Q&A for How to Become Fluent in a Language

It really depends on how intensive your studies are and how often you're practicing. It also depends on how often you actually use that language in your everyday life. The more opportunities you get to use the language, the faster you'll become fluent!

I like to recommend something I call the "language plank." It's a really simple technique. You choose an open-ended question and you try to answer it by talking for 1 minutes straight. If that's too hard, you can do 30 seconds, or 10 seconds. This way, you'll get used to talking for extended periods of time and responding to questions.

I'm quite fond of an app called Piko. It's the best Chinese dictionary out there in my opinion. I'm not sure if it's available everywhere, but it's essential if you want to learn the language on the go!

It helps to listen to as much of the language as possible through media such as music, news, podcasts, and conversing with a native speaker.

The languages you are interested in are called the Romance Languages. French, Spanish, and Italian are probably the most easily recognizable ones. No Romance Language is a pure successor to Latin. For example, Germanic tribes settled in Italy, France, and Spain bringing Germanic elements unique to each tribe into local and later national languages like Italian, French, and Spanish.

Try listening to an audio clip or a movie/video and imitate what the speaker is saying. Record yourself and compare how you speak.

Go to a library or bookstore and ask for the foreign language section. Also, find out what the Top Level Domain (TLD) is of the country of your target language and read the news on their news websites (ex. Google.com.br for Brazil). Find out the translation for "news" (ex. noticias) and put that into Google.

You will improve your fluency by getting confidence and being able to speak in front of different people, and you will also get to know different words of the language.

Duolingo is now teaching it, and you could always watch Japanese movies and try to figure out what they are saying.

If you know of specific errors, point them out to the author, publisher or website.

Look online, there are many bookstores catering to your needs.

See Learn American Sign Language . wikiHow has several other ASL articles, too.

This depends on so many different factors. How similar is the language you want to learn to your native language? If you're a native speaker of Spanish, for instance, you could become fluent in Portuguese very quickly due to the similarities. Another factor to consider is your level of motivation. If you need to use a language for work, or to communicate better with family members or friends, you will likely learn quicker than if you only had a minor interest in the language. In my opinion, you should not expect to become fluent in another language in less than a year. It's not impossible, it's just not likely. 1-3 years is a good estimate.

There is no way you can become fluent in a language in one week. The most you could possibly learn in one week would be some basic phrases. Practice as much as you can.