People who speak a single language perceive fluency as an ideal. It encompasses a concept of being able to speak freely, without pauses to think of vocabulary and grammar. A fluent speaker has mastered the language. To the language professional though, fluency is a slippery slope. Someone with conversational fluency may be able to talk about everyday subjects easily, grammatically, fluently – but be lost for words when the conversation moves onto the intricacies of playing cricket or baseball, or conversely be bamboozled by a discussion on late 19^th century art. A street urchin selling souvenirs in a souk might speak half a dozen languages fluently, but not grammatically – and more in depth conversation might reveal that their vocabulary is limited.

The traditional way of learning a language academically involves a lot of translation accompanied with learning vocabulary (which is relevant to the translation work). The advantage of such an approach is that it develops your formal knowledge of grammar and the translations can be tailored to make the vocabulary relevant to the learner. However, most people learning this way find it extremely difficult to speak well or fluently – with language graduates from university often failing basic conversation tests when they finally reach a country where they can speak the language. They know individual phrases, a lot of words and a lot of grammar to hold it together, but have had very little experience bringing the words together. Learning this way also means that in order to speak in the foreign language, often you have to think of what you want to say in your native language, then translate each word and add the appropriate grammar. This process requires a lot of mental energy and is very slow. This was how I initially learnt Russian, and it was spectacularly unsuccessful. Even a small sentence required me to hold about 20 pieces of information in my head at any one time. Sentences were painfully slow to speak and difficult to put together.

A better way to learn

Learning a language through translation is only part of the puzzle and should be kept as a small part if you want to develop fluency. Language is learnt for communication – not for translation, so why learn via translation? A big problem with this sort of learning is that most people will learn words as individual words, without context. However, it is the context which gives words meaning. If you look up a dictionary you will often find half a dozen meanings for any word, depending on context. So it makes sense to learn words within context.

Secret Number 1: Learn words in context.

Instead of learning le chat as “cat”, learn an entire sentence. This means you absorb the grammar associated with the word as well. So le chat suddenly becomes “Est-ce que tu as un chat?” (Do you have a cat?) or perhaps “Le chat noir est sur la table” (The black cat is on the table). The advantage of this is that you are always working with sentences and so always have living example of the word in use in front of you and that the word is being actively used with context and meaning.

Secret Number 2: Use images.

People who often seem to speak languages well, don’t think in terms of an actual word, when they want to say “cat” in French, they don’t think of “cat” in English and then think “chat” (this often happens as the result of learning via translation), they see an image of a cat and immediately think of word in the language they are thinking it. It is an automatic association that is faster, and seems to reflect how we mostly use our native language. Visual memory is also extremely powerful, so by adding images you also make it easier to remember the vocabulary. So when using vocabulary cards, add images. If you can draw, you can draw the images onto the card, otherwise, make vocabulary cards on the computer and paste images from Google images into the flash card. This means you can then have vocabulary cards using a combination of images and words.

Est-ce que tu as un ?

The reverse side of the card can have the full sentence and any other information, which is relevant, such as gender, pronunciation information, conjugation or declensions. Use colour and images to stimulate visual memory. To represent that chat is a masculine word, you could put it in blue, for example, so you have another visual reminder of the grammar necessary when you use the word. Because the reverse side of the card is also in your target language, you are also constantly practising thinking in your foreign language. Good preparation for the real thing. Dictionaries almost always have examples of a word in use which you can use as part of the learning process. If the dictionary is any good, you will always be learning correctly. The sentences are often transferable, so in real life you might not want to ask someone if they have un chat, but maybe if they have a boyfriend… Est-ce que tu as un copain? or girlfriend… Est-ce que tu as une copine? Of course, if you don’t care, you might need to make use of this phrase “Je ne savais pas qu’elle avait un copain” (I didn’t know she had a boyfriend).

Secret Number 3: Subject cards

There are always going to be things you will find yourself talking about. These will include yourself, your hobbies and interests. If you are English, then perhaps the weather… Write out subject cards to cover sentences vocabulary and grammatical phrases which you need to discuss the subject. You might also want to write subject cards for going to a café or restaurant, travelling on the metro or taking a bus/taxi, asking directions, or visiting a doctor or pharmacist. Write short conversations for yourself with each subject card covering everything you can think of in a conversation. Learn useful phrases which you know you will want to use when talking to someone. These might include such useful phrases as “I like pizza and beer” to “I want to do extreme skiing in the Austrian Alps.” Both phrases are equally useful in my experience (I have never used either of them). By creating a number of subject cards and practising the words and phrases you expect you’ll need the most, you can increase your functional fluency for parts of the language which are relevant to you. This can take a bit of time and require a little bit of imagination but are beneficial in building up fluency and vocabulary. Again, add as much imagery to the subject cards as possible. Act out conversations, the more senses you involve, the better you will remember the vocabulary. It is partially for this reason that immersive learning can be so effective because you can hear, feel, smell the linguistic environment which creates stronger memories.

If you want to learn more great ways to learn and master foreign languages, purchase Peter D Campbell’s book Language Learning Secrets Revealed: How anyone can learn a language or book a consultation with Peter.

About the author: Peter D Campbell is a professional Russian to English translator and journalist with over ten years translation experience. Peter speaks fluent Russian, has a degree in Latin and can speak conversational French. He has written three books and two novellas, all available from Amazon.com.