My Top Chinese Speaking Hack: The Cicero Method

You're about to learn a fantastic method for boosting your Chinese speaking skills. I call it the Cicero Method. This is perfect if you're at intermediate level, but it'll also work for beginners too, so long as you have comprehensible texts to use.

This method is deceptively simple. You might wonder how it could possibly help you improve your speaking skills. The key is to use it over and over again, for at least an hour every week, for a year. Make the commitment, and you'll notice a huge jump.

If you're wondering why I called it this, the reason is that Cicero was a famous Roman statesman, orator and philosopher, and it sounds pretty cool, don't you think?

I won't delay you further. In this method, you essentially read a text aloud and make an audio recording of your voice as you do. 

Here's the exact method I use for the Cicero Method:

1. divide the text into chunks, one or two paragraphs long,
2. read the text to myself, making sure I know all the characters and vocabulary (preferably no pinyin),
3. read the first chunk, record my voice,
4. listen to the audio and read along, noting strong points and weak points,
5. repeat for the remaining chunks,
6. read the entire text aloud three times.

As you can see, this method is very simple. But there are several factors that make it powerful:

• you practice reading aloud without the need to create the language yourself, meaning you practice pure pronunciation and vocalising,
• it tests and boosts your reading skills, because you can't skip over characters you don't know, and you read the text several times without realising it,
• recording yourself forces you to speak comprehensively and maintain a good rhythm,
• repeating it several times helps to ingrain the vocabulary, punctuation and sentence structures,
• this method grows with you: the better your vocabulary and reading skills, the more complex texts you can tackle, meaning this method can serve you for years,
• you can practice this whether or not you have an exchange partner or teacher,
• it's free!

I've been using this hack for several years with my Mandarin practice, and my speaking abilities have improved no end. Sure, I still stumble over unfamiliar characters and difficult sentences, but the texts I tackle are far more complex than those I used at the beginning.

To get the most out of this method, follow these extra steps:

• listen to the audio for the text, if you can,
• shadow the audio before or after reading it aloud,
• space out the repetitions: for example, if you have 10 texts and want to repeat each three times, start with number 1 and read aloud each text once in turn, then go back to 1. This gives you spaced exposure,
• underline characters or phrases that you struggle with and practice them in isolation between repetitions,
• on the third repetition, record yourself reading the entire text in one go, rather than breaking it into chunks. This gets you used to speaking at length: sometimes my audios last eight minutes.

That's all there is to the Cicero Method, folks. Remember to add it to your routine: one hour every week for a year, and you'll notice a big shift in your reading and speaking. Combine it with the Parrot method, and you're likely to notice amazing progress.