The Student Room Group

Scared to speak in another language...

I don't know how common this is for people who are bilingual but Im guessing it is quite....

Basically since I was born my parents have been like "Speak to me in Spanish", "Speak Spanish", "Speak Spanish" etc.

and the more they said that the less I wanted to because they made it into such a big deal!! I feel so self conscious speaking spanish now around them and feel like Im always being watched by them when I do so :frown:

This becomes a problem when relatives come round who don't speak english properly and I feel rude talking to them in English and also Im scared of answering the phone in case i have to talk to them in Spanish and my parents hear :eek:

I hate it!

I dont know how to get over it tho :confused: Im getting older and shouldnt have silly problems like this to try and overcome but it is a big deal for me :redface:

If anyone can help it would be great.

x
Reply 1
Perhaps speaking to another non native who has at least some fluency just to build up your confidence would be a good idea? Linguistic skills are 90% confidence anyway... If your confident you tend to sound accurate. Spanish isn't too bad a language to speak fluently either.. with strong latin roots and quite a logical system it takes less time to learn than say arabic. How good is your written spanish? is it the accent that causes you a problem at all? or just the pressue you feel your under? If its the latter perhaps tallking to your parents and or showing them this post would be a good idea.
Reply 2
im half spanish too and am in kind of the same situation think i know what u mean, find it embarrasing to speak spanish in front of relatives because i never really wanted to speak it when I was younger either and so im really self concious about having a bad accent and getting it wrong lol.

i wouldnt worry about it too much, i mean if youre speaking it at least you're now making the effort, and its family after all.
Reply 3
dont worry, a lot of people go through the same thing. unfortunately i have it worse.. i'm trilingual =P .. my languages being english primarily, french and polish. i cant escape the french however, bcoz i live in a country where i have to speak french.. polish is a different matter. my mum's polish n she's a tourist guide, which is even tougher! alot of the people i meet thru her have not the slightest clue of how to speak english or french.. n yea.. i feel awkward at times bcoz i havent quite mastered all the proper pronunciations and the accent.. argh! dont even make me think abt it! :wink:

but not to worry, i guessed when ur forced to do sth, it just makes u even more aware of it, specially languages. i'd suggest when ur alone with either parent, then try speak spanish. one person less watching u! =)

hope that makes sense :P
Reply 4
...but the thing is..... i can already speak it quite well and I'd feel more embarassed if I had to say more complex phrases in from of them I think because they've probably only heard me say trivial things when I was a child :s-smilie:
Reply 5
i was in exactly the same situation as you for most of my life! my grandparents are spanish and so is my mum (she moved here when she was 4) and we have always lived in the same house. my grandparents have always spoken spanish to me and i can not remember ever being unable to understand it but i never ever spoke it cause i was too shy and i used to get embarrassed when they would tease me. in the end i took up evening classes, which i found quite easy but really they were just to give me more confidence and basically reinforce what i already knew in terms of grammar and vocabulary and stuff. and now i am less shy about speaking it cause my irrational fear is kind of dying off. i spent a lot of time thinking about why i was scared to speak it, and a lot of it was to do with embarrassement, but i just had to keep telling myself there is nothing to be embarrassed about. i am now studying spanish at uni and am quite fluent and much more confident. before i always used to be less shy speaking spanish to strangers than family members, dont know why. and when i started learning french at school i was really good at it (i think this is largely because of my knowledge in spanish) and had no problems speaking it, even when i knew what i was saying wasnt 100% correct. so maybe practise with people other than family members, who can often be judgemental and a bit patronising, i find. in my family anyway!

oh and it always used to irritate me when relatives would first laugh at me for my attempts at speaking it, and then upon noticing that i had gone quiet they would start whingeing "why dont you speak more spanish?". but take your time, build up your confidencce in it on your own terms and in your own time. now if a spanish speaking relative goes on at me i just point out their lack of language skills, since they normally dont have any.
I'm sure your rellies aren't mad at you for speaking English to them...if you've been brought up in an English speaking country (I'm assuming you live in the UK) then it's understandable. Do your parents have a go about it or is it you feeling paranoid that they're judging you?!
Reply 7
Its just me feeling paranoid that they're judging me :frown:

Its difficult to explain but its kinda like singing in public, that same feeling that when you sing people are listening etc.

except its when speaking spanish, and its only with my parents, if Im alone with anyone else i can speak to them freely :smile:
I suppose they know you're a bit shy about it so that's why they're pushing. Maybe speaking more with them would improve how well you speak it?
Reply 9
I was like this for quite some time, except this was with Greek. I don't know if this happens to you as well, but when I spoke Greek with my parents, they would point out every mistake I made, which wasn't too good for the confidence. I know this was just to help me get better, however it did make me think that everyone else was constantly noticing my mistakes as well.

To be honest, if a foreigner speaks to me in English and makes mistakes, I don't think "hah, your english is crap!" But we do tend to be more conscious of our own mistakes anyway. You have to just try and not worry about it so much and just speak. And as an added bonus, the more you do speak the language, the better and more confident you will become.
I was born in Gibraltar and lived there til I was 6 and a half, and virtually everyone there is bilingual in Spanish and English. For some reason I never really liked speaking spanish very much, and even though my parents were always trying to get me to talk to them in spanish I always refused and alwyas felt uncomfrotable with it. I now have lost virtually all my ability to understand spoken spanish, and when I tried to pick it up again I had the same resisitance. It's weird, becaus eI do love languages, and I'm pretty comfortable to chat away in frnech and german, and I'm starting japanese and italian, it's just spanish I had the problem with.

Definately don't let your skills go to waste like I did,I'm sure your parents won't think badly of you if you make a mistake, just get them to teach you how to say it properly. It's all just a learning curve.