Karly

There’s a specific kind of fear that comes from knowing exactly what you want to say in another language but feeling physically incapable of saying it. Your brain knows the grammar. Your mouth knows the words. But your heart is staging a protest. You freeze. You panic. You decide you’ll just live in silence forever.

That, my friends, is foreign language anxiety.

It’s real. It’s frustrating. And it doesn’t mean you’re bad at languages. In fact, it often hits the hardest when you care the most, when you want to speak well, to sound natural, to be taken seriously. When you want to sound like yourself but end up sounding like a badly translated version of yourself from Google circa 2007.

What Is Foreign Language Anxiety?

In applied linguistics, foreign language anxiety is defined as the fear or apprehension experienced when learning or using a second (or third, or fourth) language. It’s often linked to feelings of inadequacy, fear of negative evaluation, and communication apprehension, basically, the worry that people will judge you, correct you, or think you’re stupid.

It’s not just about speaking. It can affect writing, reading, even listening. And it doesn’t go away just because you’ve passed your B2 exam or lived abroad for six months. In many cases, the more competent you become, the more pressure you feel to be perfect.

This fear is rarely rational. It’s emotional. It’s personal. And I’ve been there.

The Kånken Incident

Let me set the scene. It was peak Kånken season. You know the era,  everyone had one. Instagram was flooded with photos of pastel backpacks and Scandinavia-core aesthetics. I was in Mannheim, Germany. I had been learning German for about a year. Not fluent, not hopeless. Somewhere in that cursed in-between space where you know how to ask for something, but the fear of getting it wrong outweighs the actual risk.

I wanted to buy a Kånken backpack. I sat in a dramatic huff in a shopping centre for an hour because I was determined to speak perfect German to ask for it. I didn’t want to stumble over the words. I didn’t want them to switch to English. I wanted to prove I could do it.

Eventually, I got up, walked in, and bought the backpack. The sales assistant complimented my German. The Earth continued to spin. No one laughed. It was fine.

But I still remember the hour-long sit-in. Because that wasn’t about grammar, it was about fear. And a backpack that probably cost too much.

Face, Fluency, and the Pressure to Perform

Foreign language anxiety often ties into face theory, which I keep coming back to, but in case you have not read the previous posts, it is the idea that we all have a public self-image we want to maintain. Speaking a foreign language means risking that face. You’re putting yourself in a vulnerable position where you might get corrected, laughed at, or misunderstood.

Even worse, you might get underestimated.

For people who are used to sounding articulate, funny, or clever in their first language, switching to a foreign one can feel like losing parts of your identity. You’re suddenly speaking in slower, simpler terms. You might sound childish or uncertain. You might feel like people aren’t seeing the real you.

And that disconnect,  between who you are and how you sound, is often the root of the anxiety.

It’s Not About Grammar

Most language learners don’t freeze up because they don’t know the grammar. They freeze up because they’re afraid of the moment someone frowns at them, or switches to English, or asks, “What did you mean by that?” They’re afraid of seeming ignoran, of failing the unspoken test.

And yet, the only way to get through it is to speak anyway.

Confidence in a foreign language rarely comes from being perfect. It comes from surviving the small embarrassments. From ordering something weird by accident and laughing it off. From having someone compliment your accent after you’ve convinced yourself you sound like a disaster.

From buying a Kånken in Mannheim after an hour-long meltdown on a bench.

Some Thoughts if You’re Struggling

• You’re not alone. Every fluent speaker was once a nervous beginner.
  
• You don’t need to sound native to be valid. Being understood is already a win.
  
• The goal is communication, not perfection.
  
• Most people are nicer than your anxiety tells you they’ll be.
  
• Compliments on your language skills always feel disproportionately euphoric. Accept them.
  

And if you ever find yourself in a foreign country, spiralling in a shopping centre over whether you’re allowed to conjugate verbs in public, just know I’ve been there. You’ll be fine. Go get the backpack.