Feeling Muted? Here’s How to Find Your Voice in English

Hey, come with me.

I've got something to talk with you about.

Have you ever had it happen where you're in the middle of a conversation, you're using English, or at least you're trying to, and you are totally understanding what's going on inside the conversation all around you, but then when everything gets quiet and you realize, "Oh, it's my turn to speak," do you ever find that your brain just kind of slows down? It feels like, "Oh, no, I, I can't come up with what I want to say next." It's like everything freezes up here, and all the English that you thought you knew just somehow goes out the window, or it slows down so much that you end up feeling like you've been put on mute almost.

Like, the ideas that you have, the smarts that you have up here somehow don't make it down to your mouth and out of your mouth so that you can express all your great ideas, all the things that you know, all the things that you want to say to someone else that you can do quite easily in your first language, but somehow deeply struggle with when you're trying to do it in your second language, which is in our case, using English.

And you somehow feel less intelligent or less smart when you're trying to use English.

But in your first language, you can express these ideas effortlessly, like they just come out and you feel so much smarter in your first language than you do in your second language.

Does that ever happen to you? I had this question come in from a listener to this podcast, and it's something that I've spoken with, uh, with people who are also learning to use English as their second language, and it's something that I've experienced myself, you know, as, as I was learning and am learning to use my second language, which is Spanish.

I've had this feeling.

I know what this feeling feels like.

It, it is so dang frustrating.

And it's, uh, it's spot on when you say that you feel muted and you say that you feel like somehow less intelligent when you're trying to use your second language.

[sighs] That is so frustrating, isn't it? And, and discouraging, and you just end up feeling like, well, like you don't wanna keep trying.

You just feel like people are dismissing you.

You, you're feeling like people don't take you seriously because you can't seem to get your ideas that you have up here to come out with the same speed or with the exact same accuracy as maybe you could, uh, as you totally could if you were using your first language.

And if that's you, if that's something that you are struggling with, then I want to talk with you today.

And first of all, let you know that if that is you, if that's how you feel, then you need to know that it's not-- you're not like the only one who struggles with this.

It's like, it's like a widespread phenomenon.

Like, when you are learning a second language or a third language, it takes time, a lot of time to build up your fluency skills, to build up your ability to very quickly move what you have up here and have it come out here, this, in the same speed or the same kind of accuracy as you can do with your first language.

It takes a lot of time.

Uh, so I guess the first thing I want to offer you is, and, and it doesn't necessarily help maybe, but just to encourage yourself in knowing that you're not the only one, that there's lots of people out there.

I've struggled with it.

I know so many other people who struggle with this.

So, you know, you're not the only one.

You're not an oddball.

You're not like stupid because it happens to you.