9 Secrets To Get Off The Intermediate Plateau & Reach Advanced Fluency

Have you reached intermediate level in a new language? 

Fantastic! 

You can chat with friends over dinner, shop confidently, order a meal and go pretty much anywhere on the bus or train.

You’re pretty cool with the basic grammar rules and understand most of what you read in graded books like StoryLearning Short Stories.

Intermediate level is a real achievement, so congratulations. Most people never make it that far. 

But here’s the thing. If you stop learning now, you’re taking a big risk. So how can you break the intermediate plateau and reached advanced fluency? Let's find out!

By the way, if you prefer watching videos to reading, check out the video version of this post below. Otherwise, keep reading to find out how to leave the intermediate plateau behind.

What’s The Problem With The Intermediate Plateau?

Intermediate-level language skills are fine for everyday use, but you can easily forget what you’ve learned if you don’t use the language regularly. 

Imagine that.

All that hard work wasted because you didn’t keep going.

Most experienced language learners agree that when you reach an advanced level, the language gets imprinted on your brain.

Once there, you can go weeks, months, or even years without speaking the language, but it’ll all come flooding back when you need it.

So, that’s one excellent reason why you should keep moving forward.

Stuck On The Intermediate Plateau

But no one’s saying that moving on is easy.

In fact, my friend Stefano says, “As soon as you stop noticing your progress you are probably in the intermediate plateau.”  

Stefano suggests you change things up and learn differently if that's where you are now. It’s excellent advice from a man who speaks seven languages fluently. 

To give you a helping hand, I asked Stefano and two other polyglots for their best tips for moving off the dreaded intermediate plateau and onto advanced.  

Here’s what they said.

#1: Be Consistent (But Don’t Stay In Your Comfort Zone)

“The most important thing is consistency,” says Dave, who speaks fluent English, Portuguese, and Spanish. 

To move off the intermediate plateau, consistently dedicate time to learning and practising. But you must also move out of your comfort zone and try something new. Change things up, even if what you’ve been doing has been working fine (till now.) 

“You need to push yourself. If you want to get good at anything you need to be a little bit uncomfortable to see progress.”  

Dave

Dave’s Tips for Switching Language Gears

• Try watching movies or videos without subtitles.
• Talk with fluent/advanced speakers. 
• Stop using graded content and go for native-level books or content. 

#2: Write Your Heart Out

Writing is a great way to learn and practice language skills because, unlike speaking, there’s no pressure.

You have time to look things up or find synonyms—which you’ll need to master when you get to advanced level.

Jotting thoughts in your notebook reveals gaps in your knowledge, so you know what you need to learn next. And it brings passive vocabulary (words you’d almost forgotten you knew) back to life.

My Tips for Writing

• Get creative. 
• Write about interesting scenarios. 
• List reactions and ideas you might not have time for when speaking.

#3: Read To Learn New Words And Ideas

One thing you’ll definitely need to get off the intermediate plateau is massive amounts of input.

And what could be better for that than following the rules of StoryLearning and reading? 

James (who speaks English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French) says reading teaches you tons of vocabulary and grammar forms in context. 

“It’s extremely difficult to get enough exposure to the language to reach really high levels if you’re dependent on speaking alone. Reading is a great way around that. You can improve really quickly if you read a lot—and it’s a lot of fun!”

James

We’ve already seen that we have to challenge ourselves to advance. 

But even if speaking does challenge you, talking won’t work by itself. 

That’s because we use a limited word range in everyday conversation. So, once you’ve reached intermediate levels, you won’t learn everything by talking alone. And that’s where input via reading comes into its own.

James’s Tips for Reading

• Ditch the graded readers and children’s books.
• Read books written for adults to get advanced vocabulary.
• Notice synonyms in context to learn their subtle differences.
• Read native-level books on subjects you love discussing to help those nuanced grammar patterns and advanced vocab sink in.

#4: Devour Podcasts 

“Listen to podcasts on your favourite topics without caring so much about understanding everything,” says Stefano. Instead, he says, practise ‘extensive listening and reading’. 

Extensive in this context means relaxing into your listening and reading. Understanding enough to absorb the language and form a mental image without looking up every unknown word or phrase. 

(Intensive input is the opposite: listening or reading with your nose in the dictionary; too much of that can lead to burnout.)

When you’re interested in the topic, you’re more likely to remember the facts and stories. They’ll stick in your brain, ready to pop up in conversation, making you way more interesting to talk to. 

That’s a win-win in my book, for sure.

Will you make mistakes? Sure! But who doesn’t? 

Stefano says the best thing to do when you make a language mistake is to laugh. 

“By laughing at your mistakes you’re actually empowering yourself and transforming it into a positive experience that helps you learn something. And the more you laugh about your error the more likely it is that you won’t make it again.”

Stefano

#5: Eliminate Your Weaknesses

Your skills won’t improve evenly across the board as you lift off of the intermediate plateau.

For example, if all your input is through reading, your speaking skills may be weak. Or if you exclusively listen to podcasts, you’ll understand what people say but might still struggle to read. 

So now’s the time to go on a mission to practise the skills that are letting you down. 

When Dave wanted to focus on listening, he worked with an online tutor who read a passage aloud and asked Dave to summarise it.

“I couldn’t see the text. So, I had to listen and take notes, then summarise it. And afterwards he would give me feedback on my mistakes. I’d then learn those on flashcards and spaced repetition software.” 

Dave

My Tips

• Take lessons that target your weaknesses.
• Learn words that will fill holes in your vocabulary.
• Laser focus on tricky topics

And eventually, you’ll see those weaknesses melt away.

#6: Explore Unfamiliar Topics

 Stefano says talk to yourself. It’s free and easy to do.

“I imagine having a conversation explaining one of my points or my opinion about a certain topic. That leads me to use the expressions I need to present my argument.”

Stefano

The best part about this fantastic exercise is you can do it anywhere, anytime. 

So, what could you talk to yourself about?

My Tips

• Step outside your comfort zone
• Pick subjects you wouldn’t usually explore.
• Tell yourself a story.

If you ever get the chance to work in the country whose language you’re learning, grab it. You'll get off the intermediate plateau fast.

I was lucky to land a job in a Paris youth hostel when I was learning French. Answering the phone while dealing with queries and queues of people at my desk was fast and furious and just what I needed to improve my French.  

#7: Follow Someone You Admire

It’s fun to follow a native speaker whom you really admire. This is all about emulation, practising by copying their intonation, accent and style.

When you were a kid, you copied your parents. As you grew up, you probably copied your friends or movie stars you loved.  

Nowadays, YouTube is great for finding speakers of other languages. Just be sure their speaking is advanced before you start copying them.

Eventually, you won’t need to emulate others. You’ll develop your own style and confidence in the language when you reach that advanced level. 

#8: Go Native 

We all make mistakes when speaking our own languages, let alone second or third languages.

Mistakes are natural, but ironically, the higher your language level, the more difficult it is to accept them and move on.

“You tend to judge yourself more harshly when you make mistakes as you reach an advanced level because you immediately know that what you said was wrong. That can be frustrating but resist the temptation to beat yourself up because mistakes are part of the learning process.” 

James

Social interactions with native speakers are ideal for talking and laughing mistakes off. Unfortunately, we can’t all travel to learn our language. So, it’s lucky we live in the internet age.

The internet allows us to immerse ourselves in a language almost as if we were in that country because we have access to content created for native speakers. 

Stefano’s Tips

• Use a VPN to immerse your computer in a foreign country. 
• Get bombarded with content in your target language.

The internet also makes finding a real person to talk to easy. Languatalk has some of the best tutors. So, head on over there when you need someone to practise with. 

#9: Relax

“Accept the fact that nobody’s perfect. Even native speakers make lots of horrible mistakes, so why would we be any better?” 

Stefano

Stefano’s Tips

• Be patient. 
• Enjoy the journey.
• Relax and keep having fun. 

What Does Advanced Level Look Like?

Different skills evolve at their own pace. 

For example, suppose most of your practice comes through speaking. In that case, it’s natural that you might still struggle to read complicated texts, even if you can hold a high-level conversation. 

Likewise, if most of your input comes through reading, you won’t talk at the same high level. 

James reckons it’s important to recognise your imbalances and consider what being at an advanced level means to you. 

You may enjoy some skills more than others, but still try for a balance of reading, writing, speaking and listening in your repertoire.

Stefano adds that if you can have an in-depth conversation about complicated topics like geopolitics or climate change you’re thinking and speaking at an advanced level in that language.

That’s because your brain has absorbed more words than it’s letting on. You might not always find them immediately, but they will come out in the conversation.

Get Off The Intermediate Plateau With Advanced StoryLearning Courses

When we created our new advanced-level courses to help you get off the intermediate plateau, we kept working in another language top-of-mind.

I wanted to introduce real-life language into the story so you can taste what it’s like in that country surrounded by native speakers.

As we’ve seen, that’s just what you need to climb up and away from the dreaded intermediate plateau.

Immerse yourself in advanced level German, Italian, French, and Spanish here.

Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.