[You can follow me on Twitter @creatorvilla.] Human beings are constantly thinking, and many of those thoughts consist of words. According to The National Science Foundation, the average person thinks anywhere from 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day. That’s a lot of action between the ears, and with it comes a lot of opportunities to improve language ability. There’s a reason almost all humans are proficient in at least one language. Our brains have evolved to utilize language at a prolific rate, both as passive recipients of the communication of others, and also as active creators of our own. Thinking is something we are already doing all the time, and requires no special time provision.

In the prequel to this article, Lifestyle Of A Linguist: An Atomic Habit To Take Your Language Skills To The Next Level, I talked about the daily habit of interpretation. Many of us studying a foreign language live in a country where our native language is spoken. Practicing interpretation on a daily basis–that is, translating in our minds from our native language to a target language, is an excellent way to advance language skills. I did this for years in college, from English to Spanish, and from English to Arabic, when I was in a lecture that wasn’t particularly important. And I do it from time to time today, if I am watching an English broadcast or otherwise feel like honing my foreign language skills. Check out the article ^ for the complete scoop on interpretation.

Today, I want to talk about another daily language habit that also yields great dividends over time: thinking in a foreign language. When we think in a language all day, it becomes a second nature. Our level of comfort, ease, and fluency in the language dramatically increase over time.. As with interpretation, you want to be at an intermediate level before you begin this process, so you have something of a linguistic base to fuel your efforts.

Thinking in a foreign language, like interpretation, will be laborious at first. There will be a lot of words you don’t know, and it may take you a while to formulate sharp, coherent thoughts. However, in the weeks and months that follow, you will find that both processes get a lot easier, and also more enjoyable. What started out difficult, like running, will wind up being easy, like breathing.

While interpretation and thinking can help us better organize what we already know, they should also be a prompt for further language acquisition. When you first start interpreting and thinking in a foreign language, you will quickly be able to identify words you do not know, or words that you may be able to recognize passively, but that have not become a part of your active vocabulary. Start looking them up. As you research words, structures, phrases, etc. that surface in these processes, your active vocabulary will increase dramatically. As active vocabulary goes up, language level rises.

It’s one thing to hear and recognize a word once a week. Or once a month. That is a kind of passive knowledge. It is another thing to actively create words in context via interpretation or thinking on a regular basis. There is a special fluidity and ease that accompany words that we ourselves routinely use. Words, put differently, that have become a part of our active vocabulary. Interpretation and thinking in a foreign language, to build on the idea of the previous paragraph, help grow and sharpen our active vocabulary.

Today, my level is C2 in Spanish and C1 in Arabic. Lately, I’ve been thinking primarily in Spanish, although some days I will switch over to Arabic. Occasionally, I will interpret from English to Spanish or English to Arabic, as time and interest allow. I can say that these two skills have helped advance my level significantly during the last 7 years. They have also helped me to maintain my language skills when life would otherwise have gotten in the way.

Have you ever experimented with either of these habits?

If you like this post, check out How To Score Superior (C2) On Official ACTFL Listening Proficiency Test (LPT) (5 Pro Tips!).

The American Council On The Teaching Of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) is one of the most popular advocates of foreign language education. ACTFL creates official standards and administers exams to assess language competency in over 120+ languages. Language Testing is their official partner, and they offer official proctored, on-demand exams seven days a week, that test reading, listening, writing, and speaking skills.

You may already be familiar with the CEFR Scale (Common European Framework of Reference), which ranges from A1 to C2. See the following graph for translating results from ACTFL to CEFR.

A quick note on the ACTFL LPT (language proficiency test) itself. The listening exams consist of around ~15 short audio segments ~one minute a piece, followed by three questions each. You may find that your exam gets easier as you progress, more difficult, or more or less stays the same, depending on how you perform early on. The listening, like the reading, is a dynamic exam designed to “probe your level. If you are in the Advanced High / Superior range, the listening “clips” are likely to get progressively more difficult.

Recently I took LPT tests in Spanish and Arabic. In Spanish, I scored Superior (C2), whereas in Arabic I scored Advanced High (C1). I’ve posted the certificates down below, complete with a complete description of each level. I figured I would make a post outlining some important things to keep in mind, both in preparation for, and on the day of, the exam. While the title of this blog is tailored to advanced learners, these tips will help you do better at any level, and some of the tips are transferable to both the reading and speaking exams.

FYI, the first three tips are relevant before the day of the exam, while the last two apply to test day.

5 Pro Tips To Improve Your ACTFL LPT Score

1-) Master The Material You Will Be Tested On. Both the Spanish and Arabic exams, and I’m pretty sure all the listening exams ACTFL administers, are tests of the formal variant of a language. In Spanish, that means the kind of language you will hear on CNN En Español, the news more generally, cultural and educational programs, and some informal exchanges using standard Spanish. What you will likely not hear is any slang characteristic of Central America, South America, the Caribbean, or regional pronunciation. None of my knowledge of Mexican Spanish, which is pretty vast, helped me in any way with this exam.

As far as Arabic, all of the passages are in Modern Standard Arabic. A few passages had superficial traces of dialect, like the Egyptian pronunciation of the letter qaaf, but nothing more substantive than that. Again, knowledge of spoken Arabic will not help with this exam, unless it is also coupled with direct exposure to formal Arabic, in which case the differences between the two can be worked out.

FYI, all of this info can be found in the prep material provided by ACTFL, which you can access here. ACTFL provides sample audios and a complete description of each level for every language.

2-) Practice Active Listening. This tip applies to training. Obviously, during the test day you will be zeroed in on every audio sample. However, in advance of the test, practice active, not passive listening. It’s one thing to hear something; it’s an entirely different thing to listen to it actively. Listening involves focus and concentration. On the other hand, when we are distracted, we only draw on a fraction of our mental abilities, and our practice time becomes much less productive. When we actively listen, we are able to pinpoint the words and the sounds that give us difficulties.

3-) Look Up New Words. It doesn’t matter how good you are at audibly deciphering words. if you don’t know the meaning, you will either be one, totally clueless; or two, liable to make errors (when you think you understood one thing, but the meaning was different or nuanced). In simple terms, having a broad vocabulary is vital to scoring high. The speakers in the recordings speak clearly, so pronunciation is not really a challenge, but you need to know what most of the words mean right away in order to do well. For years, I made a habit of looking up words all the time, both in Spanish and Arabic (see here), and that made exam day a lot easier.

That said, no matter how advanced you are in a language, you will likely not understand every single word being said; or you may understand what was being said only to forget it, so pay special attention to the next two bullets.

4-) Study The Questions In Advance. Each audio recording will play automatically, but you are given thirty seconds to study the questions in advance (just the questions, not the possible answers, so you don’t have to worry about information overload). Context is the most important thing to understanding any communication. These 30 seconds help you establish the context in advance, which knowledge is a huge aid during the listening portion. The title of the clip and the questions are typically short and relatively simple, so meditate on them during those first 30 seconds so you know exactly what you will be looking for when you listen. Since you only get one listen for each section, it is extremely important to be as clued in on the context as possible.

Remember, you do not need to understand everything to pass each section. You just need to know the answers to the specific questions they ask, which range from the main idea to more specific details.

5-) Take Targeted Notes While Listening. During the exam you are provided a notepad to take notes on each section. Utilize it strategically. You don’t want to be typing too much while listening because you may miss important details, and won’t have the chance to go back and listen again. At the same time, you don’t want to neglect what matters. I jotted down a few words during each clip, which helped me stay focus and remember the key details I was zeroing in on having studied the questions in advance.

For the listening and the reading, the results become available right away, as with a complete description of your level. You are supposed to wait 90 days before taking the same test again, but you may be able to take an individual exam a second time before 90 days, so check their policy online, and give them a call if you are not sure.

Lastly, language is far more dynamic than any exam could ever let on. Doing well or poorly on an exam most directly reflects your ability to take that exam. If you do well, enjoy your result, but don’t think a Superior result means you’ve arrived. The certificates, after all, are only valid for two years, during which time your level can go up or down. Similarly, just because you didn’t get the result you wanted, it doesn’t mean you won’t in the future. And it doesn’t necessarily mean your language level isn’t higher, especially if you are proficient in informal, non-standard varieties that speakers of a language commonly communicate in.

Here are my results as promised from September, 2021:

Have you taken an ACTFL exam before? Drop your two cents down below! If you liked this post, be sure to also check out The Psychology of Speaking In A Foreign Language | The Magic Of Speaking In A Foreign Language | I Have Multiple Personalities (Confessions Of A Linguist) | Travel Is Not The Best Way To Improve Your Foreign Language Skills (The Myth of Immersion) | How Long it Takes to Become Fluent in a Foreign Language | This Daily habit will dramatically increase your foreign language proficiency! | Confessions of a Bilingual: Raw Perspective From A Persian-American Linguist.