Foreign Language Communication Tools: Simplify, Simplify!
Language learners often trip over their own brilliance. Fluent in nuance and abstraction in their native tongue, they try to replicate it in a new language—and get tangled in verbs, cases, and unclear phrasing.
This tool invites learners to speak only what they know they can say accurately, even if it’s plain or childlike. The goal? Build confidence, reduce errors, and let fluency grow from a sturdy base.
🔍 Why Simplicity Works
Simplified speech supports:
- ✅ Accuracy first: Clean, correct language beats poetic misfires
- 🧠 Cognitive clarity: Less mental load means better processing
- 🎯 Focus: Prioritize essential ideas over elaborate phrasing
- 📈 Steady progress: Fluency builds from usable pieces
💡 How to Use the Tool
🎒 Use What's in Your Backpack
Think of your known vocabulary and structures as your travel gear. Use only what you've packed:
- Stick to familiar verbs, tenses, and sentence patterns
- If a word or phrase isn’t 100% reliable, drop it
- Use paraphrasing when your vocabulary runs short
✂️ Edit Your Native Habits
If you’d normally say,
“Having deliberated extensively on the subject, I find the implications troubling,”
switch to:
“I thought a lot about it. It’s a problem.”
🔄 Repetition Is Your Friend
Simplified speech doesn’t mean dull. Repeating key ideas with slightly varied phrasing helps:
- “It’s hard. I don’t understand it.”
- “I try, but it’s still difficult.”
🧩 Stack With Other Tools
Combine simplicity with speech islands:
“I live in a small town. It’s quiet. I like it.”
Or with communication repair: “I don’t know the word, but I can explain…”
🌱 The Fluency Payoff
By embracing what you can say, you create space for what you will learn next. Simplicity builds trust—with yourself and your conversation partners. And as your skills grow, so will your eloquence.
This post was inspired by Boris Shekhtman's book, How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately.
Book description:
This is the fifth edition of a popular book that provides a unique set of tools designed to enhance an individual's success in communicati0n in a foreign language environment. The devices presented allow the speaker of a foreign language to demonstrate the level of his/her language more impressively, so impressively, in fact, that it appears that the speaker's language itself has improved overnight. These techniques were developed and tested by the author with adult professionals in such varied fields as journalism, diplomacy, government, and international business. Many of these professionals have attested to the efficacy of these tools in their own columns.
Read more posts about Boris and his books HERE.
Read additional information about this book HERE.
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