Psychological and emotional barriers to speaking German

28 comments

1. I don’t think that’s normal. May want to talk to a doctor and see if you can get some therapy to help with your anxiety.

2. Do you have this feeling just when you try to speak to your husband?

   I’m asking this, because I have a gigantic difficulty to speak German with my wife.

   We both have learned German together, from day 1. But somewhere she started speaking better than me, and it scares me a lot…

   When we need to talk to someone else, I can speak. But I can’t speak just to her.

3. You’ve got to think of why it hurts you – you’re not making these feelings up. Has someone criticised your speaking? Do you criticise yourself? Are you overwhelmed living in Germany?

   I moved to France from Australia and felt exactly the same way. I think that what made me feel this way is expecting that I should be a certain level and then berating myself if I did not understand something or saw someone speaking better than me. Try building up your confidence as much as you can with people who are familiar to you and try to have a bit of self compassion. Expose yourself to new situations slowly. It doesn’t matter how fast you get there, it is inevitable that you will be fluent in German one day because you live in Germany and you are making an effort.

   When I was still able to speak German (I’m from a German family) I found that some Germans aren’t very nice or patient when you are practising. I’m only speaking from personal experiences (don’t hate me) but when I moved to France I found people to be more accepting there. Perhaps you’ve had some encounters with some impatient strangers too or uncomfortable environments.

4. I have also struggled with similar issues and can tell you what helped me: a one-on-one tutor with whom I can just relax and be myself. She’s half my age and fully bilingual so we can switch back and forth between English and German and there are no judgments and very little pressure to perform. I also learn German music and sing along — loudly and passionately — whenever I’m alone with chores to do. I’m currently working through the great work of Rammstein. I also speak as much German as possible at home with my spouse, who speaks fluent German. I am the one who starts with the German and can switch to English whenever I want. Again, there’s no pressure and it’s just easygoing everyday German (zum Beispiel, „Was willst du zum Abendessen?“ oder „warum hast du mein Handy gestohlen?“ und so weiter). The more you do this, the better you get at feeling the language and understanding the responses when they come back rapidly. I try to make this as fun as possible because it really is fun. Who cares if you make a mistake? It’s ok. Shrug it off and keep at it.

   By the way, I am almost 50 years old and didn’t start learning German officially until March 2020. I’m also on the spectrum and find it difficult to speak to people, regardless of who they are. But all that be damned! I’m doing it and I am having fun with it in spite of my very real and very painful anxieties. I just had to invent my own way forward.

   Best of luck to you!

5. As you progress, you’ll hit several walls and remain stuck for a while a few times.

   It’s normal. It’s nothing to worry about. Take it easy on yourself, it may be frustrating but relaxed mind usually are better for further learnings.

   As a Deaf person, I often get left out of group conversations. One of the critical things I’ve learned is that nobody is trying to exclude me. It’s often the case that they’re low-key competing for the spotlight among the group.

   I started American Sign Language when I was young as 3 years, but I didn’t reach to the ‘native’ fluency level until I was in 3rd/4th year at college. Reason is simple: Sign Language in academic settings are different than in social settings.

   Remember it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

   Viel Glück!

6. As harsh as it sounds, doing exercises won’t help much in your situation. I was in exactly the same point as you are and I could only start speaking German when I changed jobs to a new position where I had to. At the beginning it was horrible, now I can more or less manage. The only way of learning how to speak is… speaking. And unfortunately it takes time. You should use more the opportunities you have at home. Set a day or two of the week where only German is allowed, make your wife/husband stick to it, and start from there. Try with some Stammtisch if there’s any close to you. Get yourself out of the comfort zone, it is the only way.

7. Hey! I feel you. Don’t be so hard with yourself. You are doing your best with the things you know.

   English is not my mother tongue, and even when I learnt it in school, I forgot everything about it until I started meeting foreigners in my country.

   I was unable and super nervous to talk to them, so I went back to language school and tried speak with my broken english as much as I could.

   Yeah, it wasn’t pretty, but it was effective and I was able to catch up and speak fluently after some months.

   Why am I saying this? I move to Germany 4 years ago and I decided to take the same approach.

   The few I spoke in school, I tried to use it outside. I sat with my colleagues and even when they tried to switch to English, I told them to continue speaking in German.

   Was it awkward? Of course. Sometimes I didn’t understood what was happening. I was trying to feel the vibe and recognize as much words as I could, and trying to use whatever I learnt. As I continue hearing it, some words stick to me, and I started usimg them back.

   When I was making a mistake, I thought, and still think… I was going to make this mistake sooner or later. So better sooner, so I can learn now, because I still have tons of mistakes to do if I want to speak fluently.

   I am starting B2, but I can hold conversations without a problem. My grammar still needs work, but the most important part is that we can understand each other. And when not, I just ask them to repeat with different words. They know I am learning, and I am eager to continue making mistakes, because that’s the only way 🙂

8. I experienced a similar period in my life living as a foreigner in DE. I was married to a German that spoke little English with me and we lived a rural environment that then lacked the more cosmopolitan mass of people (fluent English speakers) of the urban areas – it was German and German only for me for many years.

   I found myself balking for a time. Every minute was strenuous, having to translate the words, while the meaning alluded me often due to the quirks of grammar and dialect. It was simply painful. I wanted to escape, but felt trapped to a certain degree. I had to keep reminding myself that this was my decision, that others came before me who ‘did it’ and that many will come after who will ‘do it’. That didn’t stop me from feeling like it was some sort of torture, that I was inadequate, that everyone around me was intentionally leaving me out, though I logically knew that wasn’t not the case. Emotionally, I was very, very distressed. At the height of this, I was invited to join a local music club. I had been a musician in the military and apparently that bit of info had made it around the little village.

   I actually felt a stark resistance to that invitation. It felt like a small petulant part of me was standing in the corner screaming NO to anything related to the confrontation of ‘German & Germany’ – that which surrounded me physically and mentally as a sort of virtual prison. Yet, I went. I had fun. The folks were super friendly. They in the group, were all tradesman or laborers of some sort. Very down to earth, normal salt of the earth kind of folk, that loved to have fun, play music, drink beer, and more of the same. I stayed with them for a little over 8 years in which the made me their director (I was the only one with some semblance of musical training). I can’t say when that internal knot loosened, but it was definitely sometime in the early years of being with that group.

   I now feel very comfortable here. It was long process for me, but finding (or being found by?) something positive that comes from the heart of this country that I could associate with, be accepted and have success in as well as being wanted for, changed my inner world. Yes, this is now home too.

   I wrote this to demonstrate that I understand you, at least I believe I do, but as well to show how a warm and positive experience can help. I am sure you will find your ‘groove’ here, if you let it. Then you too, can feel comfortable, perhaps even heimelig in this country of Germany.

   Good luck to you.

9. I feel for you. When I first came to Germany, I was relatively young (23) and had grown up with a perfectionist mother. I was heavily criticised for not getting things right, and this made me terrified about speaking German in the initial months, because I didn’t want the feelings of shame that came from getting things wrong. A few things shifted my perspective:

   1) I was living in East Berlin, and the local residents there at the time (20 years ago) spoke way worse English than I spoke German, if they spoke any at all. The option to default into another language mostly did not exist for me. Hence, I was left with some stark choices – either speak German to the lady in the bakery or walk 1 km to the nearest supermarket so that I don’t have to interact with the bakery lady. Ultimately, I ended up speaking German in such situations.

   2) Through these interactions with the bakery lady, the hairdresser, etc, I realised that even though I sometimes made mistakes and felt shame, that shame was transitory and in the end I learned something valuable (about what the correct way of saying something was). Through this, I realised that making mistakes was actually part of the process – I tried something out, based on the best logic I could muster, it didn’t work out (often because there was some new skill or rule I didn’t know), and the next time round, I tried to implement that rule and things worked out better. Through this way, I learned much more efficiently than I would have through books. This actually revolutionised my whole approach to life in general – I realised that mistakes, far from killing you, were necessary to progress in life and that you need to make some to get ahead. This freed me up to make more productive mistakes in other areas of my life too.

   3) I was teaching English as a foreign language at the time and noticed that my best students were also those who did not clam up and gave themselves permission to make mistakes but also learned from those mistakes. One of my best students had taken up learning English relatively late in life but was a fluent Russian speaker who had been sent from East Germany to Russia by his company to go to a special industrial institute as a young man. His Russian experience was not easy at the beginning, and he got the same strange looks and occasional giggles that anyone learning a language gets, but he quickly realised that nobody dies when you make a simple conversational language error and just got on with the business of learning Russian. He applied his previous language learning experiences when learning English and progressed very well. The moral of the story: If you learn to make mistakes well, you are not dumb; in fact, you are skilled and very smart.

   Some things that helped me on the way:

   1) I did a tandem exchange with a girl who was around the same age as I was back then. We did 1 hour German and 1 hour English. The rules were to only use English in the English hour and only German in the German hour and we mostly kept to them. I did not feel any shame in my tandem hour or have any sense that I was a burden in the conversation – the whole point of the German hour was for me to learn German, so I dispensed with any worries that I was not entitled to be there or to speak German in it.

   2) For instances when I made mistakes in real-world situations, I learned to make self-deprecating jokes about my language skills. This evoked empathy among my conversation partners and dispelled feelings of shame in me.

10. It’s hard to do and harsh to say, but you have to let go gradually the influence of bad experience on you, not at once and all (it’s impossible).

    Dont blame yourself too hard. You can find your internal peace.

11. You’re overthinking, you essentially described the stress you’re causing on yourself. I was also in a similar position, but then somehow I started blurting out whatever I want to say in any whichway I can. It got me through A1 to C1 without attending one single course. You need to learn not to feel embarrassed about this kind of things.

12. If you married ask your partner how you are doing and comunicate your worries to him/her.

13. Hello! I use to work as a German language expert and gave six years for learning the language and worked for 3.5 years in two German multinational organisation. But guess what? I suck at it too!I still can’t speak anything deep from my heart and I make silly mistakes all the time. I think what you need is a little break. Like you are learning German, make Germans know a little from your language. That way you’ll bond good with them. And don’t take this pressure at all! Do it if you want to do it or else don’t. There are so many people who survive their.

14. Odd question, but did you have this same issue when learning other languages? I’m wondering if it’s German that’s making you feel off or foreign languages in general

15. This sounds more like a problem with your confidence and self internalization of your own identity. In fact, these barriers may be holding you back from becoming a better language learner. I have a feeling that you may feel this way when trying to take on other very challenging skills or life changing processes? I apologize if I assume wrong. While I dont know the sure fire way to overcome this, you may want to try to change your mentality to language learning. It isn’t a chore or an education, rather it is a beautiful journey to open your horizons and enhance your wonderful view of the world. You must rescript the way you view learning in general. Before you engage in any language learning retrain your brain to talk positively to yourself. Tell yourself something similar to what I said. Over and over. Take this approach in other aspects of your life. Self talk helps prepare the brain for proper learning and discovery. You may in time see your ability to learn language and even other skills increase. I have degrees in psychology and communication theory so I hope my insights help.

16. I think the most important thing to realize is that it’s okay to make mistakes. Speak German anyway and learn to laugh about your own blunders.

    Language is communication, it should connect you, but you build walls instead because you think you have to be perfect or not speak at all. But honestly, would you rather be around a fun, outgoing guy who cracks jokes all the time even if he sometimes doesn’t get the grammar right, or a shy mute guy who never participates in any conversation and clings to the people around him to communicate for him with the outside world?

17. I am wondering if the answer is to think of this as an issue not with learning German but with learning to be kind to yourself? The efforts you describe- not just in working to learn German but also in your every day life- are so admirable to me as an outsider looking in, but the way you talk about yourself is so punitive. When you said about making more effort in an attempt to pressure yourself to learn more my brain responded with ‘no, don’t do that!’ in quite an urgent tone. I don’t think exerting more pressure on yourself when you’re already suffering is the answer. You deserve kindness and you deserve to be kind to yourself.

    As someone said earlier, it sounds to me as if the problem is not with speaking German but with your internal dialogue when you make mistakes- I’ve found that since I moved from A1 to A2.2 and made more of an effort in everyday situations I am treated with so much more acceptance and patience by native speakers, despite my mistakes, than I was when I had A1 level confidence in speaking and so defaulted to asking to speak English at the first opportunity. I now know that making mistakes- lots of them- doesn’t kill me. (It literally makes my German stronger!) And, more importantly, I have more patience with myself. I’m doing my best. German Is a hard language, and living in a country when you struggle with the language is really hard. I’m doing my best, and so are you. You’re doing brilliantly.

18. Eat cake whenever you speak German. Re-condition your brain.

    But seriously… In the beginning I got the most practice from having coffee and cake with older ladies who enjoyed having someone to listen to their stories.

    Take some deep breaths and remind yourself it’s just a feeling and it will pass. Let yourself take a break if it is becoming too much of a struggle.

19. Yes, I have experienced this. Hang in there and be prepared to possibly never being able to express your feelings 100% accurately in a foreign language learnt later in life.

    A certain confident, conversational level is possible. The feeling of missing something might persist.

20. Maybe the refold method is something for you. Just google refold and read through the roadmap.

21. You must accept these feelings of inadequacy. They are a natural and human part of learning something difficult. When you start out on any subject, progress is fast at the beginning. Little time invested yields great results. After only a few lesson, you can ask how people are, ask for the way, order beer and be polite about it.

    But as your knowledge grows, the benefits of your work become less appearant. The more words you learn, the less common these words are used in everyday conversations. Learning simple grammar is fast and rewarding. Mastering grammar is a much longer, more painstaking process. Being able to precisely express nuance and a emotion through choice of words and grammar construction can take a decade.

    In your particular case, the situation is amplified by social circumstance. You have german friends, who speak german better than you. Of course they do, they had a head start of however-old-they are in terms of years.

    Nothing about this makes you inadequate or subhuman. On the contrary, you are doing something brave and beautiful. Learning to speak and think in a another language opens doors in your mind, alternative ways of examining issues.

    I shared a lot of your feelings when learning english. I am a native german speaker. It is SO frustrating when you are trying to express something, and you manage to only translate 30% of the meaning in your head into an actual sentence. However, this will only improve if you try.

    So my advice would be to accept, that it is common to feel this way. It is okay to become frustrated with a task, that is work-intensive and at least for the moment unrewarding. It is okay to just…. say “Scheiß drauf” and leave it be for a while. The only thing that matters is that you pick up the gauntlet again eventually. The conclusion, that feeling this way is a reflection of you as a person is just plain wrong in my eyes.

    I’ve lurked on reddit for four years, made an account just so that I could comment. Please allow my directness. Don’t be too hard on yourself 😉

22. The flip side to this is to say “fuck it” I understand German but struggle to speak it and that’s 100% OK!

    Maybe one day you might be comfortable maybe you won’t both are 100% OK

23. My wife broke through her barriers with a glas of wine. Whenever we had a drink together, her german fluency improved leaps and bounds, at least till the third drink or so 😉 after a few times she was much more fluent sober as well.

    Aside from that, I doubt that *more pressure* will help you. I am not saying you should get drunk, but maybe you find your own way to reduce pressure. Everyone who learns german makes mistakes! Usually they are cute 🙂

    My wife made a very cute mistake once. In dutch “poten” means “legs”. In german “Pfoten” means paws. Soo, when she wanted to say something about a spider crawling around on her legs, she actually said in german that the spider was crawling around on her *paws* <3 now whenever I see a spider I imagine it with little [furry kitty paws](https://www.reddit.com/r/WitchesVsPatriarchy/comments/i51y4l/spider_kitty_the_perfect_familiar_art_by/)…

    So, get a Glühwein and viel Erfolg!

24. >I spend 12 hours a week learning grammar, writing, reading and phonetics skills on online platforms organised by the Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern. On paper I am working towards C1 German (currently B2 certificate) but I feel like I don’t understand anything and in reality I’m just around A2 level. I feel like the Chinese Room experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room where I just get better at the exercises but I’m not actually getting better at German.

    I know this may sound like the usual quips about Bavarians but: As a native German speaker, when I speak to Bavarians and they don’t specifically make an effort to speak high german, I need a few minutes to hours of listening before I feel confident that I am understanding them correctly. I imagine you are learning high german for your certificate, so it makes absolute sense to me that there is a large disparity between how well you understand German in your exercises and how well you understand German in everyday situations.

    Imagine someone learning British English while being stuck somewhere in the southern US.

25. me, but I was too afraid to say anything in german nothing hurt. Until I hear my vietnamese flatmate try to engage conversation with my german flatmate.

26. Progress isn’t alway linear when learning a language. But the important part is putting in the effort and not giving up.

    When I was first learning German in my A1 class, we also had a student who was fluent in German but his pronunciation wasn’t very good and he struggled with articles, so he wanted to go back and relearn some of the basics that he missed.
    Speaking is definitely one of the hardest parts, especially if you’re feeling self conscious about it, but maybe it would help if you could practice talking to someone you know won’t judge you.

    When young children learn a language, they often make many grammatical mistakes, and their parents usually correct the mistakes and move on. It’s not a big deal to make a mistake. With practice, your speaking will get better.

    But apart from the language learning, maybe find someone to talk to about the emotions you feel. Living in a foreign country can certainly feel isolating, and I definitely understand the feeling of “everyone else understands, why don’t I?” even after learning to speak the language at a C1 level. It can feel very frustrating and isolating.

27. As someone who is also from another country, and is living in Germany, married to a German, learning German, even after having successfully studying other languages…it is HARD. Learning German is hard. Objectively and truly. I am working towards my B1 so at much earlier place than you and I get overwhelmed too. If it were easy, everyone would do it. This stuff ain’t for the weak!

    Remember who you are and why you started. You can do this. You’re either going to learn German, or you’re going to give up… and you are not going to give up. 🙂

    When you have a quiet moment, maybe close your eyes and visualize yourself, say a year from now, and imagine how different you’ll feel then, how well you’ll speak German and how you’ll feel seen and heard and understood in this beautiful, complex language. You’ll have achieved something awesome and it will be so rewarding.

    A mantra: “My insecurities represent my fears, not my abilities.”

    You can do this. And you will. One day at a time.

28. I know this sounds like “just don’t worry about it haha”, and it’s absolutely not meant to be that! But this worked for me, maybe it can help you.

    What I did was just to remind myself as much as I could that nobody was expecting me to be perfect, or even necessarily correct. Everyone I talked to was obviously aware that I was a foreigner. I almost used that as a mantra, that I was the only one demanding to myself that I get it right. That helped me get over the inhibition and the fear of getting it wrong.

    Also, I hesitate to mention this because it’s generally not a healthy way of solving problems, but the other thing that helped me was alcohol, because it lowered my inhibitions and made me less uptight about making mistakes or not finding words or whatever.

    Also, remember that you’re not alone here, at all. You are not the first person to struggle with a new country and a new language, and you absolutely will not be the last. You just have to keep your chin up and keep moving forward!