Learning a language at the intermediate level is as daunting as it is rewarding.
If you listen in on full-fledged conversations, you can recognize most words and eventually piece together their contents. You’re finally able to read entire chapters with only minimal use of Google Translate. When you speak, your diction is notably more natural than when you first began your language- learning journey.
But oftentimes, you hit a plateau. While you know a plethora of vocabulary words, tackling an entire novel or movie without subtitles is an intimidating challenge. When you speak, there are unnatural pauses or stilted translations—mistakes you know native speakers wouldn’t make. It seems like the only way to improve is by memorizing more words and practicing with conversation partners, but progress only seems to come in increments.
Speaking from personal experience, these struggles are amplified by introversion. The mere idea of going out of my way to search for conversation partners, scouring the Internet and my contacts to find someone for me to meet several times a month is simply too strenuous. I’m currently taking well-structured, populated language classes at Rutgers where much of the preparatory materials are already available, but many people don’t have this luxury.
Therefore, the following tips can help you improve your skills without needing to compromise your comfort.
Replace your current tools with a foreign language
Find something low-stakes in your daily life, and find a way to implement your language into it.
To improve my reading skills, I click the “Español” hyperlink on the New York Times website and go through articles written entirely in Spanish, spending perhaps ten minutes each morning catching up on current events while also naturally encountering new vocabulary to take note of.
I also change my phone settings to match my new language. Rather than keeping my phone in English, I recently decided to set it in Korean. Because I already have preexisting knowledge of where my apps are located and what notifications usually say (such as “allow this one time” and “always allow” when taking photos), the barrage of foreign text isn’t overwhelming. Instead, I can absorb what words and phrases replace my familiar English ones, and whatever I can’t translate is something new for me to learn.
Watch short content, especially vlogs
I love vlogs. They’re engaging, succinct, and, most importantly, allow you to hear a language in its natural form. Whereas diction may seem more formal in books or academic texts, hearing casual slang will better prepare you for real-life scenarios while ultimately enhancing your listening comprehension.
When I type the word “vlog” in my target language in YouTube’s search bar, I’m greeted with an abundance of videos starring native speakers making content about their daily lives. Regardless of their niche, these ten-to-twenty minute videos all act as brief windows into their creator’s language, identity, and culture.
And, as a bonus, the extensive number of comments are often also in your target language, and you can take note of new slang and typing quirks of different countries.