I’ve been studying Japanese for 3 years at my university and now it’s the final class. Before I wasn’t nervous or scared to speak in class but now I stutter, forget what I’m saying or read something incorrectly. I know that I know everything from previous classes, but I’ve never felt so ashamed to speak a language I love learning before. There’s also a couple of Japanese students that I would like to be friends with but every time I say something incorrectly I feel like they judge me for not knowing as much as my other classmates. I’m not sure if I’m looking for advice or not but I just felt really stupid after today’s class for whatever reason.
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What I do to help myself is: check the facts before I jump to feeling a certain emotion. Ask yourself the following questions whenever you are in those situations.
1. What event triggered what emotions?
2. What interpretation am I making about this event?
3. Does the nature and intensity of my emotion match the fact of this event, or the assumption I’m making about this event?
Not just language classes, these set of rules can be applied to various life situations. It’s okay to feel distressed sometimes, when the factual events are appropriate for that kind of response. Say I’m at my class and I walk myself through this exercise.
1. Having occasional stutter; feeling ashamed, frustrated, stupid. intensity 9 out of 10.
2. I’m assuming people are judging me. I’m assuming people don’t want to be friends with me because of my performance in class. These are the assumptions I was having behind my emotions in step 1.
3. Facts: most people stutter when trying to speak a new language. Although there might be a few judgmental ones, most people understand what I’m going through. The teacher and everyone is seeing how I’m trying my best despite being really nervous. My classmates know more in some areas but I have made a lot of progress and probably know more in some other areas. In general, people are not likely to base the decision whether to befriend someone on a five-minute class skit, and the fact is I don’t know if the japanese students in fact don’t want to be friends with me. I’m seeing how many of my assumptions are not facts. With these facts, I think I can feel 4 out of 10 in the terms of intensity, since I’m honestly a little nervous.
Forgive me, I know the above is super wordy. I’m trying my best to replicate my thought pattern when undergoing distress. The thing is, I’m not coming in here just to tell you what you are feeling is wrong, I’m only saying to fact-check your assumptions and then make the best logical decision on how you should feel. You have mentioned you are taking college classes — take advantage of your amazing student insurance and try therapy is an option.
If you need someone to talk to I’m here…if improving your course grade and/or speaking can contribute to building confidence, I’m more than happy to help. Since I‘m not a health professional I’m probably a lot more qualified to prescribe language advices 😂
Best wishes!
From my language learning experience (7 years of Japanese), my spoken competency took a huge nosedive from years 3-5. Why? My brain was starting to integrate everything I had learned as instinct. When people spoke, I was no longer translating their words/my responses; I was processing everything in Japanese.
What this meant was that sometimes I would hear or say things that I KNEW I had learned and it would come out as incoherent mishmash, because my brain was in the process of creating a separate language channel. I became incredibly insecure about speaking for the next two years and the issue resolved itself gradually over time.
Point being, don’t be hard on yourself! If you’re noticing a dip in your spoken fluency as an intermediate learner, it’s a sign that you are on your way to instinctual language production.
All I know is you should never feel shame like that, you’re being way too hard on yourself. I’ve been studying for about 3 years too and was recently in Japan, being the first time I’ve ever really spoken the language, and man I was *terrible*. I recognize where I need to improve but I was really proud of myself! I opened a door to a whole new world that the friends with me didn’t have, and even if I was only able to interact on a surface level the richness of the experience was really inspiring. There’s no end to the journey, feel good about all the progress you’ve made, and keep working.
Well, for me going to Japan for a year made a huge difference. It is tiring but actually using Japanese all day is tough to beat.
Don’t fret. I once met a group of Japanese majors at Hirosaki University who were on their final year. They were about as capable as a lot of intermediate beginners you see on YouTube these days. Formal education and JLPT testing are the starting point. Enjoy the ride.
Sounds like it’s time for a holiday to Japan!
How I became fluent after four years of studying Japanese. Skip class and talk to Japanese friends. One day I realized- I just spoke Japanese for 6 hours without thinking. The language partner was the best way for me.