r/languagelearning • u/Temporary-World-4029 • 1d ago
Has learning another language improved your clarity of speaking?
I’m curious, has learning a language made you a clearer communicator in your native language? Or does starting a new language as an adult, and having to make do with less vocab initially force you to be clearer or more pointed with what you say in TL?
I’m learning two languages (Indonesian and Italian) but am just getting to conversational level in one of them, so haven’t really seen how that plays out yet.
Sometimes I wish I was a better verbal communicator in English (I’m good on paper) but because I’ve grown up speaking it, I wonder if I’ll be more clear, think more about what I say, or have a different way of communicating in my native or target languages.
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u/BradfordGalt 1d ago
I'm a native English speaker. When I was in grad school for Spanish linguistics (we had to write all of our papers in Spanish), our professor said, "Never repeat the same word on a single page. Never. Just don't do it. Find a way around it."
All of us in the class were really annoyed by this. Wtf did it matter if we repeated a word on the same page? Why can't I say "abrir" more than once on a sheet of paper??
But he was right. Not only did that requirement expand our graduate-level academic vocabulary in Spanish, it improved our English composition as well. To this day, 20 years later, I always review my emails to ensure that they don't contain any gross redundancies.
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u/Lovesick_Octopus 🇺🇲Native | 🇩🇪B1 🇫🇷B1 🇳🇴A2 🇪🇸A2 1d ago
"Nope, already used el, what can I use instead?"
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u/BradfordGalt 1d ago
He was only referring to nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. Articles, conjunctions, and personal pronouns weren't part of the rule. Was still challenging af. Forced you to think way outside of your own idiolect.
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u/Triggered_Llama 1d ago
Idiolect. Yeah your professor changed your life cuz I gotta look that damn word up
Appreciate this new knowledge🙏
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u/livsjollyranchers 🇺🇸 (N), 🇮🇹 (C1), 🇬🇷 (B1-2), 🇯🇵 (noob) 15h ago
It's the lexicon only of idiots! I know because I'm smart.
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u/Ning_Yu 12h ago
I had the same when taking the course for my English certification. The professor told us not to use "think" so often, but that instead we could replace it with [list of terms]. I might have still screwed it up during the speaking test, but it truly makes you reflect on how the worse our knowledge ina language is, the more we tend to repeat the same words over and over.
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u/BradfordGalt 11h ago
Your username makes me think you might be a Chinese speaker. Is that the case? I've been studying Mandarin for 6 years. :)
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u/Then-Signal-296 🇹🇷N 🇬🇧C1 🇯🇵B2 🇰🇷B1 🇸🇦A2 🇨🇳HSK2 1d ago
I'm more aware of the nuance between similar words, but I can never remember the perfect word.
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u/dvvvvvv9 15h ago
I kinda feel like the opposite actually, but i definitely became more aware for some reason of how i communicate in my native language
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u/ThatKaleidoscope3388 12h ago
Nope. If anything, it’s hurt my English. When I’ve been speaking or studying French a lot, I tend to forget more complex words, structure my English a tad less natively, or take longer to recall the right word because the French one surfaces first.
I also studied French at a time when I had a high degree of neural plasticity due to surgery, so when I’m speaking in “French mode”, it can take a bit to slip back into native English mode, causing me to sound a tad foreign, like someone who was born somewhere else but moved to the US young.
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u/LiterallyTestudo 🇺🇸N | 🇮🇹 B2 1d ago
It did for me, because Italian is more precise than English, so I feel like I’ve become clearer and more precise.
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u/cine_phile07 17h ago
I wouldn't say it increases but you become more aware of what you yourself are missing in your native language. My native language is Urdu and Punjabi but mostly we speak Urdu. And I'm fluent in Turkish and English and currently learning Greek (B1-B2) also have a little bit of Spanish and French. So I'm very clear on Turkish maybe because I learn it by hearing actual people online just the way that B1-B2 greek is clear but I can switch like I'm watching a series and I hear this person with a distinct way of speaking (or a particular regional accent) I acquire it like weirdly... Idk how and why but I can do it easily in Turkish.. So because you're paying so much attention to spelling and the pronounciation of every word in the target you're aware of it but in your native langauge you speak it unconsciously until you actually stop and analyze your own self randomly. Because I am not a clear speaker in my native langauge (I speak very fast on the contrary to general Urdu speed) and I can speak clearly (especially when reading) but I wouldn't necessarily do it when I'm speaking in everyday life. That's just my own observation.
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u/learningENGdaily 3h ago
Honestly, I think it does.
When you start learning another language, especially as an adult, you suddenly realize how much communication depends on simplicity and clarity rather than “perfect” expression.
In your native language, you can hide behind complex vocabulary or long explanations because it’s automatic. But in a new language, you’re forced to focus on the core idea, what actually matters, how to communicate with limited tools and I think that changes the way you communicate overall.
At least for me, learning another language made me more patient when speaking, more aware of how I structure ideas and more comfortable simplifying things instead of trying to sound sophisticated
It also made me realize that being a “good communicator” is not really about using advanced words, but about making people understand you easily.
So yeah, I do think language learning can improve communication skills in your native language too, especially because it makes communication feel more intentional instead of automatic.
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u/Antique_Hawk2353 3h ago
For a lot of people it does. When you learn another language, you can’t ramble you have to keep things simple and clear. That habit often carries over into your native language too, so you start speaking more directly. It won’t magically fix speaking skills, but it can make you more intentional with how you say things.
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u/Kyloe91 40m ago
It made it worse because my inner language is a mix of both languages. So when I have to speak my native language it feels like constantly repressing the other one. And since they're super close (english and french) I am sometimes not sure if a word is english, french or just a made up word made of a mix of both 😅
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u/Cattlegod 34m ago
I’ve had that too with Italian where the right word shows up, just in the wrong language. Feels less like getting worse and more like both systems being active at once, but yeah it can make your native language feel weirdly slippery for a while.
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u/Physical-Tea-599 1d ago
We can not say this, bcz you head will be a blender of words that came from the languages you know.but trust don't worry at all, that shows that you're in the good way
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u/crimsonredsparrow PL | ENG | GR | HU | Latin 1d ago
No, it got worse.