One of the scariest things about learning a new language is speaking it. We’re scared we’ll forget what we want to say, we’re scared we’ll make mistakes, we’re scared people will judge us. But we don’t have to be scared. If you’re struggling to make the first steps, read on to find out how to start speaking a new language for the first time.

I’ve broken things down into three stages, each with four levels to achieve to help make the process of speaking as easy as possible for you.

This way, you can easily keep track of your progress and set yourself regular goals to reach each stage. Depending on how nervous you are, how new you are to speaking different languages, or how much experience you already have with the language, you can complete the whole thing in anything from 9 days to 3 months.

I’ve created this plan with various learners in mind.

Some people may be brand new to the language and want to start building their confidence to speak right from the get go. Others may have missed that opportunity and are further down the line with the language but still struggling to start speaking. Either way, this should help you out.

Depending on your level in the language, you may be producing different length stuff. You could be speaking just words or a full-length article, no problem. The point is you’re doing it – you’re speaking.

Each activity is thought of to be adapted to your own level.

Now, let’s get into the 3 stages.

Speak to yourself (days 1-4)

To begin with, you don’t have to share anything and no-one has to hear you speak. Before you speak out loud to others, you want to feel at least a little more comfortable with speaking out loud to yourself.

Day 1 – Read something and say it out loud

Sometimes knowing what to say is the hardest part of starting to speak in a new language.

With our first step, we’re going to avoid that and read something aloud that is already written.

And because we’re still in the first 4 days of the challenge, the hardest part is probably going to be finding something to read.

So let’s make that as easy as possible too.

Use Newspaper Map to find an online newspaper in the language you’re learning and read something out loud (aka, speak!).

Or, if that sounds too much right now or you can’t find the language you’re learning, use lyrics. Check out Lyrics Translate to find a song written or translated into the language you’re learning and read that out loud instead. With this option, you can even listen to the song at the same time. Woohoo!

Still struggling to find something to read in the language you’re learning? Try Wikipedia. There are currently 301 Wikipedias in different languages (some of which are no longer actively maintained), so there’s likely to be something there for you.

The one thing that may make this stage difficult is if the language you’re learning uses a different written script to what you’re used to, and you haven’t yet fully learnt it. In this case, Try and find something with audio (such as the song lyric option) to give you some audio to try and follow too.

Once you’ve found something to read, read it out loud. It’s that simple.

At first, it may feel silly and you’ll probably feel quite conscious, especially if you’ve never done this before but go for it! As long as you’re alone when you practice, no-one is listening and you’re not recording so no-one will ever listen.

Day 2 – Listen and repeat: Shadowing

Next up, we’re going to focus on speaking using listening skills, not so much reading (although if you’d like and it’s available, you’re welcome to read along at the same time.

On day 2, listen to something and repeat what you hear as you hear it.

This is known as shadowing and is a skill in itself. So if it’s new to you, try listening to manageable chunks at a time, pausing the audio, and repeating before moving on.

Finding things to listen to will be the thing that takes most time again if you let it. So here’s the best places to look…

If there’s a Language/Class Pod101 series, you’re in luck as these courses provide great dialogues that you can use for this exercise. (that’s the link to JapanesePod101. Just click the Innovative Language logo at the bottom of the page to find other languages!)

If not, or of course if you’d simply prefer, Teach Yourself and Colloquial share the audio for many of their courses free online. Both options provide dialogues that would be good to use for this activity.

And if you’re still stuck here, try searching the name of the language in your podcast feed and you might get a podcast of religious stories that, even if you’re not religious, gives you something to use for this activity.

Day 3 – Write something + say it out loud

Now it’s time to start creating your own examples of the language. It doesn’t matter if all you know how to say is “Hello, my name is…” or if you’re already able to write a short text.

Write it down, read it back to yourself out loud.

Related – All The Writing Resources for Language Learning That You’ll Ever Need

Day 4 – Say what you want/can

Now we’re skipping that writing stage.

Speak aloud to yourself (probably in private, depending on how comfortable you feel).

You don’t have to record yet (that comes tomorrow!), you don’t have to speak a lot, you just have to say something in the language you’re learning out loud.

Related – All The Speaking Resources for Language Learning You’ll Ever Need

Record it (days 5-8)

As soon as you feel comfortable with your speaking, you want to start recording yourself. Why? A few reasons. Firstly, so you’re documenting your progress, giving you something to look back on and see how much you’ve improved. Secondly, because it can help to hold you accountable, especially once you set goals to record yourself speaking regularly.

For the next 4 days, follow the same activities as the first four days: read aloud, listen and repeat, write and speak back, and speak solo.

The only difference is, now we’re going to start recording.

Eeek! This tends to be the bit people are most afraid of. There’s no reason to be. Yes, you’re recording yourself but no, no-one else has to know (at least not yet!).

Right now, it’s just about getting used to recording your speaking practice so it becomes part of the habit you’re developing of speaking a little each day.

You can record yourself simply just with audio on your phone, or with video too. The benefit of recording video is that you see yourself speak when you watch back. You see how confident you feel (or don’t), which bits are difficult for you, which bits look easy, which bits are harder to pronounce.

There’s a lot more to language than just words so it really helps when you’ve got the visual side of things too.

Share it (day 9)

Finally, it’s time to share what you’ve been up to.

You might want to find someone you trust, such as a language partner on HelloTalk, Tandem or italki; or a tutor; or native friend to share it with.

Maybe you want to go public and post to YouTube, Facebook or Instagram.

Alternatively, share it with strangers somewhere like Lingora.

We’re going to share any one of the recordings from days 5-8, meaning that the pressure of having to do the thing, record it, AND share it each day is off.

You can focus all your energy into sharing what you’ve been doing.

And you get to decide which of the recordings from the 4 previous days you feel most comfortable with sharing. Stress levels = lowered.

What next?

Once you’re done, repeat the 4 day (recorded!) cycle of reading aloud, listening and repeating, writing and speaking back, and speaking solo. But this time, add a 5th day: sharing.

By limiting yourself to sharing once a week to begin with, you’re lowering the pressure of sharing ev-er-y-thing you record every single day, meaning that the stress and pressure that likely comes with sharing your speaking is only 1 day out of the 5. And even then, there’s multiple things you could choose from to share. Phew.

As the process continues, you’ll find yourself gradually feeling more confident with speaking that language and sharing it, meaning you’ll be ready to speak with others pretty soon. Keep finding these opportunities!