How Teaching Pro Footballers Taught me the Truth About Fluency

Years ago, I had the unique opportunity to teach English to professional football players at Real Sociedad, one of the top football clubs in Spain. This wasn’t just any team — future world-class players like Xabi Alonso, Mikel Arteta, and Antoine Griezmann passed through their training grounds. My job was to teach English to players and staff, often before their official training sessions began.

What struck me most wasn’t their talent — it was their discipline. Every day, these athletes practiced the same drills over and over. Tiny details mattered. They didn’t wing it. They didn’t hope for improvement. They trained like machines.

And that’s when it clicked for me: Fluency in language is no different.

To speak well, you don’t need more theory. You need more reps. More output. More speaking.

Let me explain exactly how I apply this same athletic mindset to language learning — and how you can use it to finally break through the intermediate plateau and speak fluently.

Why You Still Can’t Speak Fluently (Even If You Understand the Language)

If you’ve been learning a language for months or even years, and still can’t speak fluently, you’re not alone. Many learners get stuck at the so-called intermediate plateau: they understand well but struggle to speak.

Their sentences come out slow and awkward. Words get stuck on the tip of the tongue. They freeze mid-conversation.

Why?

Because most people spend too much time on input (watching videos, listening to podcasts, reading) and not enough time on output (actually speaking).

The Myth of Comprehensible Input

Yes, input is essential. But it will never make you fluent on its own.

You can watch 1,000 hours of native content and still struggle to form a basic sentence.

To speak fluently, you need to train like an athlete. You need to drill the right phrases, over and over, until they become automatic.

The Proven Fluency Formula

Here’s the method I use and teach:

1. Read sentences aloud.
2. Shadow audio (listen and repeat).
3. Speak freely for 1 minute (The 1-Minute Exercise).
4. Turn your struggles into new sentence drills.

Let’s break this down.

Step 1: Build Your Personal Sentence Bank

You need to know what you want to say in real life. That means building a list of sentences for:

• Travel

• Small talk

• Talking about yourself

• Expressing opinions

• Discussing everyday topics (food, work, plans)

These are your Language Islands — memorized, high-frequency phrases you actually want to use.

Step 2: Read Aloud and Shadow

Take each sentence in your list and:

• Read it aloud clearly and slowly.

• Listen to native audio (or text-to-speech).

• Repeat aloud (shadow) right after the audio.

Repeat until it feels automatic. Think like an athlete: repetition is the path to mastery.

Step 3: The 1-Minute Speaking Drill

This is the fluency hack most people skip.

Set a 1-minute timer. Choose a topic. Speak nonstop for 60 seconds. No pausing. No thinking. Just go.

It will feel awkward at first. That’s good. You’re stretching your fluency muscles.

Each time you do this, you’ll hit a wall — a sentence you wanted to say but couldn’t. That’s your next target.

Step 4: Turn Gaps into New Sentences

After every 1-minute exercise, write down what you tried to say — even if it came out wrong.

Then:

1. Translate it properly.

2. Record it.

3. Shadow it.

4. Add it to your sentence bank.

Repeat this cycle daily, and you’ll generate hundreds of personalized sentences every week.

How to Do This in Real Life

Here’s how I practice speaking across 20+ languages:

• I go for walks and send voice messages to myself.

• At home, I listen back and note down all the gaps.

• I turn those into correct, native-like sentences.

• I translate, record, shadow, and memorize.

This method helps you:

• Speak faster

• Reduce hesitation

• Improve pronunciation

• Think directly in your target language

What Real Athletes Taught Me About Language Mastery

At Real Sociedad, players weren’t guessing how to play better. They drilled the same moves until their bodies could do it in their sleep.

That’s how fluency works.

You can’t speak well unless you’ve spoken the sentence dozens of times before. That’s the gap between understanding and fluency — and most people never close it because they don’t practice enough.

Common Excuses (and Why They Don’t Matter)

"But I don’t have anyone to talk to!"

You don’t need one. Your phone is enough.

"I feel silly talking to myself."

You’re training. You’re building a skill. No one cares.

"I don’t know what to say."

Start with daily topics: what you did, what you think, what you plan. Anything.

Your Daily Fluency Routine

1. Create a short sentence list for today’s topic.

2. Read + shadow them 10+ times.

3. Record 1-minute voice messages (walking is ideal).

4. Write down what you couldn’t say.

5. Translate and drill those sentences.

6. Repeat tomorrow.

Do this for 30 days and you’ll be shocked at how much smoother, faster, and clearer your speech becomes.

Final Thoughts: Fluency Is a Skill, Not a Gift

Fluency isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you train.

The players at Real Sociedad didn’t become elite athletes by watching football. They practiced until their skills became automatic.

If you want to speak a language well, stop watching, and start training.

Your fluency doesn’t need more input. It needs output, feedback, and reps.

Start today.

Record your first 1-minute message. Listen. Fix your mistakes. Drill the corrections.

Do that every day, and fluency becomes inevitable.

Your future fluent self will thank you.