this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024
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I have fairly severe social anxiety; when I went to France, the negative response to the French I was able to stutter out ensured I’d never try to speak French again. (I read it fairly well, because Candide was good enough to read ten times)
In high school, I had an assignment to go to a local Chinese restaurant and order in Chinese. The response to my “我要broccoli 牛肉” was so enthusiastic that I still do a set of Chinese flash cards everyday.
There has to be a motivating force for you to learn something. Whether that is social approval/encouragement, needing to be able to ask for certain things… Some people can be motivated by an intrinsic love of learning things, but for most I think this is confined to specific topics.
For language, I think you need a show that you want to watch, a space you can navigate by only using that language, something that gives you meaningful feedback and places to go that a grade simply doesn’t.
I had a similar positive experience in Spain and Morocco. Tangier is very close to Spain so most of the locals know Spanish.
I would always start conversations in Spanish. Most of the time the person I was talking to would appreciate my attempt and switch to English. In Tangier I talked to a street peddler for over 15 minutes while friends were in a store. I attempted to speak in Spanish but he preferred English. He just wanted to chat.