If you’re like many German learners, you’ve probably said to yourself:
“I struggle with speaking. I just need more practice, but I don’t have a language partner!”
It seems logical, right?
Speaking is a skill, so the more you practice it, the better you get.
And if you just had someone to talk to, someone to practice with, your fluency would skyrocket.
And now, thanks to technology, there’s no excuse.
You can practice speaking 24/7 with ChatGPT (see here).
- You don’t need to wait for a language partner.
- You can practice whenever you want.
- You can even ask for corrections, explanations, and hints in real-time.
The perfect solution to your problem, right?
Well, not so fast.
What if I told you that the real problem isn’t a lack of opportunities to practice speaking?
What if the real problem goes deeper?
Let’s step back for a moment.
The core issue isn’t that you don’t have someone to speak with.
The real issue is: you’re not fluent yet.
And the common belief is:
“If I practice speaking enough, fluency will follow.”
But let’s take a closer look at this assumption.
What if the belief that practicing speaking leads to fluency is flawed? What if practicing more isn’t the smartest path to fluency at all?
Let’s consider ChatGPT for a moment.
It’s incredibly fluent in so many languages, including German.
If your goal is to speak fluently and confidently like ChatGPT, wouldn’t it make sense to follow the same steps ChatGPT took to get there?
But, here’s the question:
- Did ChatGPT become fluent by practicing speaking?
- Did it get to where it is because it had endless opportunities to practice conversations?
Here’s the surprising truth: ChatGPT didn’t become fluent by practicing speaking.
Instead, ChatGPT’s fluency comes from something entirely different: Input.
ChatGPT was trained on hundreds of billions of words, an enormous amount of data.
By absorbing this input, ChatGPT learned to recognize patterns, structures, and relationships within the language, enabling it to generate fluent and coherent responses.
Let’s think about this for a moment.
Imagine if ChatGPT were trained by simply practicing speaking incorrect sentences over and over.
It wouldn’t be fluent.
It would sound awkward, full of mistakes.
The same applies to you.
Practicing speaking without a strong foundation of input can lead to:
- Translating from your native language, creating unnatural sentences.
- Repeating mistakes, which become bad habits that are hard to break.
- Feeling frustrated because your speech doesn’t “flow.”
So, what’s the alternative?
Instead of focusing on speaking, focus on input, what linguists call comprehensible input (see here).
- Listen to German podcasts, YouTube videos, and audiobooks.
- Read books, articles, and websites in German.
- Absorb correct sentences in context.
When you focus on input, something magical happens:
Words, phrases, and sentences start to “pop up” naturally when you speak.
You’ll no longer need to translate in your head.
Speaking will feel effortless because you’ve absorbed the patterns of the language.
And don’t just take my word for it, think about how you learned your native language.
As children, we all started with listening.
We spent years hearing our parents and the world around us before we spoke our first sentences.
Speaking wasn’t something we forced, it came as a natural result of input.
The same principle applies to learning German.
So, if you’re ready to stop struggling and start building true fluency, here’s your next step:
In our program “Double Your Confidence in Speaking” we use exactly this strategy to help you go from:
“I feel nervous when speaking and afraid of making mistakes or being put on the spot.”
to become fluent and confident in your day-to-day conversations.
It’s a learning system designed for busy professionals that’s easy to integrateinto your life.
Click here to get on the waiting list of “Double Your Confidence in Speaking” so you don’t miss out.
Talk to you soon. Bis bald.
Gruß
Manuel