Readers Respond: How to feel more comfortable when speaking French

Responses: 25

By Laura K. Lawless, About.com Guide

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From the article: Overcoming Speaking Anxiety

Do you suffer from French-speaking stage fright? Please share your tips on how to speak French without feeling anxious. Share your tips

Hi Laura, I like your tip on preparing yourself before asking a question. I've found that when possible it's also good to practice the question out loud; it's not really enough to simply say the phrase in my head.
—Lorenzo

Though by no means fluent my French is good enough to get by in most situations,but I still get nervous when speaking to native French speakers.Sometimes I get lost in the speed of the conversation,but I have never been made to look silly.In fact,most French people will be very patient with you,I do think they appreciate your efforts to speak their beautiful language.I try to listen as much as I can to native speakers and to pick up their accent and nuances. The day I am mistaken for a Frenchwoman will be a happy day for me.
—Guest Suzan

I agree with listening to french music, firstly its an awesome way to learn vocab (by translating the songs) and when you learn the words singing along helps to get the mouth used to the sounds. I recently joined Alliance and while I am shy to speak in class, we are forced to and I must admit I find my french improving all the time. I also find myself thinking in french a lot more and in my car I try to explain what I see in french!
—Guest Clive

Over the last couple of years, I've worked hard at learning French using many methods - internet, books, French tutor, etc.. It feels quite chaotic trying to remember what I learned just to have a simple conversation. I think part of the difficulty is that I feel awkward speaking and keep busy with my other learning tools rather than practicing conversational French.
—Guest Margoval

I recently learned French out of necessity. My fiancée's entire family didn't speak a word of English, so be left out of the conversation forever or dive in. And I wish there was a better way but "dive in" is it. I found a well rounded regimen is best. Read newspapers (they are all written at grade 5 level by the way), watch TV (I found Kids TV ideal as they speak purely, they repeat a lot, and the programming has built in talk-back opps that you can participate in), and talk talk talk. You will find people that refuse to talk to you given your poor French but that is life, just refuse to give up and one day, the great reward will come. You'll find yourself in a room with 5 frenchies, talking as if you always knew it, and it will hit you - "It's happening" and that feeling my friends is GOLD! Knowing a second language is truly a gift. Lâchez pas!
—Guest Marshman

So true... If you know the organisation called Toastmasters you will be delighted to hear that there is a Toastmasters club in London for French speaking people...it is called 'Experience French' and the idea is indeed to give you opportunities to speak French in public, in a safe and friendly environment. Loof for us if you are interested, we meet twice a month!
—Guest Raphael

If you ask someone a question about, say, their home town, you can guess what they are likely to talk about - so you can relax, nod and say 'ah bon' which encourages the other person to keep talking. My other tip is to practice as much as possible. I have just set up a French meetup group for people to practice many brief, structured conversations and so far the members have really enjoyed the opportunities to speak French in a supportive environment.
—angelaluke

I think you should always listen to people speak french and catch what their saying of course. I have found it helpful to learn how to ask if you can go to the bathroom and if you are in like a class and you want to say something but you don't know how then check to see how to ask if you may speak english (or other language)!!!! I found these the most important things while you are still learning!!! Remember to practice and quiz yourself.
—Guest Kiwi

A bunch of people said this before me, but I'd like to stress it. Watch French videos. Yabla videos are really nice, but youtube is really immersive.
—Guest Vanessa

You'll get there Annie Lou - in fact if they answered in French you're half way there ! A lot of it is vocabulary rather than grammar. Watching French DVDs is great to reinforce vocab if you havent got a native speaker to practise on " Have a look at Spiral if you like gritty realistic detective series
—Guest J Wilson

Learn lots of useful phrases, lots of vocabulary, then you can 'mix and match'. This enables you to think in french and not have to translate. Result - more fluent speech, more compliments, leading to lots more confidence. The mistakes don't matter, communication is everything, native speakers know what you're trying to say. Ask yourself how you would react to any foreigner trying to speak your language.
—Guest francoholic

I watch a good DVD series ( The West Wing, In Treatment, Breaking Bad, The Wire) in English with French sub-titles. It's sounds the reverse of what you should do, but it is very effective for learning vocab and colloquial French
—Guest DVDs

I usually prepare a few questions to ask others in our French conversation meetup group and/or comments about my week, which helps, but I get paralyzed when I don't understand every word of the response. A Polish woman in our group, who speaks 5 or 6 languages, suggested I pretend I'm at a loud party speaking in English. In such a situation, if I don't hear every word and my response is a bit off, the person I'm talking with will clarify and we'll move on. No big deal. She assured me my French conversations could have the same type of rhythm: question/comment, response, clarification when needed, response, etc. No paralysis required.
—sunkbridge

how did you learn to speak english? (or whatever your first language may be). did you pop out of the womb, speaking english? were you spouting lyrical poetry when you were two? no. how did you learn to speak? you just started talking, "baby talk" granted, but you gotta start somewhere. just start talking, and forget wat other people think about you.
—Guest Meeshe

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Laura K. Lawless
French Language Guide