How To Overcome The Fear Of Speaking A Foreign Language

When we start learning a new language we will all suffer from the fear of speaking at some point. We will get the opportunity to speak to someone and we will just freeze.

Every inch of us will for some reason not want to speak. This is a common problem, but you can overcome it!

Why Do We Have A Fear Of Speaking A Foreign Language?

Firstly, it’s totally normal to feel this way, even if it is extremely annoying and frustrating.

We get like this as we are scared of the unknown and a new language is very unknown territory.

Our brain will always try to take the easy way out of situations, especially unknown ones, so it will do everything in its power to convince us to NOT do whatever we are trying to do (for us it is not knowing what we will have to say in the new language).

It’s basically a survival tactic, which sounds crazy as we are in no real danger, but our brain sees the potential of making a fool of out of ourselves as stepping too far out of our comfort zone and decides it’s too risky.  

So basically the fear is often just in our heads. 

If you ask yourself really what is the worst that can happen? The answer is actually not a lot, maybe a few moments of awkwardness?

It’s not exactly worth the stress is it?

Nobody Cares If You Make Mistakes

Nobody is going to care that you have mispronounced something, or used a verb in the wrong tense. They will only care about what is trying to be communicated.

Have you ever spoken to anyone who isn’t a native English speaker and they and they something like “Have you go to the shop today?” do you ever think “What an idiot, they used the wrong tense” NO, of course you don’t. You just answer the question. 

Your brain is able to work out what they were trying to communicate in a matter of milliseconds. You don’t even need to consciously tell yourself that the wrong tense was used; you just understand what was trying to be communicated.

So if you don’t worry about a little mistakes like this, why would someone from another country worry about you doing the same in their language?

All you need to worry about is asking yourself “Have I been able communicate my message”. If it’s not 100% clear, that’s fine, so long as they get a general concept of the message that you where trying to send it will be fine.

How To Overcome The Fear Of Speaking A Foreign Language

The first thing to do is to remember that you are learning, you are going to make mistakes in the language.

You need to override your brain and just go for it. This is obviously a lot easier to say than to actually do.

You can force yourself to walk up to the native speaker, but you might open your mouth and nothing comes out.

Control The Situation

If you are still freezing up with fear, you need to take a step back and start controlling the situations you are putting yourself into.

To just try and walk up to a stranger, who you have overheard speaking your target language is a bit too much. This would be stressful enough if you did this in your own language, so it’s no surprise it’s too intense in your target language that you are still not confident in.

The easiest thing to control in any situation is who you are talking to. You can start by talking to a language tutor or a friend/someone you trust who can who can also speak your target language.

Speaking with someone like this is instantly going to bring the stress levels down compared to speaking to a complete stranger. You already know the person or if they are a tutor they know you are learning and their whole existence is to help you.

No one will be judging you in this situation. They can totally understand what level you’re at and what to expect from you.

They will accommodate for you and speak slower, or use simpler words and of course not give you a strange look if you suddenly make a grammatically error. 

Have Prearranged Conversations

One of the biggest fears with speaking is having the feeling that you have a lack of vocabulary in the language. You might be relaxed enough to speak to someone, but you think you will run out of words, or not be able to find the right words to say while you speak.

This is totally fine. You are not going to be able to express yourself fully for some time but this should not put you off.

A good way around this is to have prepared conversations.

This is kind of like when you did an oral exam at school. You’d always know the topic and actually most times new exactly what you were going to be asked before the exam. 

Obviously you can just learn a paragraph and recite it. This may get you to pass an oral exam, but it’s not exactly going to get you better at the language you are trying to Learn.

However, if you know the topic you are going to speak about in advance you can prepare and go over the main vocabulary you are probably going to use.

Even if the conversation only last a few minutes and only covers one small topic, this is still good. The fact you are practicing something is a million times better than doing nothing.    

As you progress in the language you can talk for longer, discuss multiple things or just stop preparing for the topics in advance.

(You can read more about – Resources To Help With Your Speaking In A New Language)

Talk To Strangers On The Internet

This is either going to make things very easy for you or give you even more anxiety and fear.

The idea is that you talk to a stranger on the internet. It is probably best to do this through a language exchange site.

You can be pretty anonymous on the internet and even if you’re not, the person you are talking to doesn’t know you at all!

My hope is that talking to a stranger on the internet takes some of the fear of speaking a foreign language away. They know nothing about you, so how can they judge or laugh at you? They know nothing about you apart from the fact you are trying to learn the language.

If they laugh at you …you’ll never see them again and they will never find you again. You just block or delete them in the app and they are gone.

However, in my experience everyone on language apps are lovely. They are in the exact same shoes as you. They want to learn and they are scared to make mistakes too. There is a sort of mutual trust that you will both be kind to each other and help each other.

The whole reason they are on these apps is to talk to people and practice, so it should be a little less scary.

I do understand that some of you will think of this idea as crazy and will make you 10 times more scared.

I’d just ask you give it a try. Tell the person you only know a little, and then show them what you can do. You’ll probably find they are very supportive. You never know, one of these strangers may end up a good friend.

Send Voice Notes In Your New Language

Voice notes are an excellent tactic to get you speaking in your new language and helping overcome the fear.

If talking directly to someone in your new language is too much, send them a voice note. You can do this on most language exchange apps and phone apps.

You can say whatever you want to say and if it’s not right, delete it and then record it again.

Just keep recording it until you are happy with it. The person you are sending it to will have no idea if you did this once or ten times and it doesn’t matter.

They can then listen to you and it’s like you are talking to them, without actually having to stand in front of them and talk to them.

Also if they reply, you can listen to their audio clip 100s of times to make sure you understand what is being said to you. It’s like having a conversation, but in slow time, with a repeat feature, which means you can relax and take your time.

Write Out What You Want To Say

I’ve also sent audios to people in a language I am learning, where I’ve first written out what I want to say and then read it out.

The anxiety of remembering what to say, while also trying to remember how to pronounce everything was too much. So, I just took half the problem away.

Writing out what I wanted to say meant I didn’t have to remember it. I could just focus on pronouncing it. This may seem like cheating, but it’s not. They are my words, I just wrote them out first and then I said them out loud.

Speaking in your new language like this for the first few times can just help with your confidence and gets the ball rolling.

Now I don’t need to do this, but I think it’s an excellent way to get you started and will build you up to having a real time conversation.

(You can read more about – Frequently Asked Questions About – Speaking In Your New Language)

Change Your Mindset

Maybe you are still worried about a conversation in a controlled situation. Maybe you feel whoever you are speaking to will be disappointed in how little you know of the language you have been studying for so long.

This is all in your mind. You need to look at it from a different angle. You need to flip your perception and think about how much you CAN show them.

Even if it’s a little bit, it’s still something to be proud of.

There are also no rules about how quickly it’s should take you to reach certain levels in a language, so no one has the right to judge you, including yourself for how much you may, or may not know. 

Of course you can always do more, but focusing on the “more” doesn’t matter while you are learning.

Focus on showing what you CAN do with a new language is sometimes all you need to think about to help give you the confidence you need, which will help remove your fears.

(You can read more about – What Are The Benefits Of Practising Your Speaking Skills In A Second Language?)

Conclusion

As with all aspects of language learning, it takes times. You won’t be fluent overnight so you just need to take small steps and just keep building on what you’ve already done. Practicing speaking is just another set of small steps you need to take.

There really is nothing to be scared of.

After you have your first real conversation you will think “Why was I worried?” the mistakes didn’t kill you and it was probably actually pretty fun trying to talk to someone.

(You can read more about – How To Practice Speaking A Language On Your Own (Without Mistakes))