Don't know how to stop your French conversation anxiety? Do this!

DON’T KNOW HOW TO STOP YOUR FRENCH CONVERSATION ANXIETY? DO THIS!

So, do you have French conversation anxiety?

Do you feel that you don’t think in French quickly enough, or you can’t speak it although you understand it, or sometimes you even have a difficult time understanding spoken French?

Then this article is for you, because today, I received three questions on my Facebook page regarding French conversation anxiety, which I’d like to address.

This is a very common concern, and if you want me to identify exactly what happens in your particular case, do contact me to have a chat.

Read the article below to have in depth insights about the French conversation anxiety, and watch the video for some French worth having handy.

(This week: verb AVOIR (to have)

1. “I would like to learn how to “think” in French. I mostly need to translate English to French and it slows down the conversation.”

Here is the misconception that stops most of us from speaking in a second language. I’m saying “most of us” because I’ve been dealing with this when I learned English, and I’m dealing with this problem now, as I’m learning Italian and Spanish.

Disclaimer: I’d also like to include other people, whose mother tongue is not English – I have clients whose mother tongue is Mandarin, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Russian.

Especially when you learn French through English it is easiest to not resist to think in English. You have 40% of the vocabulary common in both languages – why would you want to avoid this amazing resource? Also, there are expressions and structures in English that you can use in your French sentences.

You just need to know which ones those are.

Which ones are your friends for French conversation, and which ones are ‘exceptions’.

Look, thinking in French cannot be a goal. It is always a consequence of speaking too fast and too much, at which point the brain finds a shortcut, and you find yourself thinking in French. It’s a side effect.

If you make “thinking in French” your goal, you will end up working longer and harder to get to the point of enough practice that allows you to eventually, naturally think in French.

My advice is this: use your thinking in English, learn a few techniques to help you navigate this smoother (email me, and I’ll have a quick crash course with you on your specific challenge), and practice enough – you’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll end up thinking in French.

2. “I lived in France for one year – never could just speak it although I could understand and order pay and find the toilet 🙂 .”

I’d like to say here that most people wait to learn “enough words and grammar” until they venture to speak the language.

What this does is keeping us in the comfort zone – we learn, do our homework, exercises, we understand well, even enjoy a movie – and the more we get comfortable in this phase, the more we are afraid to start using the language.

Why is that?

Because we will start making mistakes, we sound at a lower level than our theoretical knowledge – and we thought we were over that phase – and we get discouraged.

So, I’ll say this:

First, do remember that the part of our brain responsible with the performance of the language (conversation) is completely different from the one that is learning the theoretical information. There’s a process and specific techniques to learn to shift the theoretical information in such a way that it becomes available to us when we make conversation (email me, and I’ll have a quick crash course with you on your specific challenge).

Second, when you learn the language, don’t wait to know “enough” vocabulary and grammar to start making conversation. In my J’Ouellette® Intensif program, I make conversation with my clients in the second lesson. Then all the new vocabulary and grammar is organically integrated in conversation, rather than building resistance and anxiety until the moment comes to apply all we learned.

3. I have an extremely difficult time understanding spoken French.

This looks to be a problem of pronunciation and ear gymnastics.

In French there are rules of pronunciation – not all are found in the free resources, and a coach/tutor is needed for this part, to help.

The rules of pronunciation go hand in hand with the spelling in French. Once you know how to spell and how to pronounce, you have a solid foundation to fall back onto when you don’t understand what someone says.

Also, the ear needs training. At the beginning (and this beginning may linger for a while, depending on the consistency of your practice) we don’t hear our own mistakes. I’ve gone through this Hell with my English. It took me 2 years of listening to a CD and practicing every day for about 2 hours to get to the point of hearing when my pronunciation was not right, and to be able to correct myself.

This is why here you definitely need a coach to help you hear your own mistakes.

Once that is done (easily, in a few hours, if coupled with a solid French Pronunciation course), you can then be self sufficient and continue advancing your French conversation skills on your own 🙂

NOW IT IS YOUR TURN!
Tell us in the comments below, what are your top 3 challenges when you try to have French conversations?

Let me guess.

Do you constantly have the feeling that you can’t hear what the French say and you don’t know how to read all the French words because they are written so much differently than they sound?

Learn 3 secrets that will help you be self sufficient in the way you pronounce French words – even if you don’t know what they mean – so that you can read that sophisticated menu in your favorite French restaurant.