Everyone in the Room Thinks They're the Worst
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Why does Benny start the episode talking about a language‑exchange event in Guadalajara?
Welcome to the Language and Travel Hacking Podcast from Fluent in Three Months.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Language and Travel Hacking Podcast. I'm your host, Benny Lewis, and today I am talking to you from my 19th Mexican state of Jalisco, specifically from the city of Guadalajara, which is hosting the World Cup starting this week. But another advantage of being in such a major city after being off the beaten track for several weeks is that there are Loads of meetups here, including my favorite kind, language exchange events. So a few nights ago, I was sitting at the German table of a language exchange, and there were several tables for other languages too. You just put up a chair wherever you see the flag of whatever you want to practice. And across me was a Mexican lady talking about her plans to visit Germany one day.
What made the German learner apologize and how did that reveal a common mindset?
And she was holding her own for a good several minutes in German, telling me all about it, until she hit one word that she just simply couldn't figure out, and that glitched threw her completely off her game. She stopped and apologized for her level and she switched to Spanish to do so. But the thing is that up until that moment I had her filed in my head as a confident, capable German speaker. The apology genuinely surprised me. It took me out of the conversation and it made me realize, oh, she thinks she's struggling. And this is someone who's never been to Germany. She's never even left Mexico in her life. She built her level through studying and by going to German practice opportunities like that one.
And she was using it to have a real conversation with me. So the only other person in the whole room who thought it wasn't good enough was her. She wasn't a unique case either. Over at the Italian table, there was a guy who apologized for nearly every mistake he made.
How does Benny explain that self‑judgment, not mistakes, shuts down conversations?
And in the shorter chats that night that I had in French and Portuguese, uh with other people whose only language growing up was Spanish, I found similar mentality Yeah. Person after person quietly convinced that maybe they shouldn't even be there since they aren't ready yet. A lot of them maybe comparing themselves to me and coming up short in their own heads. But here's what I think none of them could actually see while they were apologizing to me is I was fishing around for my own words. I was in my own head. You see, German and Italian are my rustiest good languages, so I still speak them well, but I struggle because it's been years since I've used them very consistently. My French and Portuguese are better, but right now my head is so stuffed full of Spanish, since that's what I'm speaking all day, every day, that everything else kind of has to elbow its way out.
So rather than me sitting there grating everyone else, I was busy overthinking my own language problems. And at events like this, it's almost funny that everyone at the table thinks they aren't good enough.
What strategies does Benny share for letting go of self‑doubt while speaking?
So when I told the German learner that she should be proud of herself, she shook that off and instantly compared herself to me and said how much worse she was. But I've had months or sometimes years of living in some of these countries. The comparison simply doesn't work for someone who's never even been abroad and especially is only at the beginning stages of the language. And the mistakes themselves were never actually the problem. If you Look back on any of these conversations, they kept pushing through the simple mistakes for the most part, and what actually stops the conversation isn't a wrong word ending or a missing word. It's the moment you decide you're not good enough and you go quiet. The self-judgment is the only thing in the whole room with the power to actually shut you down.
I'm lucky that I've been doing this such a long time that I let go of most, if not all, of my own self-doubt when it comes to language learning quite some time ago. I still noticed my mistakes.
Why does Benny say the conversation itself proves your language level is good enough?
I'm just not afraid of them anymore. And the proof I lean on is dead simple. The conversation is still happening. If your level were really worthless, the other person wouldn't be engaging with you.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
Why does Benny start the episode talking about a language‑exchange event in Guadalajara?
0:11–1:09
2
What made the German learner apologize and how did that reveal a common mindset?
1:09–2:09
3
How does Benny explain that self‑judgment, not mistakes, shuts down conversations?
2:09–3:21
4
What strategies does Benny share for letting go of self‑doubt while speaking?
3:21–4:22
5
Why does Benny say the conversation itself proves your language level is good enough?
4:22–5:28
6
How can listeners join the Fluent in 3 Months Bootcamp to practice speaking without fear?
5:28–6:34