How to Overcome Foreign Language Anxiety When Speaking with Locals
Learning a foreign language can be an incredibly rewarding experience — it challenges you to rewire your neural linguistic pathways, you gain a skill many people would be envious to have, you sharpen your memory and cognitive capacities, and you expand your perspective on the world around you, among many other benefits.
For many people, overcoming the obstacle between learning a language and actually using it can be difficult to do. After all, we use language to communicate with others, establish social connections, and pass on our collective knowledge and experiences. Language is an intricate part of who we are.
If you have gained the necessary skills to start practicing speaking with others in real-life situations, it’s normal to experience a bit of anxiety. This anxiety may come from the fear of appearing unintelligent or ignorant, the fear of messing up and not being able to communicate, or a lack of confidence in your skills. Speaking anxiety is a common experience for those who learn a foreign language.
The downside of experiencing anxiety to the point you are unable to speak or avoid speaking the language altogether is that you will struggle to achieve your language learning goals. You may lose the faith you have in yourself to succeed or become discouraged and give up.
