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

A Stranger Is Just a Friend You Haven’t Met Yet
There are no strangers here, only friends you haven’t yet met.
—W. B. Y
EATS
I always keep this Irish saying in mind when I’m out and about and notice
someone who seems worth talking to or an interesting language learning
opportunity appears. This can also be applied to all the “strangers” you can
connect with online.
There are so many ways to practice your target language without
traveling abroad. Here is a recap of ideas:

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Check out Couchsurfing.org, InterNations.org, Meetup.com, or the groups
on any of the social networking sites like Facebook and Google+. You’re
bound to connect with people who speak the language you wish to
practice.
Do a search on Italki.com (sign up at fi3m.com/italki first) for a language
partner who wants to learn your target language, or find an affordable
private teacher. In both cases, practice the language using Skype.
To see the video of Moses and me speaking multiple languages in a mall in
Columbus, Ohio, or to check out Moses’s videos demonstrating how he
frequently does this, go to fi3m.com/moses.
For up-to-date website suggestions, encouragement for approaching
people, videos, and other links relevant to this chapter, see fi3m.com/ch–4.

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CHAPTER 5

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Speaking from Day One
Start speaking a new language right away with easy-to-follow
“cheats” for when you don’t know the words you want to say.
W
e have finally arrived at the most important advice I give anyone who is
serious about learning to speak a language: you have to speak it from day
one.
Studying for eons until some vague “I’m ready” day is not the way to go
about it. Speaking the language out loud with a real human being, whether
in person or online, every single day is the best way by far to zoom forward
toward a conversational language level and onward to fluency.
If you really think about it, what’s the biggest mistake you can possibly
make with a language? Using the wrong word? Making a grammatical
error? No. The biggest mistake is not getting your message across. Since the
goal of a language is communication, your top priority should not be to
sound perfect, but to make yourself understood. Even if you know only a
couple of words, you will be far more effective using those few words than
you ever will be remaining silent.
This advice to start speaking the language right now prompts many
language learners to list all the reasons why it is not possible to do so, but I
hope this chapter convinces you that it’s not only possible, it’s so easy
you’d have to be crazy not to give it a try.