James Hutchinson

If you understand, but can't confidently speak your target language, I've made a free 2 minute quiz that gives you tailored advice to get you talking.

speakwithvoco.com/freeze-quiz/?ref=quiz-yt-communi….

Cheers,
James.

3 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 2

James Hutchinson

Sometimes if you freeze up when speaking with natives, it can be a lot to do with your environment and the situation itself rather than your actual language skills.

In this video I dive deeper and talk about what you can do to make your words flow more easily when speaking with natives: https://youtu.be/VnADSqMFq_M

1 week ago | [YT] | 0

James Hutchinson

Sometimes your mind goes blank and you can't get the words out when you want to speak with a native speaker in your target language.

This is often because you have a filter in your mind where you tell yourself that you have to speak perfectly or nothing will come out.

This means that if you want to say something but there's a word that you don't know. Your mind will freeze and it won't let you say anything at all.

The solution is to lower your threshold and say things in a simpler way using smaller words. If you don't know a certain word in particular, use other words to get around it to get your point across.

That way even if you know that you're not going to be perfect at saying the thing you want to say, your brain will at least let you say something. That will help the conversation keep going and after a few seconds more words will come to the front of your mind.

For more help with this, I've made a free email course on 'How to stop freezing up when speaking with natives': conversations.jameshutchinsonlanguages.com/.

Cheers,

James.

1 week ago | [YT] | 0

James Hutchinson

In 2013 I did my Erasmus year in Spain and this is where my language journey started.

Since then over the past 13 years, I've been obsessed with the psychology of how we learn languages.

The biggest struggle that I hear people talk about having access to practise with natives and actually getting good at the speaking and listening that you have to do to keep the conversation going.

Basically you can learn as much grammar and vocabulary as you want to but that doesn't help you in real life when you're face-to-face with a native speaker and your mind goes blank.

It's literally down to practise and exposure but it's hard to get that if you're not living in the country where your target language is spoken.

And even when you are living in the country where it's spoken, you feel nervous when speaking with natives.

If you had one bad experience where you felt like an idiot in front of a native speaker, that's going to put you off from trying again.

More recently I've been building a platform that lets people practise spoken conversations with an AI persona that doesn't judge them and corrects mistakes after the conversation.

It lets people get the spoken practise they need.

I've thought about every feature of this platform leaning into my 13 years of language learning experience and also my background as a product manager, where I decide what features to include and why.

Anyway if you're interested, every new user gets three practise sessions for free, to give it a go and see what it's like. After that it's £20 per month for unlimited conversation practise.

There are no contracts and it's rolling month-to-month so if in one month you don't need it, you can pause it or cancel it.

Here's the link: www.speakwithvoco.com/?ref=yt-community

Cheers,

James.

1 week ago | [YT] | 0

James Hutchinson

Often when we freeze up when trying to reply to natives, it's because we filter ourselves too much.

We don't say anything unless we think its perfect. So nothing comes out.

We don't want to embarrass ourselves in front of a native speaker by saying a weird accent or getting the wrong word to mean something completely different.

To get round this, be ok with saying things in a really basic way. Use simple words.

Eg if I want to say "I want to drive to the park tomorrow in my car", I could literally say "me, drive, tomorrow, park, car" while using hand gestures to help give context.

Also, you'll already be in a conversation so the native speaker knows the subject, which makes it easier to guess what you want to say.

You'd be amazed at how badly you can speak, but still be understood.

The goal here isn't to be perfect at this point, it's to help you overcome the struggle of freezing up when speaking with natives.

It's to keep the conversation flowing, so that you can practice more, get better, repeat etc. You'll get more confident, better at getting your point across which then leads to fluency.

For more tips like this, I made a free email course which goes into far more detail. Condensed into one email per day that takes a minute to read per email: conversations.jameshutchinsonlanguages.com/.

Cheers,
James.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

James Hutchinson

Having conversations with native speakers can be difficult to arrange if you don't live where your target language is spoken.

It can also be nerve-wracking to practice speaking with natives, especially if you're not used to talking in your target language.

I found this problem as a native English speaker, with learning Spanish and Italian.

However, I've built a platform that allows you to get real speaking practice, but you're talking with an AI persona that learns about you over time and helps you feel more relaxed in conversations.

Here's the link to give it a try: www.speakwithvoco.com/?ref=yt-community

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

James Hutchinson

I recently had a chat with Hasan who is a strong believer that you can learn a language entirely from watching TV content that's at a comprehensible input level.

He's the founder of Arabic All The Time, which helps people learn Arabic from videos that he's created using the comprehensible input method.

In this video we talk about the psychology behind language learning, especially when it comes to maintaining motivation and setting up routines for the long term, and how watching TV plays a massive role in language learning for any language (not just Arabic).

Anyway, here's a link to the full video: https://youtu.be/lohvd9xdxSY.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 5

James Hutchinson

If you find yourself freezing up, or your mind goes black when replying to native speakers, this can be very frustrating. You might feel like you know the language, until it's time to speak.

This is super common, so I've made a free, 5 day email course to help you with this exact problem.

Each email is to the point and actionable and explains the psychology behind why it happens, and techniques that you can use to feel confident and actually be able to reply to native speakers in real conversations.

Here's the link: conversations.jameshutchinsonlanguages.com/.

Cheers,

James.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

James Hutchinson

Sometimes you think you have the perfect chance to practise the language you're learning.

Maybe you've gone to a Cafe or restaurant and you're trying to practise with native speakers and you feel really excited.

However you get there, you seem to not understand much of what they're saying to you and then when you talk back it seems like they can't hear you or understand you properly.

This breaks your confidence because you thought that you were okay or you thought you were good enough to have a go at speaking and practising your target language.

But you need to consider the environment or situation that you're in. If you're in a cafe or restaurant or any public place, it might be noisy. It's very busy, with lots of things happening and even if you're talking to someone in your native language, it might be hard to have a conversation.

Bottom line is, if you go to practise your target language with native speakers, make sure that it's quiet and that the environment is a good place.

Otherwise it might do more harm than good. It's something that is often overlooked but it matters more than you think, especially if you're really pushing yourself to practise with natives.

Anyway if you want more practical advice in terms of how to have conversations and not freeze up when speaking with native speakers, I've made a free email course: conversations.jameshutchinsonlanguages.com/.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 0

James Hutchinson

There's something called the Goldilocks rule. It's something that applies to learning anything but in terms of language learning it's extremely useful to know, if you want to get better in another language.

How it works is you should aim for a level that's just above your current level because if it's too easy you'll get bored and if it's too hard you'll give up because you'll lose motivation.

This is easier said than done and the trick is to work out what your current level is and understand how you're feeling when you're practising a language. Think to yourself: Is this too difficult for me, or is this too easy, or am I enjoying it enough but it's pushing me 'slightly'?

It matters because if you're doing activities to practise a target language now, you might be close to giving up.

Or you might be using a method which is too easy for you and you might be getting bored.

This is another way to help your brain stay engaged, which in turn means that your brain is more receptive to new words and phrases.

Anyway I've made a free 5-day email course on how to stop freezing up when speaking with natives. I cover more about this rule within the email course.

Here's the link: conversations.jameshutchinsonlanguages.com/

4 weeks ago | [YT] | 0