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Speaking in Front of Other People

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28 messages over 4 pages: 1 24  Next >>
cathrynm
Senior Member
United States
junglevision.co
Joined 6127 days ago

910 posts - 1232 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Finnish

 
 Message 17 of 28
26 December 2009 at 11:25am | IP Logged 
>I don't do well speaking either. I run into a lot of people that say stuff like "Hey,
>say something in German!" and I freeze up. I usually just string a bunch of random
>words together and call it a day.

I experienced something like this -- except the person saying "Hey, say something in Japanese" was my brother, and the person he wanted me to talk to was my father, who does speak Japanese. I am taking classes, and I've lost inhibition about using stilted, textbook Japanese in a controlled environment, but with my actual family, it's just too much. There's probably some kind of buried psychological issues going on here.

Also with beginner Japanese, now and then, just by accident, I can start the whole room laughing with some strange mistake, and I need a thicker skin about this.

Edited by cathrynm on 26 December 2009 at 7:38pm

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PicturesAre
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5451 days ago

13 posts - 16 votes
Speaks: English*, Haitian Creole
Studies: Tok Pisin, Spanish, Mandarin

 
 Message 18 of 28
26 December 2009 at 5:18pm | IP Logged 
I am kind of a quiet person really. Maybe this is more the problem.
1 person has voted this message useful



cathrynm
Senior Member
United States
junglevision.co
Joined 6127 days ago

910 posts - 1232 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Finnish

 
 Message 19 of 28
26 December 2009 at 9:50pm | IP Logged 
Yeah, I understand that.   For introverted people, it's easy to get caught up in grammar, flash cards, classes, word lists and reading and all these solitary aspects of language study.   I do honestly believe the gregarious out-going personality types do learn language more quickly. For me at least, by force of will, I can make myself go out and try to talk to people, but this is something that requires continual effort. If my life stresses out due to work or other issues, I tend to fall back on just staring at flash cards.

I think you just have to force yourself to find conversation partners and suffer through all the stress of this.   This is what I need to do, even though I fail at being consistent at this.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Katie
Diglot
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 6720 days ago

495 posts - 599 votes 
Speaks: English*, Hungarian
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 20 of 28
27 December 2009 at 12:04am | IP Logged 
I have similar experiences. I wouldn't say that I have any fear over actually speaking - my fear is more in sentence construction. For my particular language (and many others!), the WAY they say things is different to how English constructs it. When I'm in general conversation, if it's something I haven't really talked about before or spent some time on, I have a lot of difficulty to construct the sentence correctly. I think this comes from me reverting back to translating back and forth in English. :\

I'm not really sure how to get past this - except to just keep trying and keep listening to the language and immersing myself as much as possible.

The other thing I found is that, when in a situation that I need to use Hungarian, for the first even day or two I'm completely fine, going really well. And then, after that, I seem to 'block up' - it seems my comprehension and ability to speak greatly reduce.... has anyone experienced this? Any ideas how to get through it?
1 person has voted this message useful



maecenas
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5551 days ago

21 posts - 44 votes
Speaks: English*, Italian
Studies: French, Portuguese, Persian

 
 Message 21 of 28
27 December 2009 at 1:50am | IP Logged 
I like to think I'm a fairly outgoing person, but I've also had a bit of trouble being as forward with my secondary languages as I'd like.

For me, it's always been very tough to take the leap into the new language when I know that the other person speaks English (meaning we could probably communicate better with that). I've met some very friendly native speakers who say "please, feel free to practice with me", but I often can't bring myself to it.

Ultimately, I've only ever found 1 sure fire way to get over the anxiety: find people who don't speak English at all. Speaking your target language because it's the ONLY way to communicate is a very different game than speaking it in a language lab with a tutor, or even with a friend. There's no pressure, you don't focus on mistakes- you're just trying to communicate.

I guess it depends on the language you're studying as to how easy/difficult it is to find people who only speak that language, or are very early beginners in English. Obviously, travel would like be required to get the full effect. However, there are many very good language exchange websites that can be used to find language partners around the world who likely know English much less than you know their language. Striking up friendships with these types of people has drastically helped my language confidence (not to mention having the nice side affect of gaining me new friends in far off places).

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Snesgamer
Groupie
Afghanistan
Joined 6613 days ago

81 posts - 90 votes 
Studies: English*, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Scottish Gaelic

 
 Message 22 of 28
28 December 2009 at 12:28pm | IP Logged 
Honestly? You just need to jump in and get over the terror of making mistakes. I say this with complete understanding of your circumstance, because I'm one of the shyest guys you'd know, so I've been in this position before.

It helps to keep in mind that the person you're speaking to that knows your target language has more than likely either (a) had your target language as a mother tongue, so they probably had to go through a practice period in English themselves, or (b) learned your target language themselves, so they should definitely understand what you're going through.
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katilica
Bilingual Diglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 5473 days ago

70 posts - 109 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish*
Studies: French, Catalan

 
 Message 23 of 28
06 February 2010 at 6:10am | IP Logged 
Fazla wrote:
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!

Really? I feel weird even when someone tells me, 'Say something in Spanish'. Even though it is my native language, I just feel my throat instantly close shut and whatever I say just seems to come out with a weird accent not as in a foreign accent but more of a change in style. I guess this is because I am shy and I don't like being put on the spot. If a person asked me to speak Spanish or English I would only be able to do it correctly if the person was pursuing an actual conversation and not just asking me to say a random sentence.
1 person has voted this message useful



katilica
Bilingual Diglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 5473 days ago

70 posts - 109 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish*
Studies: French, Catalan

 
 Message 24 of 28
06 February 2010 at 6:24am | IP Logged 
cathrynm wrote:
Yeah, I understand that.   For introverted people, it's easy to get caught up in grammar, flash cards, classes, word lists and reading and all these solitary aspects of language study.   I do honestly believe the gregarious out-going personality types do learn language more quickly. For me at least, by force of will, I can make myself go out and try to talk to people, but this is something that requires continual effort. If my life stresses out due to work or other issues, I tend to fall back on just staring at flash cards.

I think you just have to force yourself to find conversation partners and suffer through all the stress of this.   This is what I need to do, even though I fail at being consistent at this.

Perhaps this is true but most of the outgoing people in my French class had horrible pronunciation and felt the need to say 'ay' wherever an e appeared in a word. Although I wouldn't say much, whenever I did, it was pronounced correctly and I still got good grades without burying my head in books. I do study more now though it is a habit which was very hard for me to pick up since I am a HUGE procrastinator. I believe I only did well since I learn by listening and am good at mimicking (I can usually quote a whole conversation that somebody else had and recall the exact details later on). So there ARE very outgoing people who practice speaking all of the time but like I said, I have friends who do this and I hardly understand what they are saying since they have not taken the time to go over pronunciation rules or vocabulary for that matter. I guess that personality is one of the many factors that affects language study but everyone is different and I have always been the type who studies literally 3 minutes before an English spelling test and gets 100% but cannot do a simple math problem without writing it down on paper and double checking it. I do make flash cards but I always make sure to look up the pronunciation of each word and practice it thoroughly. I also focus on spoken and colloquial language instead of solely learning textbook French and all of those deranged dialogues which have nothing to do with real life.

Edited by katilica on 06 February 2010 at 6:26am



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