I’m learning my partner’s native language, and he’s been encouraging me to start speaking it. The problem is that most of my learning so far has been on my own through reading and listening, so my comprehension is way ahead of my speaking ability.
On top of that, I get pretty anxious about speaking. My partner is very cheeky and loves to tease (which is part of his charm), but I’m a bit sensitive about making mistakes. When I try to speak on the spot, it feels like my brain is juggling vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and sentence structure all at once, and I just freeze.
To make it easier, I suggested we work from small weekly phrase lists so he knows what I’m trying to practice and I have some structure. For me it feels like jumping into the pool with floaties, not perfect, but at least it gets me in the water. But he thinks the lists are unnecessary and keeps saying, “Just speak!”
For context, English is the second language in his country. He grew up hearing and understanding it from a young age, but didn’t really start speaking it until he came to my country. So from his perspective it feels natural to just start talking. In my case, I’d never even heard his language until I met him, and I’ve only been casually learning it for the past few years.
Am I overthinking this? Is starting with structured phrase lists a reasonable way to ease into speaking, or should I really just be pushing myself to talk more spontaneously?
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via Learn Online English Speaking
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