Is it better to be fluent or accurate when you speak English?

Let me tell you about two English students.

One is a confident speaker. She can talk about anything, make jokes and ask questions. It’s nice speaking with her: she speaks fast but uses quite simple language, and it’s usually easy to follow. You can see she isn’t at all stressed out by speaking, and when she doesn’t know a word, she tries to explain another way.

The problem? Her grammar isn’t too good. She uses the same words over and over. When she’s trying to explain something more complicated, you can’t really understand what she’s talking about because she doesn’t use the right words or the right structures. When she tells you a story, sometimes you can’t understand if she’s talking about something that’s already happened in the past, something she’s planning to do, or something she’s just imagining! And when she takes an English class, she finds it difficult to make things better, or stop making the same mistakes.

The other is a careful speaker. She tries her best to use the best word in every situation. She prefers writing messages or emails to speaking, because she likes to check things in a dictionary or a translator. When she explains something, it is very clear and easy to understand, and often sounds impressive. Her grammar is pretty good, too, and she knows a lot of interesting words. She does well on English tests and exams.

The problem? You can’t actually have a proper conversation with her. She gets very stressed when she has to speak, especially if she gets no time to prepare or has to talk about a new topic. She speaks slowly, with breaks to think, and when she forgets a word, she just gives up and never finishes the sentence. Her English level is good, but she’s afraid to have a simple conversation at a coffee shop, and she doesn’t speak up in meetings at work, or even apply for jobs that need English. All this learning isn’t really helping her!

Which of these people sound more like you? Is your fluency (=płynność) better than your accuracy (=poprawność / dokładność), or the other way round?

Before I lived abroad, I was definitely more like the second speaker. Even when my English was very advanced, I still found speaking extremely stressful and tiring. I worried a lot about not making mistakes, about sounding smart, and about my accent. In many ways, this was good: it motivated me to pay more attention when I studied, to take careful notes, to notice mistakes I made and correct them. If you want to develop your English to a very high level, accuracy is extremely important.

Then I went to live for a while in Paris, where I met a lot of English speakers from all over the world. Following that, I went to study in the UK, where I met native speakers of English, too. And I discovered no one cared about my mistakes or my accent. Soon, I stopped caring, too: it was impossible to care when I had to speak English all the time, with all sorts of people, all day every day. In class, it was more important to have good ideas. With my new friends, it was more important to relax and have fun.

If you’re struggling with your fluency, by far the best thing to do is put yourself in a situation where communication is important, but no one is going to judge you poorly for making mistakes. Not everyone can or wants to move abroad, so here are some other ideas on how to do it:

Visit an English-speaking country. No matter if it’s a weekend trip to London, a two-week language course in Ireland or a three-month exchange programme to visit the States: you will be forced to speak, and you will be more worried about finding your way and getting things done than about how good your English is.

Take the time to speak English with people of different nationalities. You can do this while travelling, but these days, it’s also easy enough to find language exchange meet-ups in Poland. You will see that the people you speak with have various accents and levels of English, and that it doesn’t matter as long as you can have a fun conversation.

Talk to yourself. If you’re not ready to have conversations with others, try talking to yourself, out loud or just in your head. Describe what you can see around you. Plan what you need to buy. Make comments about the people you see in the street. Try to keep going even when you’re not sure how to say something, or if you’ve forgotten a word. Could you explain it in a different way?

Take a language class with a speaking focus. Sometimes, you need a little push. In a class setting, you’ll have to speak, there’s no way around it—but you’ll have the support of your teacher, who’s seen dozens of people with similar problems. Having conversations with other students at a similar level can also really help: you’ll see that they make mistakes, too, and worry about some of the same things you do.

But what if fluency isn’t the issue?

I’ve found that most students who’ve only lived in Poland struggle with fluency first of all. But there are some for whom accuracy is the biggest issue. They are usually people who have spent some time living abroad, who have been working in English for a long time, or who use English online for watching TV or gaming.

For these learners, the problem is that at some point fluency isn’t enough. If you want to have conversations on social issues, deliver presentations, explain reports or enter serious negotiations—or if you’re simply annoyed with making the same mistakes over and over again—you need to slow down and start listening carefully to everything you say. How can you say it better?

Here are some ideas for how to improve your accuracy:

Record yourself. Give yourself a topic to talk about, for example the day you’ve had. Record yourself talking about it for a minute on your phone, then listen back and take notes. Can you notice any mistakes? Can you think of better ways to say the same, or interesting words you could have used? Now, try again. See if you can improve the clarity and the grammar.

Take a class focussed on grammar, vocabulary development or exam preparation. These classes will still include some speaking, but a lot of it will require you to use a particular grammar structure or new vocabulary. There will be more emphasis on accuracy in these classes, which will help you notice areas where you can improve.

Write. When we write, we get the time to really think about our message, to choose the words carefully, and to edit after. It’s a great way to practise using words and grammar which you wouldn’t be able to easily use in conversation, where everything happens too fast to really think. Try keeping a diary, even if you only write one or two sentences a day. Imagine a conversation you might have with a client or co-worker and write down what you’d like to say. This is something I did a lot as I was learning English, and it’s really helped me improve the language I used when speaking.

Find someone to give you feedback. Another English speaker may be able to notice mistakes and suggest better ways of saying something that you might never think of. A teacher would be best, because they will have the specialised knowledge to help them decide how best to help you, but a friend who speaks English can also work!

Whether you’re more fluent or more accurate may depend on your personality, level of English and the ways in which you’ve been learning. It’s best to try and achieve a balance between the two; so if you find one comes more easily than the other, try and change the way you study to balance it out.

Have a look at the task below. Here are some ways you can adapt it to help you work either on your fluency or your accuracy. Good luck!

P.S. Fluency and accuracy are two things we will be talking about in the first session of my new class Boost Your Speaking. And in the second session next week, we’ll be practising different ways of saying the same thing to improve your fluency, to help you when you don’t know or forget a word. Explore the topics of the sessions coming up here.