Practising Speaking When You Have No One to Practise With

Do you want to practise speaking German but don't have anyone to talk to? That is no reason to give up. With digital tools and a few smart methods, you can do a great deal to improve your speaking skills on your own.

Record Yourself

The simplest and most effective method is to record yourself with your smartphone. Talk about a topic, give a short presentation, or describe your day. Then listen to the recording.

You will be surprised by how much you can notice yourself – your pronunciation, speaking speed, and pauses.

Another advantage is that you can even send your recording to a teacher and receive feedback, either in writing or as a voice message. Audio feedback is still used far too rarely, even though it can be particularly helpful.

Use Digital Tools

• Text-to-speech tools and translation services can read sentences and entire texts aloud for you. This gives you a language model that you can listen to and imitate.

• Voice assistants on your phone will only understand you if you speak clearly – making them a useful and honest pronunciation test.

• Repeat after podcasts: Pause, repeat the sentence, and compare your pronunciation with the original.

Talk to Yourself – Seriously!

Describe out loud what you are doing at the moment: “Ich koche jetzt Nudeln, dafür brauche ich …”

It may sound strange, but it is highly effective practice. You can automate vocabulary and sentence structures without anyone listening to you.

In Short

You do not necessarily need a conversation partner to practise speaking.

Record yourself, use digital language models, and talk to yourself during everyday activities. There is only one thing that really matters: Speak – as often as possible.

With Davilo, you can submit your speaking recordings and receive targeted feedback.