Studied English for Years but Still Can’t Speak—Anyone Else Feel This Way?

It takes practice. Keep going with those video calls with your friend. Don't give up. Nothing good comes easy.

You use your brain differently when you try to speak in a foreign language. It takes a lot of practice. A lot. Find someone you can pratice with and when you don't have someone to practice with, talk to yourself in English as much as you can.

Just FYI, it’s very obvious this was written by ChatGPT. I work with a lot of people who speak English as a second language, and a lot of them will “filter” their emails through GPT to try to clean it up. I would try to avoid that as an English learner and just use your own voice. We don’t care if you guys make mistakes while you’re learning. But no one wants to read another email with three em dashes squeezed into a single paragraph.

I had the same experience learning farsi. No matter how much I studied, I never got much farther than being able to ask how much something was, ask for a light, or give directions. My problem was that I could speak farsi, but I couldn't understand it when it was spoken back to me. But I was only in Iran for 6 months or so. The rest of my family lived there for years and they were fairly fluent in farsi, especially my little sister.

Native English speaker- but have spent a lot of time studying French and Japanese and have had many frustrations with those languages. Language ability is 4 separate but mutually reinforcing skills- listening, speaking, reading and writing. The only way to get good at a particular skill is to specifically practice it. So although say reading or typing might slightly aid your speaking, to get good at speaking you just have to practice talking a lot. Talk to yourself, find a language exchange, if you can afford it take conversation classes on a platform like italki. I’ve spent many hours on italki, I’m not sure if it helped make me more “fluent” but I can definitely talk more rapidly and with less hesitation.

Bro i'm an Indian and facing the same issue in Canada. My fellow Indians say that my speaking skills are good but how do i tell them that it drains my brain really fast. And, it's not that fluent.

I'm also a lifelong language learner. For any new language, the only way to get fluent is to get over your shyness and stumble along with the new language, not caring about people making fun of you. This is how children learn languages and they are the best language learning machines in the world. As for chatting with friends in different languages, I have a suggestion. I made this app ([FlaiChat](https://flai.chat/?utm_source=reddit_comment_EngLearn)) that does two way translation between any major languages automatically (no long press, no copy/paste to Google translate etc.). You can use text chat as well as voice messages and it translates everything automatically. You can see/hear the original as well as the translated versions of the message. Check it out. It might help you communicate better \*and\* speed up learning.

this is a pretty normal problem. Same thing happened to me learning my Spanish and to my husband when he was learning French. He only improved by lots of practice and he was lucky enough to study abroad in France and take advantage of immersion. You will need to practice speaking with a language partner

You can tackle it twofold. Either go back to basics: learn the individual sounds in English, word stress, and sentence rhythm. Then, work with an audio course like Pimsleur or Glossika. Record yourself each time and listen to your recordings. Find someone who will listen to you or your recordings and correct you. That's what I'm doing at the moment. After that, tackle another audio course. I believe recognizing the sounds and being able to produce them makes language learning easier and more fun, albeit more laborious at first. Still, it’s highly rewarding! :) I got myself "Mastering the American Accent" by Lisa Mojsin, M.A. It covers the basics of the basics. Alternatively, you could go straight to an audio course—Glossika might be a good fit for you. I don't use the app version, but I reckon they’re similar in approach. It presents sentences to you, and you just repeat them. The great thing about it is that someone else creates the sentences, so you avoid awkward constructions and the possibility of borrowing structures from your native language. Whatever path you choose, remember that it’s totally possible to go from mute to a confident, near-native speaker of any foreign language at any age. It takes time, discipline, and finding good resources to stick to. Pro tip: In my experience, having fewer resources can often be better. Also, it’s better to do less regularly than to go all out for a few days every couple of months. Find the minimal amount of time that feels sustainable and determine how many days a week you're comfortable with working. You might include free days in your week, a free week in your month, or even a free month in your year if you want. People often take on too much when learning, get overwhelmed, and then drop it for weeks, months, or even years. It's similar to how many people fail in their exercise regimens. Anyway, I hope that helps! :)

Top comment already addressed the AI concern about this post, so moving on. I’m the same way with my (very beginner) Japanese and Spanish. It’s a different skill set - this video explains it well. https://youtu.be/wMTvrvaLhMc?si=UGdmD4QgFDixLxxw For what it’s worth, informal English is very forgiving. English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, and most of us native speakers are very accustomed to hearing it spoken by someone for whom it’s not their first (or second or third) language. Even us native speakers don’t use perfect grammar or follow all the rules - so most of us will understand you regardless of mistakes.

i've had to learn this the hard way trying to learn spanish and my anxiety with speaking in general, speaking practice is the only way you can get better at speaking. im not a high level in spanish but its very frustrating to know the words but struggle to make it into a flush sentence without pauses for thinking and second guessing. my best advice is to speak to someone who also understands this feeling since they won't judge or overcorrect you while you're building confidence!! if you play videogames or another hobby where speaking is an optional part, you can try to find people who also have those hobbies! I've found it a lot easier to build confidence over an in game voicechat than an actual conversion, the pressure and attention are never fully on you or any mistakes you might make!!

I totally get what you're going through! I struggled with the same thing myself and it’s really frustrating when you know the language but keep freeze up when you need to speak. For me, what really helped was practicing conversations with my friends but after about half a year we all started plateauing and progress slowed down to a halt. Then I started branching out into language learning platforms like italki, where I could talk to native speakers with real expertise in teaching the language. It made a huge difference because having those 1-on-1 conversations with professional teachers really helped me build confidence and get used to speaking without the fear of making mistakes. Their guidance was way more effective than just chatting with regular people. You might want to give it a try! [https://go.italki.com/rtsgeneral3](https://go.italki.com/rtsgeneral3)

It happens the same way, maybe if you practice phonetics it would give more confidence

Speaking, reading and writing are all different. If you want to learn to speak fluently you probably need to immerse yourself in an English speaking place./country. Then you will be forced to speak English. Your ear will get attuned to it. It was a Russian comic living in the USA who once said you know you finally speak a foreign language fluently when you can tell jokes in that language.

So, my sister is the most talented linguist I know, she received linguistic training from the US military, and she told me, once you hit a certain point of experience where you *should* know how to speak, but you can't get out of your own way, you should go drinking, go with people who know or are also learning the language you're working on. Seriously. That's what alcohol is best at, reducing inhibitions. to the point that it was fairly common practice to go into speaking exams a little tipsy. The mental lubrication will help *way* more than thinking clearly enough to be "correct". and finally, you're gonna sound like a little kid for a while! that's okay! little kids are *fantastic* at learning languages, that's when your brain is most primed to do all of this. you just gotta suck at it for a while so that you can learn! *nothing* is gonna make you better at speaking than speaking itself. you just gotta do it! Best of luck!

I had asked question in freelance field and got mocked because I didn't use punctuation correctly as for speaking, I lack the courage to speak and feel like the cat ate my tongue

What helped me was speaking out loud to myself when I was alone and have fun with it and find my “English voice” honestly it’s about letting go and also I’d just speak to people and ask them to correct me constantly