Language Exchange Tips for Fun and Effective Conversations

Everyone and their dog knows that language learning is easier, faster, and more fun when you have found a great language partner. It makes it so much fun when you can easily practice your vocabulary with someone you really want to speak to.

In this article, I'm going to tell you the best tips from our Fluent Show episode with Lindsay Williams and Jonathan Huggins, who runs several community challenges and groups for language learners.

Listen to the episode here:

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How to Find The Perfect Language Exchange

The most rewarding way of practicing your language is by connecting with people on a 1-to-1 basis. It takes commitment to make any language exchange successful.

Approach Exchanges With The Right Mindset

No matter who you are speaking to in your target language, remember that a little consideration can go a long way. It is easy to add an exchange partner to your checklist right next to "app" and "coursebook", but harder to remember that they're a person with a life to live too.

Start by generously giving something, and consider how you can help the other learners instead of simply seeing them as a resource. It's important to respect your partner's life so you can build up a relationship that keeps on giving.

To make sure you’re ready for the new words you’ll learn in an exchange, review these great guidelines for improving your vocab memory.

Before you start a language exchange:

It's important to feel like you're going to both give and get something out of your language exchange.

Who would be a great exchange partner for you?

Consider whether you will benefit most from finding a native speaker, a teacher, a good explainer, or simply a buddy who can help you progress.

Think also about where you’d like them to be located, because online exchanges are much easier when your timezones are convenient for each other.

Look for people who you have something in common with. Find out if you'll be on your partner's wavelength by checking out their profile, hobbies, location, and more.

Is it best to practice with my partner?

It can be amazing to learn languages with your partner, but…not always! In my own relationship of German/English speaker, we never really made it work. Read my story and get 5 Ways to Inspire Your Partner to Learn Your Language.

Where to find the best language exchange partners?

For detailed tips on finding great people locally and online, make sure you check out this blog article on the best places to find great exchange partners.

You can also look for people on these apps.

• italki - find online language tutors and language exchanges

• Tandem | Find Conversation Exchange Partners
  — here is a detailed review of Tandem

• HelloTalk - Language Exchange App
  — here is a detailed review of HelloTalk

Language Exchange — Jonathan's Facebook group for anyone who wants to practice with native speakers.

Before starting a conversation or following someone, it's important to check their bios on social media. It helps gauge their interests and motivations. Sharing a brief summary of your background, interests, and goals can also increase the chances of a satisfying exchange.

Tools and technology needed for a language exchange

Most language exchanges online require fast internet, a good webcam, a microphone, and video conferencing software.

Click here to read about our recommended online teaching tools, which you can use for exchanges too!

Don’t forget, you might even find a local exchange partner to meet in a café. Then you only need a phone to send a message and organise the meeting!

Don’t just start with “hello”

Send more than just a "hello", and try asking questions and connecting based on something you saw in your potential partner's profile. For example, if they are a Frencg learner and they talk about a place they love to travel to, you can say: “Hey, I saw that you’re learning French and you’ve travelled to La Rochelle. I love it there! Have you ever eaten at Le Petit Marinier?".

Consider your expectations. Being someone's language learning partner is a commitment to be taken seriously, and it is your partner's decision whether they will be ready to join you.

Agree on how your exchange is going to work:

• When will you practice which language?

• Who's going to arrange the timeslots?

• Will you send recordings, chat, focus on specific language points like grammar topics or vocab?

• What will you talk about each week?

Finally, consider what level you are at in your target language and how this will impact the kinds of things that you can say and understand.

Once Your Language Exchange is Underway

“A language exchange is like a plant: If you don't look after it, it's going to die.”

Jonathan

Great job, you’ve started meeting your language exchange partners. Here’s how to make sure the new connection doesn’t fizzle out.

Keep the Conversations Interesting

Prepare something to talk about in each session and make sure you don't let each other down and spend the whole session asking superficial questions. For example, find a news item and explain what it means in your local context, share a recipe, or select a conversation starter question. This directory is an incredible list of topics, you’ll never run out of ideas.

Stay Kind to Yourself

No one needs to expect a miracle from a language exchange. If you are shy and you don't establish what you have in common with another person, your language exchange will be just as uncomfortable as it would be in a monolingual environment.

Before and during the exchange, it helps to have a notebook ready. You can even start a language learning journal so you have space to reflect on how it went. Here’s my online course showing you exactly how to organise this journal for success, and here are some tips about using the bullet journal technique.

We love to try these tricks for helping you with your mindset and any self-doubt that comes up while you’re speaking another language. And if you want more ideas, here’s a list of 5 creative ideas for language lessons and exchanges.

Don’t Partner-Hop Like You’re on Tinder

Language exchanges are best treated like a really great friendship. Find consistent people to talk to so you can establish common ground and start going beyond the broring, repetitive topics that happen at the start of creating a new relationship.

Try alternative ways of making your exchange work, for example recording yourself so you can send a "message in a bottle" and still stay in touch even when life gets busy.

Don’t Forget About Group Exchanges

If you haven’t found a 1:1 language exchange partner yet, you can also join a language exchange group and talk to other learners.

In my podcast episode with Brian from Online Language Exchange, we discussed the best ways to get a lot out of these groups.

Don’t worry if you are a beginner: If you find somebody who is at a more advanced stage than you are, you can give them advice and share tips and resources.

No more dull textbooks or mundane drills – you'll be part of a community of like-minded learners who are passionate about mastering new languages. See you in the newsletter!

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you start an effective language exchange?

Remember, language exchanges are about building relationships. So don’t just look for “someone to talk to”, instead imagine you are getting in touch with a brand new friend. You can find exchange partners online in forums, groups, through apps like HelloTalk and the fantastic website italki. (affiliate link, we recommend italki)

What makes a good language partner?

A good exchange partner will be learning a language you know well, and fluent in a language you are learning. This way, you can share the time each of you spends practicing speaking.

It has to be someone that you enjoy talking to, and feel comfortable with. In conversations, it helps if your exchange partner is patient, interesting, and doesn’t correct too much.

What do you talk about during a language exchange?

There are no rules! You don’t have to talk about language rules at all, because exchanges are not like lessons. Find some common ground, talk about what you like, the sports and hobbies you do, favourite foods, and what bands you’ve seen live. A great language exchange is just like talking to a good friend…only in another language!

Why is a language exchange good?

Language exchanges are a powerful language learning tool! They give you

1. Authentic conversations to improve your listening skills, pronunciation, and fluency

2. Language learning on a budget. They are often free, both partners give up their time.

3. A great opportunity to meet new people, grow your relationships, and learn more about the culture of your target language.

Do you need to practice with native speakers?

You don’t have to find a native speaker! Often, learners who are more advanced than you are a great person to practice with. With native speakers, it can be difficult to understand regional accents and they don’t always know how to explain their language rules in detail.

To get native-level practice into your studies before you go hunting for speakers all over town, try bringing in audio resources or even TV. It's easy to watch television in other languages or use cool software like Yabla. (affiliate link)

Read more about this in this blog article: Language Practice: Why You Don't Need A Native Speaker

No More Stutters! Improve Your Speaking Skills In Any Language

Do you remember your first sentences in another language? You'd come away beaming like a kid at Christmas after creating pearls like "I do not like pizza, I like eating salad".

As you learn more in your new language and increase your levels, you want to go deeper, talk about future, past, conditionals, things you've read and things you've thought.

It's like in this Bible verse (oh yeah! Quoting this big book is a Fluent first!):

When we were children, we thought and reasoned as children do. But when we grew up, we quit our childish ways. (1 Corinthians 13:11)

In language learning, it can feel just like that: You want to talk like a grown-up, your self-assured and intelligent self. And what's more frustrating than the reality, where we stutter and stumble over words, and leave....lo o o o o ng...um....gaps in sentences?

Listen to my speaking tips on the Fluent Show podcast:

Let's start by looking at what's causing you trouble.

Reasons Why Your Speaking Skills Aren't Improving

You Have Too Much Vocabulary

Through your reading practice, you are acquiring a lot of new vocab, storing it, but not using it quickly enough after it goes in. This can lead to the word getting very comfortable in your passive vocabulary store, but locking the door behind walking into there so it can't come out when you look for active vocabulary.

If you want to learn a flexible, agile approach to learning vocabulary, click here to discover my course Your Solid Vocab Memory.

You Need to Work On Your Learning Mindsest

As you are speaking, you may also be letting your mind freak you out with unhelpful thoughts. Maybe you slow down or pause, just to hear yourself slow down and pause, then to think "Oh no! I'm doing that thing again! I'm so much worse at this than I thought!"...which then affects your focus.

You're Trying To Talk About Everything

You're trying to speak about a wider range of topics than you expected before you start, so you're hitting unknown areas of vocabulary a lot quicker.

You Don't Have Good Structures

Your practice is lacking sentences and complex constructions, so you can understand a sentence with conjunction and three objects, but making one still grinds every single gear in your brain as if someone just dropped a bucket of sand in there. This is often where learners say they're "translating in their head".

What To Do So You Can Improve Your Speaking Skills

Strategy 1: Say Way More Sentences

Practice and activate a set number of words IN SENTENCES. Write sentences about them, for example defining their meaning or finding five different ways of using the items you have learnt about. In those sentences, focus on one new way of saying something and transform your sentence.

You can do this yourself, even make a prompt sheet:

• Sentence
• "I heard that.." + Sentence
• Last week I met my sister in the shop and she said that + "sentence"
• "Next weekend" + Sentence
• Question + Neg/Pos Sentence
• "Would you...?" + Neg/Pos Sentence

Strategy 2: Target Your Negative Thoughts

Your thoughts determine how you see the world and also how you perform, and so your mindset is what gets you through the uncomfortable gaps.

For example, consider whether a pause could be a great sign that you're about to remember a word, or a signal to try and approach the topic from another side.

Some learners find it helpful to practice filler phrases like Hang on, let me consider this..., It's on the tip of my tongue, or I want to summarize

You can make incredible mindset changes when you work with a language coach. Check out my Coaching page to learn more..

Strategy 3: Go Deep With One Topic

It's easy to get lost in a conversation if you're entering it without clarity about the topic. Luckily, most tutors and exchange partners are pretty obliging and will allow you to steer them towards what you want to talk about. So the key is: Prepare! Look up all relevant words relating to your topic, write them down in advance, practice what you might want to say.

You don't have to script a whole conversation, but even bullet points will make a huge difference.

Useful Links for Improving Speaking Skills

Language Coaching & The Fluent Language Mastermind

Join my Newsletter for more language learning tips, mindset shifts, and updates

How To Get Native Speakers To Speak Your Target Language

You may know this feeling: You've spent hours on your own pronouncing words into your phone, studying vocabulary, and when you want to practice your language with friends...they just keep switching back to English!

"Hey, möchtest du vielleicht heute Abend Tatort gucken?" - "Yes, that sounds great. I will bring beer." - "Ähhh, danke."

If you find it frustrating that your friends keep switching back to English, you are not alone. This week on the podcast, I have got a packed episode full of tips to help you stay in control when native speakers don't want to speak their language with you.

The most common issue here is for English speakers. You’re likely to meet the largest number of people who are learning English (because everyone is) and you’re one in a dozen as a learner looking for practice time.

Why Do They Do This?

1. They don’t want to be rude. Most commonly, people will want to include you in their conversations and make this as easy as possible.
2. They are prioritising their own learning - again, it’s unusual that you want to learn their language and they’ve been wanting to practice their English for ages, so you’re just the person they’ve been looking for.
3. They’re busy. You may have chosen a person who just wants to get things done right now. You are speaking slowly and taking 3 seconds between words. You’re hard to understand. You’re looking up words in the dictionary. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
4. They think this is a struggle for you and want to make your life easier. Language learning is effort, and if they see you looking up every other word they may just want to save you the work especially if you drop into English now and then.

What You Must Accept

1. You can’t win them all - even if you had the perfect accent, chances are that you're still over 6 months away from having those fluent, easy, flawless interactions that you're dreaming of in your Vision Goals. That's okay. Remember that rejection is only for the moment, and only relevant to the current situation.
2. You may need to be persistent. This issue will not be resolved even when you get to the higher levels in your language, because it is not just a reflection of you. It’s always about the other speaker and where they are at, so prepare to try several times and start looking for the compromise.
3. You may need to hunt down a person who is the right partner for you. Especially in the early stages of your language learning journey, this may well be a tutor who can support you until you're fast and confident enough to stick with the target language.

What You Can Try

1. Seek out a group - when they have a common language of interaction with each other, they are more likely to slip in and out. You can eavesdrop, join a meeting, or simply go out for drinks and let them know that you’ll try and stay in their language.
2. Set up a clear language exchange or ask them for temporary support such as being 100% in their native language for just 20 minutes.
3. Improve your local flair - this one is great for service and shorter interactions, for travel, and for talking to in-laws. If you are regularly frustrated because you can’t even manage to small talk for 2 minutes before there is a switch, then you’ll get a lot out of improving your language skill so you can fake it til you make it. 2 ways to do this: Pronunciation perfection, and stock phrases (fillers, standard constructions).
4. Wait until you’re more confident and a little faster. You are going to get there. Until then, the person who keeps switching away from your target language just won’t be the right person to talk to.
5. Go with it. Think bilingual conversation, not “battle lost”. Make it fluid, and even if they switch into English you can stay in your own target language and send a signal.

As you've seen there are different ways of dealing with situations like these. Remember to employ empathy when you are speaking to any native speaker of your target language. Consider their own perspective and the situation they are in. Often, it goes a long way just to mention that you are a learner and to say "I could use some practice, can we speak your language?".

Have You Had Good Luck Practicing Your Target Language?

Leave me a comment or say hi on Twitter to share your own experiences of speaking with native speakers. Who switches to English? How have you dealt with it? I'm looking forward to hearing from you guys.

EPISODE SPONSORS

• SMARTCARDS PLUS

  Smartcards+ is a smart and user-friendly flashcards app. Download flashcard decks, make your own, and then just review and go while the app tracks your language progress. Check it out for free on any iPhone or iPad.

EPISODE LINKS

• How To Get Germans to Speak German To You by Fluent Language
• What's The Secret To The Greatest Language Exchange Ever? by Fluent Language
• To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others
• "Make Your German Sound Amazing" Mini Guide with 26 Key Phrases
• The Secret to Getting Natives to Speak Spanish with You | NachoTime Spanish

Accelerate Your Speaking Skills with Speechling: In-Depth 100% Honest Review

Speaking in other languages is harder than it looks at first. You can read books and study flashcards, and still choke when you speak to a real person.

It can be difficult to practice pronunciation and have conversations on a regular basis. Tutors are awesome, but your lesson time is limited. And many apps and bots make us feel detached.

Speechling claims to have cracked that problem. This new app offers speaking skill training, attractive design, and the most convenient access to a real person tutor that I have ever seen. No scheduling, no exchange of Skype names.

Sounds good, but does it work? In this review, let's take a deep dive and find out.

How does Speechling Work?

Speechling's courses use sentence repetition, a premise that you may know from fellow Fluent favourite Glossika. But there is a twist: Speechling includes feedback on everything you record, from an actual human.

After repeating the sentence you see and hear on the screen, you have the choice of listening back to your pronunciation, or to save it for coaching. After you save your recording, you will receive feedback and tips from a Speechling coach.

How I Tested The App

Speechling's six language options gave me the chance to test ot for at different levels:

• Advanced (French),
• Confident Beginner(Russian)
• Absolute Beginner (Chinese).

The Advanced Learner Test: French

In French, my language level is around B2-C1 on the CEFR. I can navigate most conversations without hiccups, and I know for a fact that speaking French is what I need the most.

So for my level, saying a few sentences every day at my own convenience was perfect.

The live feedback here was eye-opening. I have an optimistic blind spot to my own weaknesses in pronunciation and word choice. I always learnt French in academic environments, so I produce great grammar. But in reality, my spoken French sounds textbook and a little uncomfortable. The coach feedback made me more aware of my little mistakes without discouraging me completely. I felt encouraged to try again, to fix what I was saying and carry on.

Describing a picture using Speechling's Freestyle mode

With the freestyle mode, I got to practice free speech instead of repeating pre-written sentences. In the dictation feature, I added listening comprehension at natural speeds.

The Confident Beginner Test: Russian

Russian is a language I studied about two years ago and I was able to have very basic exchanges (“what did you have for breakfast?” - “I had porridge”, that kind of stuff). I pronounce words correctly, and can read Cyrillic. So with this language, I wanted to see

1. if Speechling can teach me something new and
2. if my pronunciation is accurate.

The module I chose was “Beginner (A1)”, which was a great entry point after a few years off. With each repetition, I felt like I was learning. The examples were well pronounced, came at a speed that felt like a suitable challenge, and soon I was improving.

I also felt that pronouncing each new word immediately helped me remember it, especially when I added a recording. The accountability of recording and coaching (“someone will actually hear this”) helped me link the phrase with a strong emotion. For more about how emotions amplify memory, check out my interview with Gabriel Wyner from Fluent Forever.

With a language like Russian, you need regular exposure to stay comfortable with the alphabet and pronunciation. Speechling surprised me here because it felt like the perfect tool. There were so many sentences I had never said before, and so many opportunities for me to improve.

Best of all, I was speaking Russian right there and then without any hesitation.

Of course, exposure to lots of sentences won't teach me more than lots of sentences. If I wanted to get back into Russian and start making steady progress, I would definitely use Speechling and I would add a textbook, dictionary, grammar explanations, and lots of input resources.

The Absolute Beginner Test: Chinese

Chinese is the only language out of Speechling’s range that I have never studied, so I decided to go for the “simplified” version. Does that mean easy Chinese? No idea, but it's worth a try. The module I chose was “Beginner (A1)”, as there was no way of picking anything even easier.

My Speechling Audio Diary

With Chinese, Speechling shows the sentences in Hanzi (Chinese characters). There is also the option of viewing the sentence in pinyin. Good job - it was the only way I could even start to guess at repeating the sounds I was hearing.

For a complete beginner like me, the sentences were interesting. I had to repeat the audio input 4-5 times before I dared to repeat the sounds. Surely, any Chinese speaker would be impressed?

Speaking Chinese to a Chinese Native After 5 Minutes

Well, I do know a Chinese speaker so I was ready to shine. Having newly acquired the sentence 今天很温暖 (“it’s warm today”), I asked my co-working buddy to listen to my Chinese and tell me if it’s correct. And he did understand what I was saying, although “impressed” would be stretching the truth a bit.

I also sent my recorded sentence to the Chinese coach, who drew my attention to the specific parts I got wrong.

Learning mass sentences as a complete beginner isn’t ideal. It leaves you without a sense of what each word means (which one out of jin tian hen nuan huo is “warm”, which one is “today”....and what do any of those symbols mean?). Learners don't get to understand what any of the rules of speaking are. But that’s okay, as Speechling not designed for that. This tool is a great confidence builder and accent sharpener. I could imagine it as a fantastic basis for tutoring, sending students away with homework on a topic.

Multilingual Usage

If you have studied more than one of Speechling’s range of languages, you can view translations in any of the six languages. This means you get to practice two languages at once, and it’s one of easiest ways to train your polyglot muscles.

Downsides of Speechling

On several occasions, my recordings were too long to be saved for feedback. This is understandable, but it was frustrating particularly in the freestyle mode. It’s disappointing when you say a complex sentence to send to your coach, and then get a message saying “file too large - cannot save”. It would be great if Speechling could include a guide on how long I can record for.

For languages where I knew nothing at all, I’d also like to see a primer module so I understand what I'm doing. But this is a tiny point, especially since Speechling is not aimed at complete beginners.

In Conclusion: Speechling is Great

All in all, I found Speechling a great addition to my studies. It was challenging and helped me improve my pronunciation and speaking skills in three languages. I was most excited about what Speechling could do for my Russian language skills. I improved both my vocabulary and accent, and the process was efficient and fast.

Speechling is free from robot voices and works with male and female voices (native speakers, of course). Its interface looks great and it gets you into the action immediately.

I love the record-feedback cycle, because it prompts you to re-record a better version of what you said. You get feedback, and you improve pronunciation, confidence, and speed.

The coaches were great for all the languages I tried. They recorded speedy corrections. At the very early levels, feedback is not rich, because they are native speakers and they use their native languages. But even so, it was clear where exactly I was supposed to change something. The more you learn, the more you will get out of these coaches.

If you work with a tutor that you don’t see every day, definitely try adding Speechling to your language routine. You will be speaking your target language more, you'll build a better accent. And best of all, pronouncing all the new words will help you remember them faster.

How to Get Started (+ Speechling Discount)

Create a free account and start speaking at Speechling.com, or by download the app from the App Store or Google Play Store.

Speechling is currently available in six languages: French, German, Spanish, English, Russian, and two types of Chinese.

It’s a freemium app, and you get 15-20 minutes of feedback for free every month. I would recommend checking out the paid plan (see below for 10% off) if you want to

• get a speaking boost, especially when there’s a deadline
• learn more than one language at once
• keep track of your progress with the audio journal.

The unlimited plan is open to Fluent readers at a 10% Lifetime discount: Make sure you use the code FLUENT when you sign up.

Good to know: Speechling is a non-profit company and also has a classroom version called Speechling for Education. I have an existing relationship with Speechling as they are a sponsor of my podcast. This only influenced the amount of attention the product received, not the verdict. It is a cool app.

Have You Tried Speechling?

Are you a pronunciation master now? How did you like the coach feedback? Leave a comment below and share your story.

***hello from the future!!***

Since my original review of Speechling in February 2018, these folks have been hard at work and have just emailed me to share the following new developments.

1. A new module called "Speechling Foundations", which will teach newbies from the very beginning. This start from zero module covers teaches the most essential words in context.

2. New listening options: Speechling now offers listening comprehension, multiple choice, fill in the blank, and flashcards. It's all available for free without login. All of this works on mobile too.

3. More language! They've more than tripled our content collection.

4. Offline mode!! Premium users can download a huge chunk of Speechling’s sentence collection (~10k sentences) and even audio books and Anki decks .

And added in March 2020

1. Speechling now includes Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese.

2. The recording time has been upgraded to 15s as Standard! It’s quadrupled to 30s for paid users.

3. There are now over 10k recordings (male + female combined) for each language, from words to complex sentences.

4. Speechling now includes word hints where you can mouse over words and get pronunciation tips and definitions. 

I love it when an app listens to its users, this alone makes it worth checking out!

Click here to try Speechling for free, as long as you want.

Five Tips For Beating Embarrassment When Speaking Another Language

We've all been there: You're up for half an hour of speaking practice in your target language, and right after you say hello, you notice the first mistake tumble out. Not good. Now they think you're an idiot, and you've forgotten the word for "bread" and while you're racking your brain that pause becomes longer and your cheeks are glowing red. Time for the ground to open up!

If all that sounds familiar to you, you are not alone. Millions of language learners experience embarrassment when it comes to speaking practice. Especially when you're trying out your language in another country, it's almost impossible to feel prepared.

My personal threshold for embarrassment seems to be pretty high in most social situations, I have also experienced that crippling sense of looking truly foolish.

I won't get into that one time on a Russian airplane where the air hostess shouted incomprehensible things at me, I smiled throughout with lots of "da, da"...and later found out that they had been debating whether I could safely fly considering they thought I was pregnant. The shame!

But fear not, I've got some good advice to share with you today.

If you're ready to start saying no to embarrassment when speaking another language, here are four tips to help you feel better:

1) Prepare Your Speaking Partner

Chances are you are already pushing the boundaries of your comfort zone by speaking in another language. There is no need to add further discomfort to your challenge by talking to someone who is unlikely to support you. Strangers at the ticket counter, crazy air hostesses and even strict teachers are not the right people to choose for conversation practice when you are suffering from social anxiety or embarrassment.

Instead, try and hold on to what makes you feel comfortable right now. It helps to share your worries with your speaking partner before you start having to speak your target language. If it's a tutor, this will prompt them to be more patient and hold back on the corrections. If it's a friend, it can remind them to slow down and let you build your sentences slowly.

This technique of preparing your partner will help both of you feel more at ease, and ready to tackle this challenge together.

2) Focus On Your Breath

When anxious sensations take hold, your body responds by tensing up, raising your heartbeat and even causing you to sweat and blush. That's the last thing you need when you are already worried about the many ways in which you're about to lose face.

Instead of freaking out about all the words you remember or forget, the best course of action is a simple calming exercise.

Focus on something that is real and constant, for example your own breath. Breathe in slowly for 4 seconds, retain your breath for 2 seconds if you can, and enjoy a long and restorative out breath for 8 seconds. Breathing exercises may not feel like the right tool for a foreign language panic, but you'll be surprised at how much language skill returns once that mental stormcloud is allowed to pass.

For more tips and techniques that help with overcoming stress and anxiety, try the SAM app on your smartphone. It's a little toolkit of instant self-help.

3) Build Up Your Filler Vocabulary

Filler sentences are a wonderful tool when you are getting ready for speaking practice. They're usually uncomplicated, short, easy to remember and very effective. Think of filler sentences as the extra cushioning that is built into conversations so each speaker gets some time to relax. In English, these are lines like "hold on", "let me think for a second" or "let me think".

As a little treat for the German learners among you, I've collected a bunch of fillers and stock sentences in the "Make Your German Sound Amazing" booklet, which you can download for free.

But what should you do if you haven't understood half of what your speaking partner just said?

You can buy yourself a little time by repeating the last words of their sentence, stretched out with some "Hm" sounds. This may tide you over until you can remember how to proceed, for example by asking them to repeat what they just said. It's perfectly acceptable for you to control some aspects of the conversation even if you don't know your target language very well yet.

4) Practice

Even if you follow every single one of the tips above, that feeling of embarrassment is unlikely to just dissolve into thin air. You may still feel discomfort in new situations, and it's still embarrassing to make mistakes. There's no way around this one: At some point, your only way is forward and right through the bad feelings.

Luckily, there is plenty of reward waiting for you on the other side, as you realize that your mistakes and awkward pauses did not cause the ground to open up and swallow you whole.

If you want to push your boundaries and go for speaking practice in a brand new situation, why not take advantage of your next trip abroad? We've got plenty of travel language tips on Episode 41 of the podcast.

Even better, put yourself into an immersion experience with other learners, for example in the Fluent German Retreat led by yours truly. These retreats aim to create a speaking environment that pushes your boundaries without embarrassment, helping you to realize how good you actually are.

It's Not Easy, But It's Worth It

These tips are just a few examples of the many small steps you can take to keep yourself from suffering crippling embarrassment in speaking practice. Keep yourself reminded that this is not easy, and the fact that you are even trying is a testament to your bravery.

And I promise you: The rewards of speaking a foreign language are just as great as you've imagined.

Have You Dealt With Embarrassment and Anxiety About Speaking?

If you've got a story you would like to share, go ahead and share it in the comments section for this post. I'd love to hear your own tips and experiences.