Yesterday I met this wonderful guy from Albania as he was walking through Ferreirola with his French girlfriend.
We started chatting, and as we spoke, we changed to English, then to French, then back to Spanish.
He had only been in Spain for 10 days, and wasn’t very fluent in Spanish, but he wanted to improve in this new language that he had started to learn not so long ago.
It turns out that Klaid speaks 5 or 6 languages, I was amazed!
How did you learn so many languages?
So that was my first question: how, and why, did he learn all those languages?
I worked in a bar full of tourists in Santorini for 4 years, and I wanted to be able to understand all our customers.
So Klaid had actually been studying the languages of his customers in order to serve them better in this beautiful place in Greece.
I thought that was so interesting!
He told me he had studied the basics in an app on his phone, and then improved by talking with people.
Weren’t you afraid of making mistakes?
Now this was my second question, because surely what he learnt on an app couldn’t be enough to have a proper conversation, without making mistakes.
He laughed and explained that actually, making mistake is the best way to learn!
I guess that being “obliged” to talk on a daily basis, he overcame his fear to talk in a foreign language quite quickly.
If you would like to listen to the full conversation I had with Klaid that day, click on the video at the end of the article 🙂
(Don’t worry, we kept it short!)
How to overcome your fear of speaking in a foreign language?
I have felt that fear to speak also, when I was only a beginner in Spanish.
And I actually discovered that there were several ways to overcome that fear.
Here are a few tips:
1. Prepare a list of sentences you will need to use
If you need to go shopping today: prepare a list of useful phrases to use in the supermarket.
If you need to go to the doctors: prepare a list of questions you need to ask the doctor.
Where can you find those sentences?
One useful source is Google Translate. Try and keep sentences as easy as possible in English so they are translated correctly to Spanish.
Another source are blog posts: by typing “useful sentences for going shopping” in Google, I’m sure you will come up with several lists.
A third source are Forums or (Facebook) groups on Learning Spanish: you can ask people on that group to check your sentences and translate or correct them for you. Their are always nice people wanting to help on those groups.
2. Say those sentences out loud in front of a mirror
This is a great way of getting rid of some stress: repeat the sentences several times so you get used to pronounce them.
If you do that in front of the mirror or record yourself with your phone, that’s even better: that way you can see yourself talking and, if you recorded yourself, see how you get better and better and saying those sentences.
3. Practice with someone
Practice with someone you know, who speaks the language, or not!
If they speak the language, they will be able to correct you and you will gain confidence.
If they don’t, you will still gain confidence by actually talking to someone and not just to the mirror or your phone.
4. Smile
Smiling is the best way to gain even more confidence in yourself!
When you are in front of a Spaniard and you don’t know to start you sentence, just take a breath and put a smile on your face: you will see how this will make the situation much more relaxed and help you say your first words.
Video with Klaid
And here’s the video of the chat I had the other day with Klaid!
For the record, I had my 2-year-old with me, pulling on the cables, so that’s why you’ll see us laugh for apparently no reason in some places… 🙂
If you liked it, don’t forget to “like” below” and to subscribe to the channel!
Let me know in the comments below if you manage to have conversations in Spanish and how you overcome your fear of speaking, I’d love to read you!!