Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World

Online Language Exchange
What we’ve talked about so far applies to in-person meetings and media,
but there is a whole new world of opportunities awaiting you!
A few decades ago you would have been right in saying that getting
spoken-language practice while living in more remote areas, or with a less
common language, was too hard to accomplish. But today we have a
wonderful resource connecting us with native speakers just about anywhere
—the Internet. With this, there is really no excuse for not finding
opportunities to practice your target language.
For those of us who speak English as a native language, there are
countless people from other countries eager to get some English practice. If
you provide them with thirty minutes of your time to chat in English and
answer some of their questions, then they will teach you their language free
of charge.
This language-exchange idea is popular, especially online. English and
other languages are in high demand, so you can find an exchange much
more easily than you think.
My favorite way to do language exchanges is on a site dedicated to that
purpose, such as Italki. You can search for language partners, arrange a time
in advance, and see references from others who have spoken to a particular
person before, so you know whether this person is more likely to be helpful
and friendly. Connect to my profile by signing up via fi3m.com/italki.
Other places to find language partners include forums, such as the free
one on my site (fi3m.com/forum), where people post their languages
offered and anyone interested can get in touch for your Skype details.
Alternative sites to search for language partners are mentioned in chapter
10. There are many options, so with a little searching you will indeed find

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speaking opportunities that could theoretically keep you busy many hours
each day using your target language.
You can also arrange for paid lessons online. While one-on-one lessons
may seem beyond your budget, when you are interacting with people in
countries where you can leverage currency differences, you can get
excellent lessons for a good price. An hour of Chinese lessons from a good
teacher who doesn’t live in a major city, such as Beijing or Shanghai, can be
easily found for five dollars or so an hour on Italki. The same goes for
French teachers based in Africa, Spanish teachers in South America, and so
on.
Thanks to the wonderful opportunities on the web, I was able to learn
the majority of my Egyptian Arabic entirely online while staying in Belo
Horizonte, deep within Brazil. In this city, I couldn’t find a single speaker
of the dialect I was focused on, but I still managed to speak it for several
hours each day, thanks to my online teachers. After three months of
speaking exclusively via Skype, I was ready to go to Egypt and travel using
conversational Arabic, which helped me appreciate my time there much
more than if I had arrived just to study or knowing next to nothing of the
language. When preparing this book, I learned Japanese while living in
Valencia, Spain, similarly practicing for hours each day via Skype.
Now that you know how to find native speakers and remember words
and phrases, it’s time to actually speak your target language.