This articlereports on a study that investigated the effect of different amounts of planning time on thespeech performance of L2 speakers. Subjects were 4 groups of learners of German (31 intotal) performing 2 tasks each. The tasks varied in the degree of structure they contained andthe familiarity of information they tapped. The control group had no planning time available;the 3 experimental groups had 1, 5, and 10 minutes of planning time, respectively, before theystarted speaking. Results show fluency and lexical density of speech increase as a function ofplanning time. Accuracy of speech improved with only 1 minute planning but did not increasewith more planning time. Complexity of speech was significantly higher for the 10-minuteplanning condition only. No significant differences were found for the effect of planning onthe different tasks. This study employed various general and specific constructs for measuringfluency, complexity, and accuracy of speech. The interrelationships and qualities of thesemeasures are also investigated and discussed.