How to Practise Speaking a New Language… Without the Anxiety Rush!

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I felt lost.

I’d finished school, where I’d fallen in love with languages, and I wanted to keep learning. But I no longer had a teacher to tell me how to learn.

I tried a few things, but nothing seemed to be working. So I turned to my trusty friend Google and typed “how to learn a language” into the search bar.

One piece of advice kept coming up: get out there and speak your new language. If you’ve spent much time on Fluent in 3 Months, you’ll recognise it.

Back then, as a self-identified introvert and shy person, speaking my new languages felt like the last thing I wanted to do. The advice was useful. I just wasn’t ready to follow it in the most obvious way.

In a twist I couldn’t have predicted, I later became Community Manager for the Add1Challenge, the programme now known as the Fluent in 3 Months Bootcamp. At the time, though, I rebelled. I bought every coursebook my local bookshop had to offer and spent far too much time on LiveMocha. None of it moved me towards the conversations I wanted.

If my goal had only been to watch television or read a favourite author in another language, that might have been fine. But I wanted real conversations. I wanted to meet people from other countries, see the world and be more independent when I travelled.

I was afraid of speaking, but I was drawn to it too. So I looked for ways to start on my terms: exercises that worked with my personality and made the next step feel manageable.

A note from the Fluent in 3 Months team before we get started: You can chat away with a native speaker for at least 15 minutes with the “Fluent in 3 Months” method. All it takes is 90 days. Tap this link to find out more.

What’s All the Fuss About Speaking?

You don’t have to make speaking your main goal. If you want to read novels, follow films or listen to podcasts, it makes sense to spend more time on reading and listening.

But if you want conversations, you need practice retrieving words and shaping them into speech. Quiet study can support that skill, but it doesn’t replace using it.

That doesn’t mean your first step has to be a long video call with a stranger. Solo exercises can make speaking feel less unfamiliar. They prepare you for interaction; they don’t replace it.

Why Is Speaking So Scary?

Speaking can pile several demands on you at once. You’re retrieving words, arranging grammar, producing unfamiliar sounds, listening to another person and wondering how you’re coming across. A blank mind or a clumsy sentence can feel way more public than a mistake in a workbook.

Not everyone experiences that pressure in the same way. If a live conversation feels like too much today, you can lower one source of pressure at a time: choose a familiar topic, keep the exchange short, use audio instead of video or practise asynchronously first.

A Plunge Into the Deep End, or Small Steps?

Some learners enjoy arranging a call and working things out as they go. Others do better with a gradual build-up. Neither route is a character test. Pick a step that stretches you without making you dread the next one.

Here are two useful starting points:

1. Practise saying things aloud on your own, so the physical and mental act of producing the language becomes more familiar.
2. Choose one concrete reason to speak. It might be chatting with family, ordering food on a trip, joining a community, using the language at work or understanding where your active vocabulary has gaps.

Your reason doesn’t need to sound impressive. It only needs to matter enough that you’ll come back for another short practice session.

Speaking to Yourself: Why Solo Rehearsal Helps

Solo speaking gives you time to coordinate unfamiliar sounds, retrieve words and notice where you get stuck. Repeating the same short talk can also make that particular talk more fluent.

There are limits. Talking to yourself won’t train you to understand an unexpected reply, take turns, repair a misunderstanding or adjust to another person’s way of speaking. That’s why the exercises below work best as preparation for voice messages and short conversations.

How to Get Speaking Practice Without a Conversation Partner

These 15 exercises let you control the topic, timing and amount of pressure. Start with one or two, then use what you’ve rehearsed with another person.

1. Use Your Phone’s Voice Assistant

If your phone or smart speaker supports your target language, change its language settings and try a few simple requests. A successful response is a rough sign that the system recognised your words.

It isn’t a pronunciation exam. Speech recognition can mishear clear speech and accept unclear speech, and its performance varies by language, accent, device and background noise. Treat the result as one clue, not a verdict.

2. Try Voice-to-Text

Open a notes app, select your target language for dictation and say a short sentence. The transcript can reveal words the system repeatedly fails to recognise, giving you something specific to check against a reliable recording or with a teacher.

Again, this is indirect feedback. A correct transcript does not prove that every sound, stress pattern or tone was accurate.

3. Talk to Yourself When No One’s Listening

Narrate what you’re doing, describe the room or tell the story of your day so far. When a missing word stops you, note it, look it up after the exercise and try the sentence again.

I also use this to rehearse what I might say to a language exchange partner. The real conversation will take its own course, but having an opening ready makes it easier to begin.

4. Talk at a Friend

Ask a trusted friend or family member to listen for a minute, even if they don’t know the language. You get the small increase in pressure that comes from having an audience without also having to understand a reply.

They can’t judge your grammar or pronunciation, but they can tell you where you hesitated or became hard to hear. Agree on what kind of feedback you want before you start.

5. Record Your Voice

Record a 60-second answer to a familiar question, listen back and choose one thing to improve. You might notice a long pause, a repeated filler or a word you want to check.

For pronunciation work, compare your recording with an accurate model of the same sentence. Self-review is useful, but a teacher or proficient speaker may hear distinctions you don’t yet notice.

6. Record a Video

Video adds facial expression, posture and eye contact to the review. If those things make you self-conscious, keep the clip private. Sharing it is optional, and you can ask one trusted person for focused feedback instead of posting publicly.

7. Read Aloud

Read a short passage that comes with reliable audio, then listen and read it again. This gives you a model for sounds, rhythm and phrasing.

Reading aloud practises delivering prepared language, not creating a response on the spot. Pair it with a brief unscripted summary if spontaneous speaking is your goal.

8. Use Call-and-Response Lessons

Audio courses such as Pimsleur and Michel Thomas pause for you to repeat a phrase or answer a prompt. The pause matters: try to retrieve the answer before the course supplies it, then compare what you said with the model.

9. Sing Along

Find music you enjoy in your target language and learn the lyrics. Singing can make repetition enjoyable and draw your attention to rhythm and connected sounds.

Bear in mind that singers may stretch syllables, alter stress or use poetic wording. Use songs as one source of sound practice, not your only model for everyday speech.

10. Use Translation Tools Carefully

A translation app can play a word or sentence aloud, and some can transcribe what you say. That makes it convenient for a quick model-and-record exercise.

Check the translation before copying it, especially when context or formality matters. Its speech recognition is still only a rough check on recognisability, while text-to-speech may not represent every natural regional or conversational feature.

11. Try Shadowing

In shadowing, you repeat incoming speech with only a very short delay, continuing while the recording continues. That makes it different from pausing after each line and repeating it.

Choose a short, clear clip that is comfortably within your level. Listen for meaning first, check a transcript if you need it, then shadow a few seconds at a time while copying the speaker’s rhythm and phrasing. If simultaneous repetition is too demanding, begin with listen-and-repeat and reduce the gap gradually.

12. Keep a Voice Journal

Record one or two minutes about your day without scripting every sentence. Afterwards, note one missing expression and one sentence you want to say more clearly. Record the same topic again the next day and listen for a change.

13. Send Voice Messages

Voice notes are a useful bridge between solo practice and live conversation. You still speak to a real person, but you can plan your message, record it again if needed and listen to the reply in your own time.

Ask an exchange partner or friend whether they’re happy to practise this way. Start with one short question and one short answer rather than exchanging five-minute monologues.

14. Imitate a Speaker You Understand

Close imitation can focus your attention on sounds, stress and rhythm. Pick a speaker whose recording is clear, work with one sentence and copy what you actually hear rather than what you expect from the spelling.

If you want a structured version of this approach, my review of the Mimic Method explains its sound-first exercises. No course can promise a particular accent, so judge progress by clearer, easier communication and the goals that matter to you.

15. Use a Sentence-Repetition Tool

Sentence-based tools can give you a ready supply of short models. Glossika, for example, includes a recording option in both its full-practice and listening-only modes. You can record each sentence, replay your attempt and compare it with the supplied audio.

Repetition makes the practised material more familiar, but leave some time for sentences of your own. Try changing one detail in a model or using its pattern to answer a new question.

Turn Solo Practice Into a Real Conversation

Choose two exercises and use them for ten minutes. Then move the same material one step closer to interaction: send a voice note, ask a tutor one question or arrange a five-minute call. Solo practice has done its job when it helps you make that move.

If speaking still feels overwhelming, make the next step smaller. And if you want a structured approach to the confidence side of speaking, Shannon’s Courage to Speak course works through those barriers with gradual exercises and practical mindset shifts.