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

Writing, Reading, and Listening?
Formal language education generally divides language learning into four
aspects: writing, reading, listening, and speaking. One controversial aspect
of my advice is that I say we should focus much less on writing and reading
in the early stages, and even on listening (when it is done alone with
prerecorded audio, since we are going to improve our skills here by default
in conversations). This is not applicable to everyone, but I feel that for most
of us a language is several times more relevant when we are speaking to
another person than during any of the other options. Rather than devoting
25 percent of our energy to each of the four aspects, I think it’s wiser for
beginners—especially those who want to travel to a country and interact
with people or use the language with friends and family—to devote most of
their energy to improving spoken skills, which in turn naturally improves
listening skills.
I would devote just 10 to 20 percent of my time to reading and
(noninteractive) listening in my initial A1/A2 beginner stages of language
learning. For writing, as a beginning learner I am simply not going to write
letters or complex messages, but I do write short text messages on my
phone.
This is another reason why I feel you can reach spoken level B2 in a
few months; you can genuinely have fluent conversations at this level,
without necessarily having written or other language skills. You can refine
these skills separately and will do so more quickly having reached a
conversational level above this. My spoken skills ultimately lift my other
skills up when I work on them, and much faster than if I were working on
all aspects at the same time.
On the other hand, when I’m securely within level B2 and ready to
advance through C1 and on to C2, the tables turn. I then spend only 10 to 20
percent of my time in conversation and (thanks to motivation from signing
up for an exam, as I explained previously) divide the rest of my time
between reading complex texts, writing assignments that will get corrected
by a native teacher or a motivated friend, and listening to complex audio

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interviews or watching video discussions that I have to test myself on
afterward.
If your focus is very different from mine and your passion lies in being
able to follow movies in your target language, adjust this and get into
movies earlier in your language learning journey. But thanks to my spoken
focus, I have had so much practice by the time I reach B2, the only thing
really stopping me from progressing is a lack of vocabulary and experience
with the subject matter. I’ve met others at my same general level, with
vastly superior writing, reading, and listening skills, but who are way less
confident and versatile in spoken situations because of the lack of practice. I
can bluff my way through even complex conversations thanks to this
confidence from all the practice. This type of exposure to conversations
should never be underestimated.
Of course, the ultimate goal when you want to advance toward mastery
is not to rely on bluffing at all but to truly understand.