How to overcome your fears when speaking French

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While learning French, you usually work and improve different skills, like reading, writing, listening and speaking. For most people it’s easier to develop the ‘passive skills (listening and reading) first, the active skills require a bit more effort. Some people have a hard time learning to speak French. Talking to others, especially to native French speakers, makes them nervous. Maybe they’re worried about “making a fool of themselves” in real-life situations with French speakers, and they are afraid of not understanding what we are told, of screwing up… It’s a shame because that’s why we don’t feel comfortable speaking French freely. How to stop this? Here are some great tips to overcome your fears when speaking French.

Do you get nervous when you have to speak French to native speakers? While this apprehension may never completely go away, fortunately, there are methods to help you overcome your fears and start talking! Of course, a good French teacher and a good French course are the first steps to offering you a ‘save’ environment to practice. But what to do to eliminate your fear of speaking French in daily life – or any other new language you are learning? How to overcome your fears when speaking French?

How to overcome your fears when speaking French

1. Identify your fear

First, it is essential to know precisely what scares you. Then, analyze what it is that scares you about the idea of speaking French. The source of anxiety varies from person to person; while the thought of not being understood may be the scariest for you, it might be “making too many mistakes” or ‘not understand’ while speaking French for someone else. Once you identify what scares you the most, you can focus on resolving the source of your distress during your French course.

2. Visualize success.

Visualization can play a huge role in helping you succeed in speaking French. After all, without a clear idea of what you want to achieve, how will you achieve it?
When it comes to learning French, visualization can be incredibly helpful in developing the confidence to speak French.

Close your eyes and imagine you are conversing with a (handsome 😉 native speaker in Paris, in France, in a shop, on the street, in a movie theater, on a plane, or the beach. Imagine yourself in a confident posture talking French and receiving positive responses from this person.

It can also be helpful to remember why you learn the French language in the first place. Do you need French to travel, for your work, to speak with French speaking friends? Spend a few minutes every day doing this, and you’ll be amazed at how confident and enthusiastic it can make you feel.

 

3. Trust native speakers

One of the biggest fears of many students is making a fool of themselves in front of a native speaker (with or without other French students that master the language better than you). Whenever this fear creeps up, remind yourself to trust the good nature of the native speaker. As hard as it is to believe, the locals don’t want to catch you. On the contrary, most are usually delighted that you spend time and effort learning about their culture and language, and they admire you.

Change your perception of other people and trust that no one will try to shame you. Put yourself in their shoes: if someone from another country came up to you and tried to speak your language, would you make fun of them? No! You are more than happy to take some time to try to understand them.

4. Identify your barriers when speaking French

Language students need help with different aspects of a new language. Identifying where you are facing a problem is vital to further progress. Apply this analysis to your speech. When you have a conversation in French, at what point in the conversation do you find it difficult to follow your interlocutor? Formulating a response to a question or comment can be a problem or it understanding when someone says something to you in the first place. Maybe you need to learn more French vocabulary, French phrases, practice the French verbs, and dedicate more time to your listening skills or pronunciation.

Usually, one is closely related to the other, so if you figure out your difficulty, you can find ways to address it, increasing your overall conversation level!

5. Go step by step

One-on-one conversations in French are much easier to handle than in a group. The conversation gets faster and more complicated with a group of French speakers. It’s easy to feel left behind.

Find someone willing to practice French one on one with you and give it a try! It doesn’t matter if they fully understand you or not; the key is to keep practicing, to keep talking until you feel comfortable and confident enough to approach a conversation in French with a stranger.

What methods do you use to help you overcome your fear of speaking?
Share some with us in the comments section!