A simple technique for boosting your Hungarian speaking skills

You’d like to improve your speaking skills in Hungarian, but you don’t have (good) conversation partners? Or maybe you live abroad and don’t have too many opportunities to use the language? Or perhaps you’re too shy to speak to others in Hungarian?

In today’s blog post, I’ll share my favorite tip with you—a technique I (Barbi) used when I was learning English and Spanish back in high school.

I’m quite an introverted person, and during language classes, I mostly only spoke when it was absolutely necessary. But I had to prepare for the exams somehow, so I started practicing speaking by myself. Yes, I was there alone in my room, talking to nobody. 😅

It might look funny when someone talks to themselves, but I honestly think it’s a brilliant technique! Of course, it felt strange at first, but I quickly got used to it. And the best part? I could feel the progress very soon.

✅ I started speaking more fluently.

✅ Words came to mind faster.

✅ It became easier to put sentences together.

...and that was super motivating!

Plus, after a while, it gave me some confidence too. I started speaking more bravely with others—and I spoke up more often in class as well.

So I encourage you to try this technique!

What to talk about?

It’s great if you just think in Hungarian (anywhere, anytime—while walking, cooking, commuting), but it’s even better if you say out loud what you want to say. Here are some ideas you can say (or think) to yourself:

• Talk about your day—either in the past or future tense. What did you do? What are you going to do?
• Narrate what you’re doing in real time.
• Pretend you’re telling a friend a story—something you’d naturally share.
• Recreate a conversation you had in your native language, but this time in Hungarian.

If you’re learning with our Daily Dose of Hungarian program, here are some extra ideas:

• Retell the dialogue of the day in your own words.
• Act out the dialogue of the day.
• Answer the question of the day spontaneously.
• Think about your answer, look up new words if needed, then practice saying it out loud.
• Make your own sentences with words from the word list.
• Read the sample answers and your fellow learners' comments—then respond out loud, as if you were chatting with them. (Then write down your answer to actually respond. 😁)

So—are you going to try this technique? Will you start talking to yourself in Hungarian? 😊

If you’re not a member of our Daily Dose of Hungarian program yet, but you’re ready to take your speaking skills to the next level—come join us! You’ll get a short, natural-sounding dialogue every weekday with a language note and a discussion question to help you practice naturally. You can find some free samples (after a free registration) here: