interview—faster than I’ve ever progressed speaking-wise in any language.
You can read about my preparation process and watch the interview in my post, 4 Steps to Crush Your Foreign Language Interview—Follow My Process.
9 reasons why AI is the fastest way to improve your speaking
Why is it that AI helps you progress so fast in a language, particularly when it comes to your speaking ability?
What makes it so effective?
I have found that there are 9 reasons why this is the case.
Let’s break down each one.
#1 - It gives you infinite 24/7 practice time
The main obstacle people face when trying to improve their speaking skills is getting enough practice to see real results.
Your level is not quite there to keep up with natives, so speaking becomes a stressful and painful experience, or they simply switch to English.
You can always book a language lesson (I like the platform LanguaTalk the best, which gives you a free 30-minute trial lesson with a teacher of your choice). This is great, as it lets you practice speaking in a much more relaxed environment with someone who has all the patience in the world.
But unless you take language lessons every day, it’s hard to get the volume needed to improve fast enough.
AI is available 24/7, allowing you to practice anytime, anywhere, as much as you want.
It allows you to fit in a few minutes of speaking practice throughout the day, whenever you have a moment.
Over time, this adds up in terms of volume, leading to rapid progress.
#2 - Get customized feedback to your preference
Sometimes, you might be unlucky to encounter a teacher who just corrects every mistake you make.
This gets old real quick and as you start second-guessing everything you say and it’s just plain tiring.
On the other hand, sometimes you might want to get more feedback than what the teacher is giving you.
Sure, you can tell them how you want to get feedback, but they might forget if they are used to going about it a certain way.
With AI, you just tell it: “I want you to correct one mistake in each thing I say”, “every mistake I make”, or “I don’t want you to correct me”.
It’s completely up to you, and the AI will always follow your preferences.
This is important because how you want to be corrected can vary depending on what aspect of speaking you're practicing—or even your mood that day!
Sometimes, you might want more detailed feedback to increase your awareness of hot to use the language. Other times, you might just want to keep the flow of the conversation going.
With Langua, the excellent A language learning platform I use (use code LINGTUITIVE25BF to get 25% off any yearly subscription as a Black Friday discount. Valid until Dec 6th 2024), you can get feedback in several different ways:
The AI tutor showing you how to rephrase what you just said to sound more correct and native-like.
You can see a transcript of what you said, with corrections highlighted by striking through the incorrect words.
Get a written alternative version of what you could say to express the same meaning
Get a printable pdf-rapport after your speaking session is over (perfect for if you want to know what to improve afterwards, but not during the actual conversation).
#3 - Stress-free and pressure-free practice
It's tough to get your words out in a way that makes sense when you're feeling pressure or stress.
This is especially true if you’re an introvert, since you may find it even more intimidating to speak before you feel comfortable in a language.
Personally, I’m slightly more of an extrovert (with a strong introvert bent) and I’m certainly not afraid to talk to strangers.
However, I can still feel the stress of talking in a foreign language, which hinders my ability to express myself and speak.
Talking to AI removes all of those pressures and stress, making you feel relaxed and at ease.
And when you’re relaxed, your speech will develop faster.
Over time, this helps you associate speaking as a carefree, pressure-free activity.
With AI, you can feel 100% safe making mistakes.
There’s no judgment or embarrassment because you're not speaking to a person who might react or form an opinion about what you say. However, even though most people genuinely appreciate the effort to speak their language, there’s still that feeling of being that someone is listening and might have opinions about what you say.
It’s nice to be able to speak freely without any of that so you can really go for it without holding back.
Speaking with AI, I dare say things that sound like a complete jumbled mess.
Because I know I’m the only person who’s actually going to hear it (except maybe my wife from the other room, but I’m cool with that).
Do you want to learn a language effortlessly?
Download my guide Intuitive Language Secrets to learn the principles of intuitive languages learning
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#4 - It's a great way to improve your listening skills
I often mention on this blog that I believe listening is the #1 most important skill for language learning.
Because when you understand well by listening, you’re able to follow TV shows and movies, and conversations, and have an overall increased enjoyment in the language.
It’s also the skill that has the greatest impact on your speaking ability.
Why?
Because listening allows you to naturally absorb how natives phrase things, helping you repeat words and expressions the way they would.
Some AI voices these days are so human-like, it sounds just like a real person. That’s another reason why I use Langua. It has by far the most realistic-sounding AI voices that I have ever heard.
It uses slang, emphasizes the right part of words, and inhales at all the right places—just like a real human.
Which means you actually get quality listening input from the AI voice.
By using a high-quality AI, you improve your listening skills at the same time as your speaking skills.
This will help your speaking even more, as you get used to and internalize the way natives speak, allowing you to incorporate it into your own speech.
#5 - AI doesn't get tired of your endless questions
Sometimes, we have a ton of questions but don’t want to bother people with them.
And you might not always have someone around to ask.
One of the many benefits of AI is that it never gets tired of answering your questions.
There’s no limit to getting help with anything—whether it’s spoken language, vocabulary, slang, grammar, or anything else you want to learn about.
A big advantage of using AI is its ability to understand multiple languages, which speeds things up and makes the process more efficient.
You can ask how to say a word or sentence in English (or your native language) and instantly receive a translation in your target language.
For example, if you ask, 'How do I say [insert sentence] in Italian?' you'll get an immediate and accurate response.
You can even speak entire paragraphs in your native language and receive quick, accurate translations in your target language.
A skilled language teacher can do this too, but AI has the advantage of never getting tired of answering your questions, unlike a human who eventually will.
It’s like having your own personal Yoda for language learning in your pocket (minus the weird grammar).
#6 - You train yourself to respond to the unexpected
A big challenge of speaking is being thrown a question you weren’t expecting.
It’s tough to talk about things you haven’t even fully thought through yet—especially in your native language, let alone a foreign one!
A key part of being good at speaking, especially conversations, is the ability to quickly respond to unexpected questions or topics.
It’s the difference between rattling off a bunch of pre-practiced lines to impress people (like you often see online or on YouTube) and being able to flow and improvise naturally in a conversation.
A good AI tutor will ask insightful follow-up questions and provide reactions that make you think about things you might not have considered, helping you express yourself more clearly.
This is an important part of improving your speaking, as it gives you the chance to practice responding to all sorts of unexpected situations.
#7 - Drill specific topics as much as you need
To master any skill, we need a lot of repetition.
Whether it’s playing drums, dancing ballet, or playing golf, repetition is key to make things seem effortless
Speaking is no different.
One way to see rapid improvement is to stay within a limited topic for some time.
This will improve your fluidity a lot since you’re repeating certain words and structures over and over again, making them eventually second nature.
This is what I did when I prepared for my YouTube interview in Spanish on the Spanish channel Langua Hacks, and it worked extremely well.
This particular interview was mainly about the topic of language learning.
To prepare for it, I could talk about the same topic over and over again with AI. Which helped me improve my speaking very quickly.
By focusing on specific topics, the vocabulary will stick faster due to repeated exposure. You’ll also internalize useful sentence structures, making it easier to talk about different topics later on.
AI is perfect for that since, just like it doesn’t get tired of your questions (which talked about in reason #5), it also doesn’t get tired of talking about the same topic over and over again.
With a regular person or a teacher, even if they’re not showing it, they’re eventually going to be bored.
You’ll probably feel awkward yourself if you’re needing to practice a particular topic every day:
Yeah, I’d like to talk about how I learned Japanese for the 15th time, doesn’t that sound fun?”
AI doesn’t care about that.
You can literally talk about a specific topic every single day, and it will always be there to help you with as much (though artificial) excitement.
#8 - It's brain-friendly by letting you practice in smaller chunks
To improve speaking we need a lot of volume of speaking practice.
There’s however a problem.
When speaking a language you’re not yet fluent in, it’s actually very taxing to speak.
It requires a lot of your brain power.
You get tired easily and it feels like your brain hurts (for me, it sometimes actually physically hurts).
This is a very helpful feature of AI because it allows you to practice more often but in smaller chunks.
This helps you avoid burnout while still getting the volume you need to improve fast.
#9 - Your confidence will skyrocket!
Speaking is so much about confidence.
In fact, I’d say it’s probably the most important factor.
Because when you’re confident, you’re relaxed, and when you’re relaxed you simply speak better.
And you actually want to speak.
Confidence mostly comes from having good flow (which practice volume helps with) and from being aware (which feedback helps with).
When your speech is fluid, and you’re not constantly going ‘uuummm’ and falling over the words, you will feel more comfortable, which will make you feel more confident.
This will make real conversations that much better because they will not only feel more comfortable to you but also to the person you’re speaking with, creating an overall great experience for everyone involved.
With AI, you’ll see very fast progress in your speaking because of all the volume you’re getting in.
This will give a huge boost to your confidence, which in turn will boost your motivation.
This creates an emotional state where you’ll be eager to learn more, making you improve further.
What AI is best for language learning?
When it comes to AI for language learning Langua is without a doubt the best.
It’s by far the most human-sounding AI tutor and it’s designed specifically with language learning in mind.
You get a feedback sheet after each conversation, and you can click on any word and sentence the AI tutor speaks to save it to your flashcards.
Langua also offers immersion features like videos, podcasts, the ability to import content, and AI-generated stories. These tools integrate in a neat way with the AI conversations and make Langua a complete language learning platform.
Although honestly, the AI tutor is worth the price of Langua alone.
Langua already has 19 languages available (with more coming in the future):
Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.
You can create a free Langua account that will let you try out the AI tutor briefly.
Would you like to try it?
(Use code LINGTUITIVE25BF for Langua’s Black Friday 25% off
discount on any annual plan (that’s like getting up to
5 Free months compared to the monthly plan).
Valid until: Dec 6th 2024.
Conclusion
AI is the most revolutionary tool in language learning in recent years.
It provides the easiest way to get the volume of practice that you need, whenever you want, and wherever you are.
It offers a highly personalized language learning experience, rivaling online lessons with a tutor.
The difference?
This one is available 24/7, with no need to schedule a time.
Once you try it, there’s no denying the effectiveness it has in improving your speaking. It provides a way to get your speaking chops up quickly, even if you have a busy life.
After having used Langua’s AI tutor every day for several weeks I was blown away by how quickly my speaking improved.
If speed is what you’re going for, then I know no faster way.
If you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend you give it a shot.
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