Name: Why you understand a language but still can't speak it
Uploaded: 2025-08-06T01:19:03.000Z
Duration: 7 min 41 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

This is the moment no one warns you about in language learning.

When you understand most of everything, but you can't speak to save your life.

I'm Spencer, welcome back to Fluency Formula, and today I'm going to talk to you about how I finally broke down the barrier that got me conversationally fluent in record time.

Oh, and what's more, is I'm going to show you how you can do it too in any language.

Let me take you back to one of my early language exchanges that exposed the brutal reality.

I was sitting at my desk about 7 p.m., nervously waiting for my italki call to connect.

For context, I had been waking up between 1 and 4 a.m. every single day for months.

In my own evaluation, I was beginning to understand a surprising amount of spoken Mandarin.

This is one of my first times speaking Chinese to someone who I wasn't already very familiar and comfortable with.

The call connected and there was Marvin, my language exchange partner, smiling and greeting me with a friendly ni hao.

And just like that, my brain completely froze.

All of those hours of input, all that time that I spent absorbing the language, they were suddenly locked in some inaccessible part of my mind.

The same blankness that hit me when I'd been studying Japanese, check that story out right here, was repeating itself again in Chinese.

I'd managed to spit out a basic greeting, but when Marvin asked me a simple question about my day, I felt like I was trying to speak through a mouthful of peanut butter.

After the call, just like what happened with Japanese sometime prior, I just sat there feeling deflated.

I didn't understand how I could comprehend so much, but express so little.

Now, before I share with you how I fixed the problem, let me share something else with you that's pretty funny.

Around this time, I had been keeping my Chinese studies a secret from my girlfriend, but I couldn't resist messing with her a little bit.

We'd be making dinner and I'd randomly throw in a Chinese word here and there.

Or I'd point to the water and say shui instead of water.

And I'd shrug innocently and say, I said water.

Now, this little game actually served two distinct purposes.

First, it was hilarious to watch her reaction, wondering if maybe she misheard me or was just losing her mind.

But second, and more importantly, it revealed something to me that's absolutely crucial about the language learning journey.

Despite building a solid mental model of Mandarin in my head, my output abilities were limited to single words or single phrases.

I had actually been ready to speak much earlier than I thought.

And this is the exact problem that so many language learners face.

You've built an incredible foundation of the language through input, but struggle to activate it through output.

Let me break down the two major barriers that are likely holding you back right now.

First, there's what we can call the psychological block.

This is when your brain knows what it wants to say, but there's something stopping you from getting it out.

Remember my past videos where I told you that the first time I spoke Mandarin with my girlfriend was after I had one too many drinks?

The alcohol had lowered my inhibitions, that filter that makes us worried that we're gonna sound stupid or make too many mistakes.

And this was actually before my first call with Marvin, meaning that I did have the ability to speak at some level, it was just locked away in my brain somewhere.

Even in your native language, being put on the spot can make you stumble over your words.

I want you to know that this is something every language learner experiences to some level.

The second barrier is what we can call the physical circuit.

Understanding a language and producing a language use somewhat different neural pathways in your brain.

Think about it like this, you've been building an amazing highway for incoming information, but the outgoing paths are still made of dirt.

They exist, but they're not well-traveled yet.

And here's the good news, fixing both issues actually follow the same principles that I use to achieve conversational fluency in Mandarin in about six months.

So let's get to the step-by-step system of activating your output abilities.

Step one is adopting the mindset of an Olympic athlete to training for the Olympics.

I don't just do it when I feel like it, I do it every single day.

Here's what a daily training regime might look like.

I talked to AI language partners to practice specific scenarios without any judgment.

I scheduled regular italki sessions with language partners like Marvin.

And even when I had no one to talk to, I just talked to myself.

Looking back, I really wish that I had recorded everything so that I could review it later.

When you listen to what you've recorded, you're able to catch things that you might not have realized in the moment.

Step two is what I call shadow before you speak.

This is one of the powerful techniques that we recommend inside of fluency formula to help improve your accent and your output ability.

Shadowing is when you repeat what a native speaker says right after the native speaker says it, just like an echo.

You're mimicking not just the words, but you're mimicking the rhythm, the intonation, and even the emotion of the speaker.

I still shadow before every single output session that I have.

The magic happens when you do this with content that's slightly above your current level.

Step three is what I call your output toolbox.

These are phrases, fillers, and transitions that help your language sound a little bit more natural instead of robotic and choppy.

In every language, there are certain little devices that native speakers will use to buy them some more time to think of their next idea and transition smoothly.

In English, we say things like, you know, um, like, the thing is.

While I've been building my Mandarin output skills, I created a specific list of these connector phrases.

I put them directly into my flashcard software and practiced them relentlessly until they became automatic.

Having these ready and in your arsenal gives your brain an extra second to catch up when it's transitioning to a new topic.

Step four is what I call creating a no English zone.

This is honestly where the real magic can happen.

Set a timer for just five minutes at first and commit to speaking nothing other than your target language.

No matter how much you struggle, no matter how many mistakes you make, no switching back to English, no matter what.

Whether that's practicing with AI, practicing with a language partner, or just talking to yourself.

Forcing yourself into these language only bubbles, words start flowing out of your mouth that you didn't even know were locked away in your brain.

The final step is something that I mentioned earlier, which is returning to this language athlete mindset.

The biggest mistake that I see otherwise serious language learners make is treating speaking practice like it's optional.

While learning Mandarin, even on days where I felt sick so I stayed home from work or I was just generally exhausted, I still did at least some little form of output practice.

Your speaking ability follows the same rules that playing basketball does.

It's a physical skillset that takes repetition to build and develop.

Now let me share with you a quick hack that's helped a lot of students inside of the Fluency Formula community.

This is called the 3-2-1 technique and let me explain to you how it works.

Choose a topic that you want to discuss in your target language.

First, spend three minutes just writing down some topics that you want to talk about within that overarching topic in your native language.

Then, spend two minutes jotting down some notes of how you might express these ideas in your target language.

Finally, speak for one full minute in your target language, making sure to record yourself.

The beauty of this technique is it gradually removes your safety net, all while giving your brain enough structure to prevent panic.

I tell you this in just about every video now, but look, this isn't about being perfect.

It's about gradually sucking less and less each day.

And if you want the step-by-step plan so you can check this stuff out for yourself, take a look at the link in the description.

Bridging the gap between input and output can be a challenge, but like I told you, it's something that we can get over if we strategically work to do so.

Now, in the meantime, if while you're specifically training your output ability, you want to make sure that you're continuing to make lightning-fast progress towards acquiring a language to conversational fluency in general, make sure you check out this video because this is the one that YouTube, a super powerful algorithm, thinks that you need to watch.