Why do you not recommend practicing speaking?

Practicing speaking has quite a few benefits. However, we don't recommend it at the early stages for most people because speaking before you have formed a clear mental image of the language has quite a few drawbacks. This advice applies to most people, but you should consider your specific situation and decide whether the benefits are worth the drawbacks for you. The first thing you need to know is that speaking doesn’t result in acquisition. Acquisition is the result of being exposed to vocabulary and sentence patterns that over time add information to our mental image of the language. Since speaking is output, it can’t add new information to this model. When we speak, everything is coming from inside ourselves. We also know that speaking and being corrected doesn’t help us improve: How will I know I'm saying it right if nobody corrects me? The main drawback of speaking too early is that you will end up building in your head your own version of the language. This version of the language will be affected by your first language and by your own misconceptions about the language. The earlier that you start speaking and the more you speak the more it will be influenced. Speaking early can affect all of the following:\n\nNative usage of the grammar.\nAppropriate usage of idiomatic language and collocations.\nLearning the correct meaning of words.\nUsing the right vocabulary in the right context, like formal language or slang.\nHaving a clear understandable pronunciation.\n\nThese effects are worse if you start speaking before you accumulate enough hours of input, and also based on the amount of speaking you do. Having said that, speaking also has many practical benefits. If you are already in the country and you need to speak to get basic things done, it would be impractical to refrain from doing so, for example. If speaking with others really keeps you motivated, as another example, then clearly it's better to speak than to burn out and quit. Our goal is to lay out the logic behind our recommendations as clearly as possible, so that each person can understand the why and reason out exactly what is the best decision given their own context and situation.