Afraid to speak German? What changed it for others 🫶
Many learners understand much more than they say. They stay quiet in meetings, script phone calls, skip dinners. One teacher living in Germany describes exactly that phase: understanding everything in meetings but staying silent. She didn't wake up confident one day. Looking back, three things helped: · Lots of reading and listening, until the patterns felt natural · Hours of one-to-one conversation with friends, where mistakes felt safe · Showing up again and again, also on days without motivation Today she leads meetings in German, though the perfectionist voice hasn't fully disappeared. An American family in Germany writes about language anxiety even at the bakery. Their advice: · Practise in real situations, a little every day · Find other learners, so you're not alone with it · Accept sounding "like a child" at the start. That is how everyone starts. For the exam In the DTZ or B1 speaking test, examiners want to see that you can communicate. Silence scores nothing; a simple sentence with a mistake still shows communication. Practise with a partner so your first time talking under pressure is not the exam. Sources: https://englishwithkirsty.com/2017/07/03/when-did-i-stop-being-afraid-to-speak-german/ · https://mymerrymessygermanlife.com/foreign-language-anxiety-in-germany/
23.9.2026 · 21 Aufrufe
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