Why Are People Afraid To Speak English?

welcome to the listening Time Podcast hey everybody this is Connor and you're listening to episode 146 of the listening Time Podcast I hope you're all doing fantastic and I hope that your English learning is going well and that maybe you're starting to speak and have conversations in English uh I know that it's hard when you first start speaking English and that's actually what we're going to talk about in today's episode I want to talk about why people are afraid to speak English I think that this episode will be uh helpful for all of you especially

if you're just starting to speak or maybe you haven't spoken yet you're still waiting and you're a little bit worried about starting I think that this episode will help you if you're in that situation and I think that uh it will give you a little bit of motivation to start uh if you feel like you're uh getting to the point where you're ready to speak because you understand a lot but you're you're a little bit afraid uh I hope that after listening to this you'll feel a little bit more confident uh to start this process

of speaking in English so that's what we'll talk about today so I'm sure you'll like this episode and if you feel like you understand me really well already and you want to practice with something more difficult then I recommend that you sign up to become a listening Time family member so you can practice with my Advanced episodes in which I speak fast so the link to sign up is down below in the episode description that's patreon.com listeningtime and if you want something even more challenging then you can practice with my us conversations podcast in which

I have conversations with different English speakers from around the country uh they're all teachers who teach English and we talk about a lot of different topics and with this podcast you'll also just learn a lot about the country about the US in general it's a lot of fun it's great practice for you uh so the link is also down below that's patreon.com SL USC conversations and as always please share this podcast with any English Learners that you know and please give it a fstar rating and write a review on Spotify or apple podcasts all right

let's get started are your ears ready you know what time it is it's listening time okay let's talk about why people are Afra afraid to speak English uh in this episode I'm going to talk about the three main reasons in my opinion why people are afraid to speak English and we'll talk about um why people have that fear and I'll try to relieve your fears a little bit hopefully uh you won't feel as afraid uh after listening and before I mention these three reasons why people are afraid to speak I want to note that I

still think that it's important to be able to understand English pretty well uh before you start speaking consistently I'm not saying you have to do this everyone has different philosophies when it comes to language learning and I'm not saying that I'm right and everyone else is wrong however in my experience uh having conversations with uh people from all over the world students who are learning English uh from many different countries uh I've done this for many years I've talked to many people for thousands of hours so I'm speaking from experience here when I say that

uh when people uh can't understand me well during our conversation the conversation does not go well it's not a very helpful uh hour or half an hour uh that we spend uh when the student can't understand me well uh however if they understand me well then uh that 30 minutes or one hour uh is very useful for them they get to practice their speaking naturally and it's beneficial but if they don't understand me the conversation uh just doesn't go well it's very unnatural I have to repeat things many times or translate them and it's just

not that fun so in my opinion this is only my opinion but I'm speaking from experience uh if you can't understand English pretty well then that should be your focus you should focus on understanding English pretty well not perfectly of course uh maybe not even to an advanced level uh but you should be able to understand pretty well uh and then that will really help you get started with your speaking okay all right that being said let's talk about the first reason why many people are afraid to speak uh and that is they're afraid that

they're going to say the wrong thing in other words they think that they will make a lot of mistakes whether it be uh with with grammar or vocabulary uh they're going to say the wrong word or use the wrong structure uh many people are afraid of this and this is inevitable when we say that something is inevitable we're saying that it can't be avoided so when you start speaking English it's inevitable that you're going to say say the wrong words many times okay uh that's not something you can avoid uh and it's not something that

you will avoid when you're fluent even uh because fluency does not mean perfect accuracy fluency and accuracy are two different things so even when you become fluent in English you're still gonna make mistakes sometimes okay so don't have this idea that some people when they learn English they don't make mistakes and you make a lot of mistakes no that's not reality uh we all make mistakes we all say things wrong we all use the wrong words when we're learning a language okay and most mistakes aren't significant that's something really important that I want you to

remember most of your mistakes aren't that significant some of them are of course but most of them aren't if you use the wrong form of a verb uh for example maybe you used the wrong verb tense uh or you just did didn't know how to use the verb tense correctly uh that's usually not going to be uh a huge problem okay if uh you used the present perfect when in reality it would have been better to use the past simple sometimes it's significant but most of the time it's not okay so the important thing to

remember is is that native speakers just want to understand you that's what we're focused on we're not uh focused on all of your mistakes we just want to understand what you're saying and so if your mistake isn't significant if it doesn't change our understanding of what you're saying then it doesn't really matter that much okay I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to get better and correct your mistakes of course you should do that however don't be afraid to make mistakes because as long as these mistakes don't affect the native speaker's understanding of what you're

saying then they're not significant okay uh focus on the sign significant mistakes for sure uh for example a really big one is that uh some people have the tendency of saying she when they really want to say he that's a big mistake that's something that will cause a lot of problems so focus on those big mistakes but to be honest the majority of your mistakes aren't big so don't worry okay and uh how do you get better at this and not make as many mistakes uh not uh say the wrong thing well you need to

have more conversations uh if you can already understand pretty well um of course you need to continue listening that will help you too that always helps of course but having more conversations will also uh eventually teach you the correct way to speak okay you're going to develop that uh memory of what to say and what sounds natural if you speak a lot and have conversations and you hear the other person say things to you and oh over time uh the natural correct way to say things will become automatic for you but it takes time and

it's little by little right so just start having conversations if you can understand English pretty well and just know that you'll make mistakes but the conversations themselves are the training that you need to eventually not make as many mistakes right pretty simple so let's talk about another reason why people are afraid to speak English and that is that they are afraid that they have bad pronunciation or that they have uh a big accent a heavy accent and I talked about this recently in an episode so some of this uh you've already heard me say before

uh but just know that we all have pronunciation problems and we all have an accent uh again we're all in the same boat here that phrase we're all in the same boat means that we're all in the same situation okay it's not different for some of us okay uh we don't say things the way that native speakers say them when we're learning that language especially as an adult right we don't have the same muscle memory of how to make the correct sounds and all of that okay and uh I have this problem big time in

French when we say uh the phrase big time uh this is used to emphasize something like I'm saying really very so I have this problem big time in French uh my accent isn't that bad in Spanish or Portuguese or maybe even Italian even though I just started learning um but in French it's awful okay it's something that I really need to work on but I know that most other people when they learn French they also have a really big accent a really heavy accent when they speak and I used the word awful to describe my

accent but I really shouldn't say that because I don't want you to think that um your accent is awful or bad I'm just making fun of myself when you make fun of someone this means that you laugh at them because of something uh negative about them so I'm just making fun of Myself by saying that my accent is awful but really don't think of accents as being uh awful good bad just think of uh the L language and the sounds as being a system that you will get better at over time and don't think that

your accent is terrible just accept that you have an accent and you'll work on that over time right and just like uh I talked about before with uh saying the wrong words uh saying things the wrong way in terms of your pronunciation or your accent um usually this isn't too significant either uh most of your pronunciation errors aren't super significant uh they don't affect the native speaker understanding of what you're saying some of your mistakes are significant when it comes to your pronunciation or your accent some of them are that is true but most of

them aren't again I'm trying to help you be less afraid here I'm not saying that there aren't significant mistakes of course there are but most of your mistakes aren't significant so uh you need to have a little more confidence and don't be afraid of making mistakes with vocabulary or grammar or pronunciation however you should focus on the significant mistakes that you do make and especially if these mistakes can be easily corrected I think in the episode about pronunciation I gave the example uh of stressing the wrong syllable in a word this can be very easily

corrected and it can make a big difference uh in helping the native speaker understand you uh I remember hearing this uh employee at a Chinese restaurant asking this native speaker uh if he wanted any appetizers and she wasn't a native speaker this worker and she stressed the wrong syllable she said appetizer and the way she said it was very hard to understand for the native speaker because he was expecting her to say appetizer that's the correct way to say it and he misunderstood her and she had to repeat it and in that situation it was

a significant error because he couldn't understand her but it's easily correctable she just needs to stress the right syllable so of course to get better at things like this um we need to do a lot of listening and to listen with the intention of hearing the way that things are pronounced maybe some of your listening practice can be dedicated to focusing on the sounds of the language and not just on understanding The Words so listening with that intention can be really helpful and of course I'm someone who trains people to pronounce English better so of

course with my uh membership um if you have signed up for a certain level a certain tier of the membership you'll get my pronunciation training as well so of course you have that resource and other people uh have resources and can teach you pronunciation as well but just know that it isn't as natural to improve your pronunciation as it is to improve your vocabulary and grammar so it might be uh a little bit harder to improve in this area but you can okay it's possible and um with the right resources and uh dedicating the time

to actually uh practicing this and listening uh intently to the sounds that you hear uh this will help it's not easy but you can get better over time but just know that all of us have pronunciation issues and all of us have issues with our accent when we speak foreign languages and we English speakers actually expect you to have an accent when this isn't your first language and we hear accents all the time because many people learn English as a second language and so we're really accustomed to this don't be afraid that that we're going

to make fun of you uh and criticize your accent no don't be afraid of that just know that this is normal and try to correct the significant errors okay but most of your pronunciation errors are not significant okay and one other reason why people are afraid to speak English is because they feel that they get stuck like they freeze and they can't say anything or they don't know how to say things and again this is normal this is something that is going to happen to you when you first start speaking even if you can understand

pretty well uh I always talk about uh how understanding English well will help you uh speak and and get started speaking and that's true however you're still going to feel like you get stuck uh often when you first start speaking even if you understand well and this is similar to learning how to drive I talked about this recently in a YouTube video and I think uh there will be a bonus episode about this topic if I'm not mistaken and that's because I'm teaching my wife how to drive right now so this is on my mind

and this is a great comparison because um for example my wife uh she uh read the whole handbook uh that uh talks about all the rules uh that you need to know uh when driving in California and she had to memorize all of these things and she had to pass a test uh where she answered questions about the rules and she sees me drive almost every day because we drive places and she sees what I do what I don't do she sees all of um the different Maneuvers that I make a maneuver is some type

of movement that you make uh with some intention so she sees my Maneuvers she sees um what other drivers do she can feel everything being in the car so she has all of that experience uh of learning how to drive but when she actually first started driving it was like she was frozen she felt stuck even though she knows where the brake pedal is how to accelerate uh she knows uh the rules of the road she knows all of that but right now because she just started driving um actually uh behind the wheel as we

say she's the one driving uh it's like she has to develop this muscle memory uh and learn how to do these different things even if she kind of already knows them because she's seen me do these things she's read about them uh she knows them but she hasn't actually done them herself uh and now she's driven probably like six or seven times in total and she's already improved a ton she's already doing very very well compared to her first day driving because on her first day she felt like she didn't know what she was doing

even though she had already learned a lot of this and that's exactly how it feels when when you first start speaking uh after you can already understand well you've heard so many words and phrases and sentences and grammatical structures and you understand them perfectly but you haven't actually spoken yet and so the first time you speak You're Frozen you don't know how to speak very well because you don't have that muscle memory yet you haven't said these things out loud yet but after a few sessions of speaking you already start to feel more comfortable you

already start to feel like you're making some improvement and then the process and the progress continue after that and you eventually become a good speaker uh it works like that just like learning how to drive my wife she gets all this passive knowledge first and then she has to actually do it and it's new for her and it's hard at the beginning but she's developing this muscle memory and after like a week of driving she's doing fantastic so that's how I want you you to think about this topic when you feel stuck at the beginning

when you don't know how to say things just know that that's normal and that you're going to develop this ability uh through consistent speaking okay of course tons of listening as well but also consistent speaking okay this is normal and it's supposed to happen and you'll get through it uh if you just commit to speaking consistently okay all right hopefully this episode was interesting for you and hopefully it motivates you to speak if you can already understand pretty well and don't be afraid don't think you're the only one with these issues we all have these

issues okay and if you want to practice with something a little bit harder than this podcast make sure to become a listening Time family member to get my Advanced episodes and uh you can also sign up for my us conversations podcast to practice with my conversations with other English speakers so both of those links are in the episode description below this episode and the transcript for this episode is down there as well and please share this podcast give it a five-star rating and write a review if you can all right thank you for listening to

this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of listening time [Music]