Phase 4 of 5 · 600 phrases · 600 minutes
Expressing ideas
In the app
Can you feel it coming!? You’re pretty much there. Define your interests and relevant situations. Go through them with a teacher, while continuing your listening practice. Enjoy!
In phase 4 your vocabulary becomes yours: the topics you care about, the situations you’ll really be in.
What you can do after this phase
You basically did it! You can talk about most of the topics that matter to you: your work, your family, what you like doing, what you think about things. This is the step before phase 5, where speaking starts to feel effortless.
On the way to fluency
600 is more than half. For easy languages, people can get here in about three months.
What helps now
- Make a list. Your interests and the situations you’ll need the language in: a meeting, the doctor, dinner with your partner’s family. Go through one per lesson, and role-play the situations.
- Record your own vocabulary. A doctor doesn’t need the same words as an artist. Ask for the phrases your life needs.
- Bring your questions. Add notes to phrases while you practise, and go through them with your teacher.
- Listen longer. Series and longer videos in the language. Rewatch the ones you liked, it’s useful!
What gets in the way
- The plateau. Progress feels slower because the easy wins are behind you. Look at your counts instead of your feelings: the totals keep growing.
- Looking up words. In a conversation that’s fine. Ask for a recording, and next time you’ll know it.
- Ideas that are bigger than your words. Say it simply first, then ask how a native speaker would put it, and record that.
Next · phase 5 · 1000Mostly fluentWith 1000 phrases, speaking is effortless.→