Why you can't speak English (and how to fix it in 2024)

You've been going to English classes for years but you still can't speak?

If that's your situation, don't worry.

You're not the only one and we've got a solution.

You're not the only one because most people who learn English as a second language are not able to speak it well.

This is not your fault, it's the school system's fault.

Now let's talk about the solution.

English is not my native language. It's my third language.

We all had English classes in school when growing up.

But most people who I went to school with, can't speak English.

Some people can't understand English at all.

Others understand a decent amount but can't speak.

Maybe you're too shy, afraid of making mistakes, you can't think fast enough in English to follow a conversation, etc.

Then there are those who can understand and speak, but they still make lots of mistakes and their accent is terrible.

If you speak English with lots of mistakes and a terrible accent, congratulations.

You're doing much better than most people, who can't speak at all.

Follow my advice and you'll be able to speak really well very soon.

And if you are in one of the first two groups, don't worry.

We've got a solution for you as well.

English is an easy language if you do it right.

English is easy because 2 reasons:

It has simple grammar compared to other languages.

It's vocabulary is easy to learn because a lot of it is similar to many other languages and it's also everywhere in the modern world.

What makes English difficult is pronunciation.

You don't pronounce English the way you write it.

Improving your English Comprehension

If you want to understand and speak English better, the first thing you need to do is to find some podcasts in English about topics you like and start listening to the every day.

Yes watching series, films and YouTube videos helps.

But podcasts are the real game-changer.

It's all talk, no visuals.

Put it on and listen to it daily.

Have it on while you do something else.

30 minutes a day, 1h a day, 2h a day...

It doesn't matter if you don't understand much at first.

Simply keep doing it.

I promise that in a few weeks or months, you'll understand everything.

It is really as simple as that.

But this is not only about listening comprehension.

Listening to English daily will massively boost your speaking as well.

You will never speak well if you don't listen enough.

Listening helps you speak better, because you start imitating the accent, you learn expressions, you start thinking faster and faster in the language, etc.

Speaking practice

Now let's talk about speaking.

If you already understand English but you can't speak, you need more speaking practice.

The good news is that you don't need anyone to practice.

You can do all these exercises on your own.

Don't listen to those clowns telling you things like "simply immerse yourself in the language" or "just move to the country where they speak the language" and "just talk to native speakers".

What if you don't know anyone?

What if speaking to native speakers is too intimidating for you?

What if you can't or don't want to move to another country?

Instead of life-changing decisions, huge investments in time and money and activities that require a lot of willpower.

Let's look at easy exercises you can do at home on your own to improve your speaking.

Low investment, no pressure.

The only thing you need is a computer with internet access.

Speaking is divided in three main sub-skills:

1. Fluency: the ability to express yourself smoothly and effortlessly.

2. Accuracy: making the least amount of grammar and vocabulary mistakes possible.

3. Pronunciation: sounding as similar as possible to a native speaker.

You need to improve at these three skills as much as possible.

You can do it at home on your own with these simple exercises.

Fluency

There are 2 main exercises you can do on your own to improve your fluency in the language:

1. Language Islands.

2. Questions & Answers.

Language Islands are groups of sentences for a specific topic or situation.

You memorise and practice them until you can say them effortlessly.

Doing this with good 1,000 sentences is enough to become conversational in any language fast.

The Q&A exercise is for intermediate and advanced levels.

Basically a list of questions about a specific topic that you have to answer in speaking.

This is excellent training for real conversation.

Because it forces you to think fast and answer in the moment.

You can find some lists online, create your own using AI or use mine from the NLL course.

Accuracy

This is the best and only exercise you will ever need to learn grammar in a new language.

Translation into the language.

You simply have to take a bilingual text (or create your own).

Translate into the target language mentally.

Saying the sentence in the target language aloud.

And comparing it with the original translation.

Repeat it aloud correctly if you got it wrong.

You can do this in writing as well.

Although it's more time consuming.

Doing this daily is all you need to learn all the grammar and fix all the mistakes.

The Language Islands I talked about in the previous part are perfect to start with this exercise.

Pronunciation

Finally, let's talk about pronunciation.

There are 2 main exercises you need to do:

1. Listen & repeat

2. Shadowing

You need to listen and repeat native speaker sentences aloud.

Hundreds of them every day.

Trying to sound as close as possible.

Imitating the accent and intonation.

Shadowing is the same but simultaneous instead of pausing after the sentences.

Remember that for this to be effective.

You need massive amounts of listening time.

Ok but how do I implement all this?

The Plan

Now what you need is a simple plan that includes all these things.

To improve your comprehension and speaking skills daily.

A simple plan that will help you stay consistent with the exercises.

If you aren't already, I recommend using a daily planner and including all these exercises there.

I recommend starting with 30 minutes of reading and vocabulary memorisation a day plus 30 minutes of listening as a beginner.

And adding 30 minutes of speaking exercises once you understand a decent amount.

Don't worry about the intermediate plateau.

You just have to keep going.

Keep doing these exercises and adding more and more complex content and topics for the reading, listening and speaking practice.

That's all you need to do.

Keep doing this every day and you will speak fluent English in a few weeks.

And if you want to become an efficient language learning machine, join Natural Language Learning.