Shy about speaking a different language?
Do you start overconfident and then plateau? Do you understand your target language but struggle to start speaking?
I'm going to make a confession – I've always been really shy about speaking another language with strangers.
In this post, we'll cover some of the benefits of speaking another language that should motivate you to get started. There's also a little reflection about the psychology of why we get shy speaking with native speakers and what we can learn from that.
By the way, if you want to boost your language skills thanks to a fun and effective method that teaches you through stories, not rules, check out my StoryLearning® courses and claim your free 7-day trial.
Table of Contents
5 Benefits Of Language Learning
Why wouldn't you want to speak a foreign language?! Being monolingual puts blinkers on your worldview and horizons; let's look at some of the many benefits of speaking more than one language.
#1 Other Languages Change Your Brain
Did you know there are many cognitive benefits of language learning? Research suggests that people who are bilingual have more grey matter, and speaking multiple languages improves your brain's plasticity.
The ability to switch languages is a great workout for your brain.
#2 Speaking Another Language Improves Your Memory
When you need to memorize vocabulary and grammar rules, it's inevitable that your process for remembering things will improve. Memory is a muscle that needs training, just like all the other muscles in your body.
So a lovely side effect of learning a new language is that you'll no longer forget why you went to the supermarket! On a serious note, you can also reduce your chances of Alzheimer's if you work on your language skills when you're younger.
#3 You'll See The World Differently
Not all idioms and expressions can be translated into your native language. This means you have to lean into the way people who speak your second language see things, which may be very different from the way you see things!
Understanding the nuances of a new language will open your eyes to cultural differences and help you see the world from another perspective.
Language and culture are closely intertwined, so being able to speak the language will help you learn far more about other cultures than you would if English speakers explained it to you.
#4 You'll Be Able To Connect With People On A Deeper Level
There's no better feeling than having a conversation with someone in their local language. It's even better when you realise they understand you!
From people in new places you travel to the friends and family of people in your life from a different country…when you can communicate in another language, your possibilities for connection are unleashed!
You'll be surprised how much people appreciate you making the effort to speak to them in their native tongue (especially if you're a native English speaker).
Getting to know people in a different language to your own will also teach you a lot about human connection. You soon realise that nobody cares if you make little grammar mistakes or get idioms wrong. It's making the effort that counts.
Wherever you find yourself in the world, the more languages you speak, the higher chance you'll have to connect with the people you meet.
#5 You Will Suprise Yourself
The language learning experience is a long journey for many of us, and it's all too easy to want to give up, especially if you don't feel like you're making progress. But if you persevere, you will be sure to surprise yourself.
You are capable of more than you think you are, and you never know; when you start speaking another language, you may even uncover layers of your personality you didn't even know existed!
How To Find Confidence To Start Speaking Your New Language
You've probably heard this one before, but the easiest way to speak a foreign language is to just start!
However, that might be easier said than done. The start can go smoothly but after a while, you may start to plateau.
There's a certain psychological process that I go through with each new language, having now struggled through it so many times.
At the beginning of the language learning process, after learning a few words and basic greetings, I get a bit cocky. I quite like walking around and rattling off the local equivalent of “Hey, how's it going!” or “Enjoy your food!”
People always appreciate the effort, smile, say something back, and there's an all-round good vibe! From my side, I get a bit of a kick, and as yet I have no expectations of being able to say much more than this.
Delusions Of Grandeur
Next comes the confidence nose-dive stage. As I progress, I quite quickly reach a stage where I like to think I've moved beyond the stage of ‘that guy who can say a few words in [+language]'.
The best possible thing would be for people to stop using English with me and speak only in their language; I know that if they do I'll benefit massively.
Gradually, as I set my sights on the next big prize (conversational fluency), the greetings and catchphrases I was throwing around begin to sound trite, and I feel like I'm being labelled as a one-trick pony.
Those little daily interactions, which gave me such a thrill at the beginning, are now tiresome and trivial. “I have to speak the language properly now,” I tell myself. The problem, of course, is that I can't yet hold down a conversation.
Not being able to handle a conversation only comes from one place – home study at the expense of getting out there and interacting with people (i.e. active listening).
At this stage, my listening comprehension is always far behind my level of speaking. In conversational terms, I can speak, but I can't understand what the other person says. As long as that happens, the conversation immediately reverts to English.
This leaves me in the all-too-familiar no man's land of starting to take myself seriously yet not being able to come up with the goods.
The Language Learner Plateau
There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.
Bruce Lee
Going from this stage to where I actually want to be (holding down a decent conversation) is a mammoth task.
To a certain extent, surroundings play an important role here. If you live in a country where there are native speakers of the language you want to learn, it is certainly an advantage.
But it's a marginal advantage, and certainly not a precondition; living in the country or not, it's still down to you to hunt out the right sort of opportunities.
In some places, it's easier than in others. If you're in Brazil, chances are it's not such a big deal because people will just talk to you wherever you go! But then by the same token, Brazilians are like that everywhere – you just have to find them.
The “Brazilian effect” certainly doesn't happen everywhere. In Japan, for example, people would often run a mile rather than start up a conversation with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Westerner!
Interestingly, I eventually realised that that is usually because they are worried that their English isn't good enough to talk with a foreigner! The fear villain messes with us all.
Don't Give Up
So, how to move on? The easiest thing that many language learners do is to give up.
The next easiest thing: hit the books (a fairly easy option because it just requires you to sit down and read). I've done both.
But I've discovered that what you really have to do at this stage in order to make the progress you really want is to start speaking and not stop. More than ever. Hit it hard. You will never feel ready!
There's plateau after plateau to break through, and no amount of self-study (let alone costly language school tuition) is going to do it.
The psychological danger of not doing this: the longer you wait to start speaking, the harder it will get to start. Then you're really in trouble because the effort that's required to surmount that particular obstacle is huge and becomes a psychosocial issue more than a linguistic one.
I've been there – finding myself really wanting to talk in a certain situation but not having the linguistic confidence to do it. And the cause is clear: paralysis by analysis.
Learning it but not using it. Having too many words and grammar rules flying around in my head but not having built up that rapid-fire ability to pull out appropriate language on demand.
So at this stage, you have to start speaking, and you have to keep speaking.
But how?
I'm not a particularly shy person, but speaking to strangers in the early stages of learning a language is usually a step too far for me. If you're naturally a shy person, it must be terrifying!
Find Someone To Talk To
A great tool that worked for me when learning every foreign language was finding a language exchange partner – someone who I could sit down with for an hour or more at a time.
Finding willing partners is easy – you either offer your reciprocal services as a native speaker or you pay them. Either will do the trick.
How to really get the most out of a conversation exchange is a story for another day, but the important point to make is that your partner should not act as a teacher. They are essentially a sounding board for you to practice spoken language with.
Your role is to push yourself to hold a genuine conversation without reverting to your mother tongue. You need your partner to:
- be a sympathetic listener (patiently maintain the conversation)
- correct your language if/when required (not after every single error – a paralysing problem)
- suggest how a native speaker might say things better
- set your pronunciation straight
This may sound simple. It is. Look closely and the roles described above. What do you notice?
It's the exact same relationship as mother and child. It's how you learnt your first language! We are biologically conditioned to learn this way, and this is what makes this approach so powerful.
It is, in fact, one of the core principles of second language acquisition and is well-documented in research literature if you're interested in reading more about it.
Lessons Learnt
- People always appreciate the most simple greeting in their language. It's a great place to start, and if you need a confidence boost, just try exchanging a couple of pleasantries with someone without expecting the conversation to go any further. It'll make you feel great.
- You need people who can act as a sounding board. Schedule a time every week. Pay them if necessary. Sites such as this, this, and this might be good places to start.
- Set up a speaking routine – taking classes in something that interests you (yoga, dance, steel drums) can be a great way to meet people if you live in the right environment. Failing that, use the sites above.
If you deny yourself the opportunity of speaking another language, think of all the mistakes you'll never make!
By seeking and blundering we learn.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Olly Richards
Creator of the StoryLearning® Method
Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.
Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.
When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.
