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Speaking in Front of Other People | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| PicturesAre Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5451 days ago 13 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, Haitian Creole Studies: Tok Pisin, Spanish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 28 24 December 2009 at 8:03am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm a linguistics major. Human language is the only thing I truly love. I study language pretty regularly, I pick up
on grammar fairly quickly. I could probably start learning a language from scratch and be pretty decent in a month's time. With that said, ACTUALLY SPEAKING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE TERRIFIES ME BEYOND BELIEF. I honestly can't imagine a more frightening thing. Outside of my language classes, I have never done it publicly at all. I deal regularly with people who speak languages I study. And, at no point in time do I volunteer my knowledge to them, because TALKING TO SOMEONE IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE IS ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING. Is this common? Is there any way to not get over this sort of thing? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6770 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 2 of 28 24 December 2009 at 9:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Some people recommend alcohol to lower your inhibitions when trying to practice speaking another language. (No,
really.) This should sort of be a last resort though, since other mental faculties and your ability to learn are impaired by alcohol. However, it works for some people. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Lindsay19 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5823 days ago 183 posts - 214 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC1 Studies: Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic | Message 3 of 28 24 December 2009 at 9:26am | IP Logged | ||
This has actually worked for me; my biggest problem is that I over-think things, or don't say something in the language I'm learning because I'm afraid I'll misspronounce it (usully because I'm worried and think about it too much!), so I've found that A LITTLE alcohol (key word here, NOT drunk) helps lower my inhibitions, and things just seem to come out naturally. I'm not nervous about making mistakes and therefore don't stutter just because I was focused too much on failing. But as you said, this is a last resort, or a quick fix; not something you should depend upon. You'll eventually have to learn to talk while sober. Edited by Lindsay19 on 24 December 2009 at 9:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Quabazaa Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5611 days ago 414 posts - 543 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, French Studies: Japanese, Korean, Maori, Scottish Gaelic, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Written) | Message 4 of 28 24 December 2009 at 9:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Also, do you have a good friend or someone you trust who you might be more comfortable speaking to? People who you can *tell* that you feel scared or shy??
I'm terribly shy too, if people turn to me and say "say something in X!" it's like my mouth is suddenly glued shut, and even though I want to talk I can't! (Especially if they are a native speaker.) But, if they actually ask me questions in the language, it's a lot easier. I think it really just takes practise though. I even felt shy when first trying to speak with the man who is now my husband in his native language! It didn't help that he refused to speak with me in Spanish in the beginning, because he wanted to improve his English. But after some time of forcing myself to just talk, well now I feel totally natural speaking Spanish. Also, practise small talk! If you can introduce yourself without much effort, and know basic questions to ask about a person's life, you can actually get pretty far for one conversation :) It's almost depressing how repetitive the majority of our daily conversations are, haha. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6495 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 5 of 28 24 December 2009 at 9:38am | IP Logged | ||
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The issue is that you think of speaking a target language for the sake of speaking it.
You don't speak like that in your native. If you see somebody walking toward a pit, you'll shout "stop, you'll fall!" and won't care if you put it correctly, right? Probably find an interesting person to talk to, tell that you'd like to switch and try... Or find somebody who doesn't speak English. Or travel to a not famous city in the target country, and you'll need to speak earlier or later :) Edited by Siberiano on 24 December 2009 at 9:38am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Fazla Hexaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6264 days ago 166 posts - 255 votes Speaks: Italian, Serbo-Croatian*, English, Russian, Portuguese, French Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Turkish, Mandarin | Message 6 of 28 24 December 2009 at 10:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Incredible, I've never heard of people who love languages yet are afraid to speak them. If the fear is about mispronunciating things, I don't get it not because "c'mon, it's normal, everyone does it" but because it REALLY IS NORMAL and EVERYONE DOES IT and I say it as a thing that can be scientifically proven.
Plus, not being 100% perfect especially having a foreign accent (but having a good syntax, vocabulary, grammar...) is good especially when dealing with the other sex (at least this has been so in my case). So nothing to be terrified about, but motived! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| PicturesAre Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5451 days ago 13 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, Haitian Creole Studies: Tok Pisin, Spanish, Mandarin | Message 7 of 28 24 December 2009 at 3:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Um, I resort to alcohol to do Chinese homework. I mean....yeah, I have trouble doing foreign language homework,
just not as much. It's not so much that I worry about making mistakes, I know how to speak the language and understand that people make mistakes. I mean, my specialty in linguistics is language contact, so I really really understand. And, I speak a pretty low-prestige dialect of English (central Appalachian), so I'm not worried about accent at all...I've been down that road before, and I can fake an accent pretty well. It is still absolutely terrifying. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Rina Newbie United States Joined 5546 days ago 35 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin, Korean | Message 8 of 28 24 December 2009 at 4:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can relate to you completely.
A classmate once asked me "How do you say little girl in German?" Something really really easy. But I froze up and couldn't remember "klein" to save my life. One of the first words I learned. However, when I talk to my German friend, the words just come more easily. I guess I just don't take very well to "performing" like a monkey. Maybe you should make yourself make small talk with someone, and then you'll see that it's not that scary? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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