If you ask “How can I learn to speak German better?”, many people will tell you “Practice, practice, practice”.
“Speak whenever you can”, they’ll say.
The idea behind it is actually very simple: The more you do something, the better you get.
“Practice makes perfect” people say, doesn’t it?
But what is it that you’re actually getting better at when you are “practicing speaking”?
Unfortunately, for many learners (especially at the beginner and low intermediate stages), “practicing speaking” means repeatedly making mistakes.
And you’ll notice this simply by listening to beginner and intermediate students.
Many students make a mistake in every sentence! And they repeat those mistakes over and over again even though they are being corrected.
So, what is it that they are actually “practicing”?
TOXIC HABITS!
When you say incorrect sentences over and over again, you develop a bad habit which becomes your natural way of speaking German.
Such bad habits can be very difficult to break. Even if somebody later points out your mistake and you concentrate very hard to avoid making it again, the bad habit is often stronger. It’s an uphill battle.
Every time you speak with mistakes, you reinforce those mistakes. As you repeat your mistakes, you develop bad habits.
If you make a lot of mistakes, “practice” becomes a harmful activity because it teaches you more bad German than good German.
Some learners make so many mistakes that the more they practice, the worse their German becomes!
Some students may even develop their own German dialect full of faulty speech patterns which they repeat over and over again.
So what’s the solution then?
First, get more INPUT!
Only through input like reading and listening will you learn correct German sentences and get a feel for how things are expressed accurately in German. (Click here to read what the research says.)
At the end of the day, only if you get a feel for the language will you be able to speak correctly without thinking.
Because what happens subconsciously when you make a mistake is the following:
Let’s say you are about to say something. A complex idea based on your ability to express things in your mother tongue pops up.
But expressing it in German might still be too challenging compared to expressing it in English.
You start feeling discomfort because there might be many words you’re still missing and you might be unsure as to how to arrange them.
Now, what do you resort to facing this challenge?
Of course, you resort to the best tool you have at your disposal, your mother tongue.
You’ll start “padding”, which means using the knowledge from your mother tongue, supplying what is known to make up for what is not known.
So you’ll say things in German the way you’d say them in English. You’ll start “translating” unconsciously and saying things like:
Dann ich gehe zur Schule. (Then I go to school.)
Instead of:
Dann gehe ich zur Schule.
Or
Wenn ich war jung,… (When I was young…)
instead of:
Als ich jung war, …
Or:
Ich kann nicht erinnern. (I can not remember.)
Instead of:
Ich kann mich nicht erinnern.
You may even resort to directly inserting English words and expressions in your German speech:
Ich war worried über sie. (I was worried about her.)
Instead of:
Ich habe mir Sorgen um sie gemacht.
The dangerous thing is that you will still likely be understood (unless you are speaking to someone who has never heard English before). This will create a FALSE positive reinforcement, which is harmful to your German learning.
The “cure” for these types of padding is simply the cure for ignorance: more input so you gain a better feel for how things are expressed correctly in German.
If you make mistakes in your German sentences, that means you don’t know how to say things in German. You need to learn how to say them.
You won’t learn that by speaking. You must read and listen to correct German sentences.
There is no other way.
If you keep reading and listening to correct German sentences, this input gives you the necessary intuition.
After a while, many correct German phrases will ”sound” correct to you — you will intuitively know that they’re correct because you will have seen them or heard them many times. Because you will be sure they’re correct, you will not be afraid to say them.
Don’t believe that it’s possible?
Consider that you probably already have an intuition about some simple German sentences. “Mir geht es gut.” and “Es kommt darauf an.” probably sound correct to you, while “Ich bin gut.” and “Es kommt an” sound wrong.
Why do they sound wrong?
Because you’ve been reading and listening to German. All you have to do is keep getting input, and you’ll have the same intuition about other sentences.
Second, when you speak, always try to speak correct German.
Try your best at not making mistakes.
Try to find the right balance between where you really are right now, what you can express and what you still might not be able to express.
You can do this by trying to speak slower and in a simpler way.
When you look at German sentences produced by learners, there is a big difference between a learner who carelessly speaks sentence after sentence, and a learner who is trying to avoid mistakes.
Take a look at very successful students like Dan.
In the “From Zero to C1” program you can listen to a lot of open, free conversations with me and him in the series “German with Herr Professor” in the Vault.
Of course, he makes mistakes in those conversations.
But you can sense his attitude of trying to speak correctly, of pacing himself, simplifying things, and trying to keep it short when he feels the challenge is too big with what he is attempting to express.
So, when you speak, slow down, pace yourself and simplify things. For example by:
- slowing down your rhythm of speech, e.g. don’t speak at your “normal (mother tongue)” rate of speech at 150 words/minute but maybe at 100 words/minute.
- answering in a shorter way e.g. just saying 1 or 2 sentences instead of a 3-minute speech
- expressing things in a simple way e.g. by trying to use words and structures you are already familiar with
Here’s what to do next:
Whenever you’re ready to take the next step, you can check my courses that will help you become more fluent, confident and accurate in speaking here.