Final results: 30-day speaking challenge
I have been doing a 30-day speaking challenge in Ukrainian. Every day, I set a timer for 5 minutes and spoke out loud on various topics, without preparing in advance. I then counted the number of words that I strung together coherently. More coherent words = more fluency.
Today was the final day.
I ended up doing 35 days and I would like to recap the final results. I will also tell you what inspired me to take on this challenge and what I have learned about language learning as a whole over the past 35 days.
Let’s dive right in!
Why this challenge.
I had been focused on listening for a couple of months and was curious about how well I could speak. I am trying to reach an intermediate level, so being able to actually hold conversations matters.
How the challenge went.
Here’s a results summary.
Week 1: I was speaking slowly. The main problem was that I had no confidence and had done 0 practice.
Week 2: Big breakthrough on day 6 (38.5 words per minute). I decided to speak without relying on Google Translate as a crutch. To my great surprise, I was much more fluent.
Week 3: Confidence kept building, as did my speech rate. Day 7 I hit a personal best of 45 words per minute. Woot!
Week 4 and 5: Results stabilized, hovering at around 45 words per minute. I’ll comment on this momentarily.
What this shows.
First of all, the 30-day challenge has given me firsthand experience of something that is true among CLN students: speech rates max out roughly at one’s vocabulary level. In other words, with intermediate vocabulary, your speech rate level will also be approximately intermediate.
Let me show you what I mean. Here’s are fluency levels specifically for Ukrainian. I’ve highlighted my level in each category. As you can see, both my my vocabulary and speech rates are high-beginner.
Speech rate mirrors vocabulary.
Practice sometimes helps.
People say that to speak more fluently, you just need to practice. This is true… but only to an extent.
If your speech rate is significantly below your vocabulary level, you likely need to practice more. However, if your speech rate and vocabulary levels are similar, more practice won’t make a difference.
Instead, you need to listen and read as a way to learn more words. Your speech is clunky not because you don’t practice, but because you don’t know nearly enough words to express yourself.
What’s next.
Keep learning! I am doing an experiment to see how long it takes me to reach an intermediate level of fluency. I’m strictly using the methods and resources I’ve recently created at CLN.
I chose Ukrainian because I knew nothing about it, giving me 0 advantages. All I knew is that we have lots of Ukrainians in my city and I thought it’d be fun to talk with them in their language.
It’s working so far.
I am on track to learn Ukrainian faster than any other language I speak. I don’t, however, want to put the cart before the horse, so I’ll just keep going we’ll see how the dust settles at the end.
Thanks for reading!
Azren
Calgary Language Nerds owner
https://azrenthelanguagenerd.com