I am always telling my accent reduction clients to just throw themselves into speaking the language, no matter what their level of fluency is. It’s hard! I know. I’ve decided to take up Russian, and after listening to some cd’s, and practicing with some Russian friends of mine, I went to a Russian language meetup. But man was I shy! It’s not so easy to allow yourself to be an imperfect speaker when you are learning. Once I got over my hesitation, I learned more in one night than I did in five months of training merely by pretending, that’s right, playing the part of a Russian speaker. Sometimes you find more of your speaking potential by just pretending for a bit, imagining that you know more than you actually do. It gave me a little more confidence, and I was able to pick up more words as a result. So just throw yourself into the mix! I found that my Russian counterparts were more than willing to help once they saw I was trying. The readiness is all.
Jeffrey Davis is the owner of Speak Clear Communications. He is an executive public speaking coach and accent reduction coach in New York City.