10 tips on how to overcome the Infamous Language Barrier

What is a language barrier?

You know the rules, you know a lot of vocabulary. In a lesson with your teacher, your conversation flows: about life, about yourself, where you’ve been, your latest holiday – small talk. But when you meet a native speaker, you just freeze, as if a barrier has come down between you, and you can’t say anything, or do it badly. That’s what it is – a language barrier.

Overcoming a language barrier always means getting out of your comfort zone. I know it’s not easy, and the older you become, the harder it can be – but that shouldn’t stop you. Life does not stand still. You need to push out of the frozen zone and talk!

No one is asking you to make speeches in front of a large audience, or to do live streams to a huge number of people. Start with something small and non scary: A dialogue with a shop assistant, with a neighbour, with a taxi driver. And of course, make English-speaking acquaintances. Not bosom friends (although, of course, it’s good to have friends too!), but just someone to chat about the weather, your hobby, your last vacation and other trivial things.

From my own experience: after graduating from the Philology Faculty, I could read classics in the original, but I couldn’t hold a conversation with a native speaker. Actually, we didn’t have any around at the time. Our friends were Shakespeare and Dickens. Or Agatha Christie, if we wanted something less posh. That’s why when some Americans came to our university once or twice, and arranged a friendly discussion, we the students (almost graduates) got so stressed that we forgot everything. I was hopelessly confusing all the tenses, choosing the wrong words, talking unintelligible rubbish and felt like a complete idiot.

On another occasion, my first experience of interpreting was a complete fiasco – I was so nervous that I made up English words of my own! But the more exposure to native speakers I got, the more I listened, imitated, watched films, sang along to songs, the more this barrier moved, disintegrated, and then completely disappeared.

The more you try overcoming this barrier, the faster it will fall!

So what should one do? Here are my tips:

1. Don’t be scared, it’s really not dangerous. The worst that can happen is that you won’t be understood. So what? Repeat it a couple more times, using other words or phrases. Google will come to your rescue. The main thing is to smile and keep a friendly face. English speakers are used to the fact that a huge number of foreigners speak their language less than perfectly.
2. Don’t be afraid to ask to repeat things. It’s better to ask someone to repeat something three times than to listen to some incomprehensible speech and nod politely. If someone is interested in you or needs you (for example, as a client), they will be happy to repeat or paraphrase their words for you. And if not, then you don’t need them either!
3. Imagine that you are…not you. Pretend to be an actor, playing a role in English. Everything you say doesn’t come from you, it is your role. That way, you won’t feel so embarrassed! Interestingly, some people really enjoy wearing this new mask or even acquiring a new personality. Many polyglots find new aspects of themselves when they speak different languages.
4. Repeat outings into the English-speaking world as often as possible. The law of quantity turning into quality applies to language learning as well!
5. Keep your ears and eyes open: listen, remember, write down, ask. Google. Be curious. Find something in English-speaking culture that you like, that you want to know.
6. Repeat the lines of your favourite characters. Take, for example, Bridget Jones: I myself have adopted a lot of useful phrases from those films and books about her. The great (and funny) response by Mark Darcy: “I am not going to dignify this question with an answer!” no doubt is repeated by thousands and thousands of language learners around the world.
7. Imitate native speakers as much as possible. Be a bit of a parrot. I myself imitate many people. When I stayed with Auntie Doreen, my wonderful landlady in Coventry (a kind of Mrs. Hudson!), we watched TV together, and many snappy and rather unorthodox words entered my vocabulary at that time as a result.
8. Say the necessary phrases for specific situations to yourself, in front of the mirror, on video, on audio. Listen to yourself, look at yourself speaking English. Decide what you like and what you don’t, correct it and record it again.
9. Learn by heart the lyrics of songs you like, poems that sound beautiful (your teacher can help you choose something you like). And if you suddenly burst into a Shakespearean monologue, your English-speaking friends will start looking at you with completely different eyes.
10. And finally, the most important thing: you have to make yourself understood, whichever way you achieve this. All methods are good: preparation in advance, learning certain phrases by heart, using translation apps on your phone, re-phrasing using different words, and even the language of gestures! The main thing is that the act of communication has taken place successfully, and this will be another step towards overcoming the language barrier.

Where there is a will, there is a way. Go for it.