How To Practice A Language Without A Speaking Partner

"Let me practice my english on you!"

The mistake My girlfriend and I had made was painfully clear. We had just crossed the Romania-Ukrainian border to catch the connecting train that would departing in a few hours.

We hadn't off-lined the translation app in Google Translate.

I felt like I was Yarn in India Jones and the Last Crusade.

"Does anyone here speak english?"

The train station, the only english we could understand was "No Train".

"BUT!..." the annoyed face of the woman behind the rusted metal bars made it clear. No Train...

We were stuck in a tiny town that looked half way between a communist dystopia and the wild west.

We walked into one of the few restaurants, and after 20 minutes of charades, we ordered what we hoped was coffee and pizza.

When our order arrived, we were pleasantly surprised to see that the charades had worked. Then we heard a voice from behind us:

"Hallo, may I practice my english on you?" bellowed an enthusiastic man.

Andrej was one of the few english speakers who lived in the city, so he was excited to be able to practice. For the next 3 hours, he showed us around, taught us about the local culture, and helped us get a bus to replace the non-existent train.

Use It Or Lose It

The desire and need to practice a language is massive, and it can be challenging to find a partner who can give you good feedback. While in Ukraine, we met a woman who's entire "Bizzeeness" it was to help businessmen speak more clearly so they could do business with the rest of the world.

The SOLE Experiment

In India, there was a professor who believed that those who desire to learn and are curious don't need a teacher. He tested this by putting a hole in the wall of his office, which backed up to a very poor neighborhood, and installed a computer with some educational games. After 6 months, when he spoke to the group of children who had been playing with his computer, their first request of him was "We need a faster CPU and a better mouse".

This was the beginning of what he called "Self Organized Learning Environments".

He tried this experiment many more times, one was particularly fascinating in terms of language. It was a computer with an english text to speech program. You would talk into it, and then it would display the english words it thought you spoke. After 6 months of playing with this computer, in a remote village, the children and some of the adults in the village spoke basic english with a clear british accent.

The Perfect Language Coach

The challenge with learning a language in isolation is lack of a speaking partner, and lack of a partner who will give you constructive feedback.

So here's my suggestion for the Perfect Language Coach.

Download an app like Speechnotes or use the Speech To Text (STT) feature on your smart phone keyboard.

Grab a book in the language you desire to practice.

Read the book aloud to your phone.

The STT program used in the SOLE experiments wasn't very accurate. Most desktop based STT programs are about 70% accurate or less.

If you're speaking english, Google's STT service (The one integrated into the Android keyboard, and the one used by Speechnotes) has a 95% accuracy rating for a clear, neutral US accent, and similarly for the neutral british accent. Apple's, IBM's, and even Microsoft's STT services are all 90%+ accurate for english with a neutral accent and clear pronunciation.

In other languages, you're more likely to get similar results to the SOLE experiment with an estimated 70% accuracy for French and German.

You'll get the instant feedback that will help you correct your pronunciation, and you get practice speaking and reading the language.