When it comes to language learning, everyone wants to know how to speak better. Whether you’re just getting started or several months into your journey, speaking ability is always top of mind. Drawing from my own experience learning Turkish—and over a dozen other languages—here are seven key tips that have helped me not only speak better, but more confidently.

1. Don’t Obsess Over Pronunciation

You don’t need perfect pronunciation to communicate well. Strong accents don’t prevent you from expressing yourself clearly and effectively. As long as you’re understood and the conversation flows, you can trust that your pronunciation is already good enough. Instead, focus on the intonation and natural rhythm of the language. You can do this by listening to native audio and mimicking the way phrases rise and fall. In short, to improve your speaking ability, stressing perfect pronunciation is not the best use of time and energy.

2. Focus on Words, Not Grammar

Vocabulary is more important than grammar rules when you’re learning how to speak better. If your grammar is a bit wonky, you’re likely still able to get the message across. However, if you don’t know the words, you can’t express your ideas at all. To be a good speaker, you need to develop an ample vocabulary. Spend time immersing yourself in the language through reading and listening. You’ll not only acquire a lot of vocabulary, but also develop a sense for how words fit together.

3. Avoid Stressful Activities

Memorizing grammar rules or drilling conjugation tables might make you feel like you’re being productive. Regardless, these types of activities actually create stress and interfere with speaking more naturally. Speaking is spontaneous. You won’t have time to ponder over grammar rules or verb forms. The goal is to have enough exposure to the language to notice patterns and produce language correctly (and intuitively).

4. Treat Grammar as a Description, Not a Prescription

Grammar is not a fixed set of laws—it’s a reflection of how people actually use the language. Languages evolve. Patterns change. Instead of trying to master every grammar rule, focus on getting used to the patterns you hear in real-life communication. Speaking with perfect precision is not necessarily what will sound most natural. Grammar resources can provide useful explanations, but ultimately you want to mimic the usage patterns of the language in the language you come across through listening, reading, interacting with native speakers, etc.

5. Learn the Patterns

While vocabulary is vast and seemingly infinite, the number of patterns you need to speak better is limited. Usage patterns (the phrasing of certain concepts) are more manageable. Pay close attention to recurring phrases and sentence structures you encounter while reading or listening. They form the foundation of fluent speech.

6. Circle Back Often

You won’t remember everything the first time. Revisiting old material helps solidify your knowledge. I constantly return to mini stories and earlier lessons—even after dozens of listens. For example, I’ve read through the Turkish mini stories nearly forty times. And yet, I notice something new every time. Repetition with a relaxed mindset leads to deeper learning.

7. Speak a Lot, Make Mistakes

This is probably the most important advice: speak often, and don’t be afraid to get things wrong. Mistakes are part of the process. I’ve made the same errors in Turkish again and again—but with time and practice, I improve. There’s no use in waiting until you can produce language perfectly. It’s going to be an imperfect process. Fluency comes not from perfection, but from persistence.

Final Thoughts

Speaking well doesn’t mean speaking perfectly. It means being able to express yourself, understand others, and enjoy the exchange—even when mistakes happen. If you keep showing up, keep listening, keep speaking, you will speak better. The key is to enjoy the process, because the learners who stay with it are the ones who ultimately succeed.