You have to start speaking a foreign language early on in the learning process to improve! Learning from your mistakes is an important piece of the puzzle, so you shouldn’t wait until you’ve mastered the language before you begin to speak it. But how bad is it to make mistakes in a foreign language? The answer is not at all!

Last updated: 21/02/2025

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Is it Bad to Make Mistakes in a Foreign Language?

Speaking is a Good Way to Correct Your Errors…and Avoid Them in the Future.

If you’re learning a foreign language, one of your goals is probably to be able to communicate with people! Whether it’s for a trip, professional opportunities, or to be able to talk with friends or loved ones in their native language, communication is always at the core of language learning.

It’s no secret. To start speaking, you just need to go for it! Don’t wait until you’ve mastered reading before you start speaking. Our friend Benny Lewis is a good example: He always starts speaking right away, even if he doesn’t feel comfortable doing so. He’s learned to speak more than 10 languages this way!

If you wait to become fluent in the language before you’re willing to speak it, you’ll end up psyching yourself out and never speaking! Making mistakes is a big part of learning. And by pushing yourself to talk, any errors and bad habits can easily be identified and fixed through repetition and exposure.

We hear all kinds of stories (and have a lot of experience) when it comes to making mistakes, but we need those experiences to improve. If a mistake ever comes up, make sure to note it down or add it to your MosaLingua app. After a few review sessions, you’ll have fixed the error you made before! And then you can move forward even more efficiently in your learning.

Mistakes Happen All the Time

It’s unrealistic to want to avoid making mistakes in a foreign language: it’s impossible to master and know everything. Think about your mother tongue! It’s possible to make mistakes when writing, but it’s also possible to be unfamiliar with a particular word or to misuse a phrase…

Mistakes are commonplace when it comes to expressing ourselves, and we hardly pay any attention to them in our own language. We know that our level in our mother tongue will never be called into question by those we’re talking to! The same applies to foreign languages. Making mistakes is part of learning, but it’s also part of everyday life. And that’s okay! It’s how we learn. The best thing to work on is learning to ask for help and correction. Your progress will be all the more meteoric.

Get Past the Fear of Making Mistakes in a Foreign Language

Expressing yourself for the first time in a new language can be frightening for many of us, and understandably so! The first fear is of being judged by others: “What will they think of me?” “They’ll laugh at me if I make mistakes,” “I’ll look stupid,” and a whole host of other questions that prevent us from daring to express ourselves.

Don’t worry: these fears are very common and are a sign that you want to do the right thing. But have you ever heard the expression “Done is better than perfect”? It applies to this situation! When your expectations for yourself are too high, chances are you’ll never dare take the plunge. Free yourself from the gaze of others!

There’s even a good chance that the people you talk with will be an excellent learning resource, rather than uncompromising judges. They’ll help you spot your mistakes and correct them. They’re not a jury, and they won’t expect you to deliver flawless speech! And we’re sure that your audience will admire your self-confidence and the fact that you’ve dared to put yourself out there.

Still hesitating? Here are a few tips to overcome your fear:

  • Learn at your own pace, starting with written messages if that reassures you.
  • Find a language partner.
  • Prepare your first conversations with ready-made phrases.
  • Think of a few topics of conversation and prepare your vocabulary in advance.

The Important Thing Is to Be Understood

Going on a trip to a foreign country with just a handle on the basics of politeness and asking for directions? That’s already better than many tourists! If you can manage to make yourself understood and understand in return, that’s the main goal. After that, you’ll improve bit by bit. It doesn’t matter if you misuse grammar or parts of speech at first. Native speakers will often be delighted to see you learning their language.

Make short, simple sentences that you’re sure you’ll be able to formulate and pronounce. You’ll see that by making yourself easily understood, you’ll gain confidence and dare to express yourself more and more (and better and better).

Don’t try to form long, complex sentences, as you risk losing yourself and the people you’re speaking with. Prioritize vocabulary and formulas you’ve already mastered.

At MosaLingua, we advocate learning useful vocabulary before anything else.

There’s no point in knowing how to conjugate a verb in every tense if you don’t know enough vocabulary to cope with everyday situations. For example, our method is based on the 80/20 rule, better known as Pareto’s law: you’ll use about 20% of of a language 80% of the time! Concentrate on the essentials.

Practice Your Pronunciation

Aside from vocabulary, if there’s one exercise you need to practice first, it’s pronunciation. Good pronunciation does 50% of the work in a conversation! If you make too many pronunciation mistakes in a foreign language, you run the risk of being misunderstood, even sometimes despite your speaking partner’s best efforts! A simple, well-pronounced sentence is better than a long, incomprehensible speech.

Our advice: practice pronouncing and repeating useful vocabulary out loud. For example, did you know that approximately 1,500 well-chosen words are enough to express yourself in a given language?

1,500 words is the equivalent of 3 months’ training with MosaLingua, at a rate of 10 minutes a day. That’s certainly within your reach!

Now, it’s time to get started! Find a partner to talk to and practice with! And don’t forget to ask for your mistakes to be corrected. You’ll see that you’ll start making rapid progress. Good luck!

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