Some native speakers give the most negative and unhelpful feedback, but they are not language tutors so largely ignore them, would be my advice. I remember a trainee French tutor (i.e. untrained , unqualified, tutoring us for a bit of extra cash) for our conversation class in university telling me I was pretty much terrible in French, which angered me but ultimately just added fuel to the fire. Have had countless more times like that, in the street and beyond, and their opinions are largely irrelevant!
All learners have off days, some topics are new, many points hard to express.
Something that’s stuck with me is someone (probably Aran) observing that even speaking your first language you’ll make plenty of mistakes, saying “a orange” instead of “an orange” or, as happened to me yesterday completely forgetting the word “respectively”.
The SSi ethos of don’t worry about mistakes, embrace them has been the key for me to enjoying learning.
Well, to start with I do no speaking at all, apart from saying all the SSi phrases our-loud.
It’s a real mixture of SSi, Duolingo (yes I know everyone hates it, I use it because it’s free and to learn vocab and I like the structure). I do the SSi listening exercises every day, sometimes I listen to videos.
I know it’s not ideal. Time is a real challenge for me at the moment, and because learning a language often isn’t enjoyable/relaxing for me (it creates stress in my life) I don’t put in as much time as I should/could
I guess I’m late to the party here; but FWIW, I’ve really come to enjoy the confusion (at least with SSi, not necessarily with some other methods).
For me it’s those “Oh! I get it now!” moments that make studying a language so (much) fun. You’ve probably heard the corny line that a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet, right? Well with SSi, confusion is just an “aha” moment you haven’t had yet.
It really is possible to enjoy the confusion as you feel that lightbulb moment getting closer and closer.
You’re deffo not going to avoid making embarassing mistakes when you talk to people. It’s part of the entrance fee. I remember I once used a weather-related Spanish word I learned from Pimsleur that made everyone snigger when I used it in Spain. And for months I said “enjoy your meal” wrong before someone took pity on me and let me know. And that’s Spanish! You probably wouldn’t actually believe how many gaffes I made with Chinese in China ha ha (and I still haven’t yet succeeded in learning Chinese). The first couple of times it happens, it’s excruciatingly embarrassing; but after a while, it gets to be quite liberating.
Imagine a child who loves horses; but when you take them to a place to go riding, they are too scared. Presumably, you will keep encouraging them and hope that they will change their mind, because you know that once they try it, the payoff will more than compensate for the fear. Probably, they will never lose that fear completely; but it will diminish enough that compared to the joy they get from riding, it won’t seem important. I’d be lying if I said I no longer feel any embarrassment at my mistakes; but compared to the payoff, it doesn’t seem like a big deal. That’s the first thing.
The second thing is this: you don’t actually want the fear and embarrassment to disappear completely. You want a tiny bit of jeopardy to make it fun. Think of a computer game where you could never make a mistake and every move you tried came off: I doubt it would sell well? If you never got sentences wrong, why would you get a buzz from getting a difficult one right?
It’s very simple to access that different framing and see this as fun rather than stressful: you just have to truly know the following: everyone makes mistakes. Lots of them.
I have an advantage there as an English teacher, because I regularly get to see incredibly smart and successful professionals making mistakes in English. Some of these people, it’s hard to believe how smart they are; and yet there they are, making mistakes.
You won’t necessarily see this as a learner in a class, because some of your classmates will be “on stage” if you know what I mean. But seeing is believing, so I suggest you try a bit of 1-to-1 online teaching of English for a brief period and see for yourself.
Finally, the 3rd point is that it’s totally safe. Unless you are a spy operating in that country, nothing bad can possibly happen to you from making a mistake. The app won’t even notice (er, true at time of writing*) and if anyone is the kind of person who thinks less of you for a mistake, then they either have no self-awareness or they’re the Dunning-Kruger effect personified (or both). And once you reach conversational fluency in one language, it gives you a certain level of trust in the process. In my case, it was Spanish. I’ve actually failed so far with Chinese (it’s the writing and the pronunciation that are fiendish); but I don’t doubt I can get there. If Chinese was my first language, I’d probably have given up.
They way things are going, who knows if that will still be true for the 2026 version of the app ha ha.
I’m just so frustrated at myself that I can’t seem to diminish this sense of panic (that’s the best way I can describe it) when I’m doing a lesson. This sense of dread where I’m wondering ‘Oh no, what will come up next?’. Challenge 23 of Spanish Level 2 has been particularly bad for that. Got a LOT wrong.
You’re supposed to get a lot wrong. I’m currently working my way through the Japanese course. I’ll see if I can find a way to record a small part of my session. If I can, I’ll try to post a blooper reel for my session, so that you can hear me making mistakes.
The bigger the ‘mistake’, the more you’ll remember it and get it right in the future. I happened to be filmed by a TV crew last week speaking Basque. I didn’t have to say much, but I got it wrong! They put me on the spot asking “How do you say xxxx in Basque?” and I just came out with the first thing that came into my head, but after that a friend pointed out that it was wrong. I’ll never forget that particular construction again!
For what it’s worth, I did a Spanish for beginners course whereby everyone else had some kind of level of Spanish (Spanish family members, had lived there, etc) I was the only one starting from absolutely zero .
It was terrifying for the first few months full of self doubt, but at some point, it suddenly got easier and I began to enjoy it. I can’t tell you what that point was, it just happened from staying with it and doing what was asked and trying. It will seem like it will never happen for you until then one day, the clouds just lift!
It’s also interesting reading your posts about struggling with learning as I recognise much in them from my recent professional experience - I’ve gone from being a teacher to a software developer, and I find my colleagues in software seem to see everything so clearly and find it all so easy when I’m desperately clutching at straws. I am waiting for that moment of clarity that hasn’t yet come but from my language experience, I’m pretty sure it will, just not yet!
I understand the pull of Duolingo but I had to stop using it for Welsh as I found the complete lack of control over what I was learning to be the main problem (learning what I decide I need is way more helpful I find)
It’s like the fast food equivalent, if you’ll excuse the terrible analogy😆, of language learning, quick and easy, but doing little good over time.
I speak Russian as a second language, and when I was learning (and I still am) I was also training quite heavily in a martial art along with some native Russian speakers. Russian is a very synthetic language, wherein you can modify verbs by means of prefixes and some suffixes, and they can be very inventive with this, particularly with how they curse. So, when I heard some words I didn’t recognise, and asked for translations, upon being told simply “that word means good!” and “that one means I’m tired” I didn’t realise that those particular forms were not to be used in polite company. You can guess exactly what happened, following on from that
Suffice to say, I won’t ever forget any of those words (or the correct, polite translations)!
