One of the things I did today was talk to myself.

I’ve been trying to use a variety of methods in my language learning. Today I worked with ChatGPT to write several sentences I could use to introduce someone to our son, who is visiting us at the moment. I didn’t want to memorize the sentences — I just wanted to gather the vocabulary. Then I tried to recreate the situation and speak without looking at my notes.

I also read through some previous notes, did some Duolingo lessons, wrote sentences for ChatGPT to correct, and translated some sentences that ChatGPT gave me. It was a good day with lots of reading and writing.

But I still needed speaking practice.

So I turned to one of the simplest and most effective activities: talking to yourself.

Walking through the house

First, I wrote down the names of the rooms in my house with the help of Duolingo and ChatGPT:

  • kitchen
  • living room
  • dining room
  • bedroom
  • office
  • bathroom
  • corridor

(I don’t actually have a dining room, but I decided to pretend that the table in my kitchen was my dining room.)

Then I walked into each room and said:

“I’m in the …”

This gave me practice using the correct case for each noun. I repeated each sentence at least five times in each room.

Repetition and variation

Next, I walked around the house again, expanding the sentences:

“I am in the kitchen. I am not in the bedroom. I am not in the office.”

I went through the house about four times doing this. So much repetition — but it was really helpful.

Turning it into a real situation

After that, I pretended I was giving someone a tour of the house:

“This is my house. This is the living room…”

This made the practice feel more natural and connected to real-life use.

What I learned

I ended up getting a lot of speaking practice without needing another person.

The more I repeated the sentences, the more natural they felt, and the easier it became to speak without hesitation.

This is the kind of activity I need to do more often. I need to make myself speak.

If you want to know more about how to use talking to yourself as a language learning activity, see this article:
Talking to Yourself: Building Fluency.