So you need practice speaking Spanish….
But you’re not the most extroverted person.
Or maybe just the idea of speaking Spanish turns you into an introvert.
A foreign language can exacerbate feelings of shyness (speaking from experience).
Doesn’t exactly make you thrilled to speak.
And it’s hard to get better at speaking without… speaking.
In fact, I suspect most learners way underestimate the number of speaking hours needed to speak their new language proficiently.
This leads to frustration, doubts about your abilities, and potentially giving up under the assumption that you’ll never “get there”.
So avoiding speaking is a big challenge that needs resolving.
No one can resolve it for you, but I do have a few tips from my experience learning and working with other learners.
Let’s take a look at a few of those tips.
Your own best friend
Your speaking hours don’t all need to be with someone else.
And there are things you can do to ease into the hours you do spend speaking with others.
Here’s an exercise that combines those two ideas:
- Actively watch, listen to or read a piece of content
- Write about it (use this time to uncover words you’re missing)
- Read your writing aloud
- Turn your writing into a few key bullet points
- Try to speak aloud to yourself using only those bullet points
- Schedule a call with a tutor or friend and agree ahead of time that the topic will be what you’ve already practiced
Step 6 is the natural sticking point.
The idea behind steps 1-5 is that you (a) prepare, so you feel more relaxed; and (b) prove to yourself that you are capable of stringing coherent (not necessarily correct) sentences together.
But what if after doing steps 1-5, you still don’t feel ready to speak Spanish with someone?
How to get over a fear of speaking Spanish with others
In my experience, it helps to focus on a couple things.
First, remember that the other person is cheering you on.
Just like when you speak with someone new to English, they’re focused on understanding you — not on nitpicking your grammar or word choice.
That’s also why it’s best to find a dedicated conversation partner or tutor (italki is what I use).
Waiters and strangers on the street may be in a rush or not be in the mood to help (which can lead to those frustrating replies in English).
Here are two suggestions for easing into chats with a conversation partner or tutor:
- Try being the one to ask questions instead of answer them. Focusing more on listening can take the pressure off. Then the speaking you do can be focused on asking clarifying questions.
- Try crosstalk. This is where they speak Spanish to you, and you speak English back to them. It gives you the experience of actually connecting with someone else and using your new language earlier on. I’ve never tried this myself but have heard good things.
The more you use it, the easier it gets
Think about the words and grammar you’re learning as a bunch of little wells.
When you spend most of your time listening to and reading Spanish, you end up with tons of little wells of knowledge that you can’t access yet.
You can see the wells… but can’t reach them (there’s nothing wrong with this — it’s the natural process).
But each time you use a given word or grammatical structure in conversation, the water in the well moves closer to the surface.
You don’t have to drop a bucket 50 ft to find it… now, it’s closer to being instantly available.
It’s going to take many, many hours of speaking for you to feel like you express yourself with ease.
That’s the case with anyone learning any language, anywhere. So embrace it and get speaking!
I hope today’s tips help. Let me know how it goes if you try them out.
Connor
P.S. A big part of why I felt comfortable enough to use my Spanish was that I’d practiced my pronunciation a ton. Even when I was missing words or had bad grammar, I felt natural enough in how I was saying things to not be bothered by those very normal mistakes. If that’s something you’d like for your own Spanish, this can help.
