How to improve foreign language skills: 20 secrets to find balance and build fluency

Watch Foreign Language Media

Don’t let a textbook or language course limit which words and grammar points you learn.

If you want to know which phrases are used in real life, you have to see how they’re used in a realistic setting. And what’s more realistic than foreign news, music, television shows and movies?
The truth of the matter is that foreign language media is one of the most underutilized secrets of grammar language learning.
If you’re wondering how to learn a language by watching movies, there are tons of ways to do so. You can watch dubbed versions of movies you’ve already seen, memorize songs from the soundtrack or change the captions on the streaming service to your target language.
Pressed for time or don’t have the patience for an entire movie? Another strategy is dividing the film into half-hour chunks, writing down new words and structures as you watch each segment. This also works well with television shows since episodes are much shorter. Ergo, they’re more digestible as vocabulary or grammar lessons.
Give Yourself a “Word of the Day”

To stay on top of vocab practice, make it a habit to learn one word a day.

By giving yourself this little language learning challenge, you’re turning passive vocabulary into active vocabulary. Rather than memorizing words on flashcards, you find ways to apply the new terms in your day-to-day. You can do this by incorporating your “word of the day” in conversations or in an entry in your language journal.
You don’t even need to read or write the word down, although it’s good practice to do so. Just thinking about the word is enough, given that you’re recalling the definitions and formulating sentences with the word in your head.
Wow, that was a lot to go through but so worth it! By separating the language skills, you have a better understanding of how to develop each on its own, as well as a skill in conjunction with another.
Now that you have all the tips and tricks to advance your foreign language skills, fluency is just around the corner! Just keep at it!