How to Overcome the Fear of Speaking a Foreign Language

Note: This is a revised and updated post from my old blog on July 23, 2013. All photos are from my time living in Japan between 2010 and 2011.

Going out and speaking Japanese is still something that takes a lot of work for me. This fear to speak is without question something that can be worked on, and I feel like the usual advice of “just push through it” isn’t really enough. I’m going to write this as if I am giving some advice to the me that started learning Japanese more than 10 (!) years ago.

If you have anything that has helped you, please let me know in the comments!

1. Challenge the shoulds.

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The first and most important thing to realize is that when you open your mouth to speak, what comes out is exactly what you are capable of. Each time you do it, there is a combination or nervousness, frustration, excitement, words, grammar, sentence structure, people, situations, remembering, forgetting, and many other linguistic and emotional factors that affect what you’re able to do.

Telling yourself that you should be better, or that you shouldn’t have made that mistake is a really easy (and common) reflex to have. But if you think about it, it doesn’t make sense. This is a huge project, and what you are capable of doing will shift a lot from day to day, and from situation to situation.

It’s easy to rationalize that you’ve done this or that and should therefore have no trouble with what you’re trying to say, but trust that your brain is doing the best it can. It only makes sense that you’ll try your best to put a sentence together when you speak.

Instead of worrying about what you should or shouldn’t have been able to do, find some productive ways to strengthen your language muscle when you’re clear-headed.

2. Let speaking be different. Speak to get your point across. Speak to make friends. Speak to experience things. Speak to find a different side of yourself. Speak to have adventures.

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In other words: Don’t speak to practice speaking. Put yourself in fun situations where speaking is necessary.

This might not work as well for someone who is using speaking as the primary method to progress in the language, but for anyone who is focusing on input, try this out: don’t think of speaking as a way to progress, think of it as a way to have an adventure – expect that the forward progress will happen from the other things you do.

I still have a really tough time relaxing enough while speaking to pick up new things, but I realized awhile ago that that’s okay. Instead, I have found it helpful to focus on putting together the pieces of language that are already swirling around in my head, and let go of the expectation that I’ll walk away from a conversation with new ones.

3. Each time you speak, work on letting go. Don’t wait for the fear or frustration to go away. Instead, recognize that it will be there, notice it when it comes up, and then keep doing what you set out to do.

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This is still something I have a really tough time with. Both with my languages and everyday feelings of worry, anxiety, etc.

A phrase I came across recently that I liked (but might be too new-age-voodoo-ish for some people 🙂), is that you don’t try to let go of the feeling, you practice letting it be. It’s not that by doing some special trick, all of the difficulties will melt away. It’s by actively recognizing the feelings as they rise and fall, you come to realize the temporary nature of them.

It might be tough to focus on having adventures and enjoying the language when you’re frustrated or embarassed, but by noticing these feelings with an open mind when they happen, you see that they’re pretty harmless.

4. If you just “push foward”, understand that it probably won’t get much easier until you’re a lot better.

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I always got the impression when reading the advice of other learners that they didn’t really have the same experiences as me. They generally made it seem that if I just had the courage to get through speaking a few times, that I’d see how it’s really not that big of a deal and let go of my worries and fears. But for me, I got through speaking a few times, and then realized that I just wanted to go hide in my apartment.

If you do decide to try pushing through the pain, keep in mind that it will probably take a lot of progress before the difficulty decreases much. It’s a pretty disorienting experience trying to express yourself in a language other than your native one. It takes some getting used to.

But remember that you can just let the feelings be. You can still get out there and have adventures and enjoy the language, even if there are some frustrations that come along with it.

You’ll have to put yourself out there to practice no matter what, but keep in mind that the frustrations that come with it aren’t really something to be conquered. They’ll dissipate in time, but for now it’s probably best to accept them.

5. Doing more will make this easier, but it’s okay if it’s not easier.

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One of my most common reactions to speaking when I lived in Japan was the desire to leave the situation and study more. To watch movies or read in Japanese. To study vocabulary or sentence structures. I did this with the mindset that I would just work on the language more and come back to speaking when I was better.

Don’t trick yourself into thinking that once you’ve read this book or watched that movie or studied these words or spoken this many hours that it will all be care-free. They will all help in a lot of ways, but the link between the two probably won’t be as immediate as you hope. The challenges will probably be there, rising and falling, for awhile.

It’s true that once you’ve studied more, gotten more input, worked on the parts of the language that you need to work on, you will be better and things will be easier, but it’s okay if it doesn’t get easier. There are still great experiences to be had, even if you’ve still got a lot of work to do.

Adventures!

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I still have a lot of work to do on my speaking. I bring this up because when I look back at the fun times I had speaking Japanese, I don’t think, “Darn! If only I had been better at Japanese I would have enjoyed everything more!” It might be tough in the moment, but in the long run, not being able to express yourself perfectly will be eclipsed by the excitement of being out there and using the language.

So good luck getting out there and having adventures! There are a lot of great things to do with this language you’re working on. 🙂

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