hmm, taking a class is a really bad way to learn conversation-centric language skills. for anyone here learning a language, check out: http://www.fluentin3mon

hmm, taking a class is a really bad way to learn conversation-centric language skills. for anyone here learning a language, check out: http://www.fluentin3months.com/ http://www.fluentin3months.com/ The TLDR on that site (and his book) is basically conversational practise (anywhere you can get it) is much much more important than lessons, which are too different from how our brains are designed to learn languages (which is by usage, not grammar rules.) I would say that this is especially true for someone who can already write as the OP can, but just has trouble with confidence in talking to people in person. The key lesson for OP from FI3M, is that people are very infrequently angry with you for speaking their language wrong. English speakers may have more of a sense of entitlement than speakers of other languages (dominant culture, etc) but in general people will do their best to communicate, however slowly (assuming you catch them in a situation where they have time.) A good way to do this is meeting someone for coffee explicitly to practise English. Either they can learn your language in return, or you buy them the coffee, obviously! :) (edit: situations where you can do this! You could always "buy an English lesson" from someone, I suppose. You could also arrange to meet someone you met at an English class on a different evening, in order to practise together, especially if your only common language is English.)