I Used to Hate Speaking Spanish. Here’s What Changed.

Jul 13 / Rachel L.
I didn’t always love speaking Spanish. For a long time, I actively dreaded it.

Not the studying. I could do studying. I could fill in verb conjugation charts, read articles, do flashcards. What I couldn’t do was speak.

The moment someone spoke Spanish to me in real life, something happened in my brain. It wasn’t panic, but it was a kind of freeze. Like all the Spanish I knew left my head at exactly the moment I needed it. And right after the conversation, I would think of all the things I could have said that I didn't. 

I’d moved to Spain. I was supposed to be improving. I was surrounded by native speakers who were patient and encouraging. And still, I would hear a question in Spanish and respond in the most simple way possible. 

I want to tell you about how that changed. Because it didn’t change the way I expected.

What I thought would help

I did what most people in my position do. I doubled down on study. I signed up for a group class. I downloaded apps. I watched Spanish TV with Spanish subtitles.

My comprehension did improve. I could follow conversations. I understood podcasts. I watched shows without needing the subtitles after a while.

But none of it fixed the speaking. If anything, the gap grew more painful because I could understand everything and not say as much, and that contrast was hard in a new way.

What actually changed things

I met Cecilio, co-founder of Cuentacuenta. And one day he said. You can't pick and choose when you want to speak Spanish to me. We either speak English or Spanish but you can't choose when it's convenient. 

From that point my perspective changed, because instead of letting myself speak English because I would get stuck through the hard parts (past tense, subjunctive, story telling, etc.), I had to work my way through the "impossible" grammar in order to get out the other side. 

Cecilio patiently listened to my bad stories and grammar mistakes, but one day (after lots of consistent practice), it didn't feel as hard. Now I still make many mistakes and my Spanish didn't all of a sudden become perfect, but there was a big shift in my thinking, where it didn't feel like such a mental struggle anymore. And I think that was the biggest hurdle for me. 

Why that mattered

What I didn’t understand at the time was that the speaking freeze wasn’t a knowledge problem. I had plenty of knowledge. It was a performance anxiety problem, specifically, the fear of being caught making a mistake in front of someone or just slowing down the conversation.

When the stakes of the individual mistake dropped,  the freeze stopped happening.

Over weeks of working through the what I deemed "impossible" in my head, my speaking became less of a mental struggle and more about communication...and just conversation.

That’s when I started to enjoy it.

The thing nobody tells you about speaking a second language

There’s a version of yourself in Spanish. A version that is funny in Spanish, that has opinions in Spanish, that tells stories and makes people laugh and is interesting.

When you can’t speak freely, that version of you doesn’t exist yet, at least not in Spanish. People are meeting a limited version of you. And that is one of the loneliest feelings in language learning.

When speaking became easier, I stopped being a flat character in my own life in Spain. I became a person. With a personality. And that changed everything about how I felt about Spanish and about being in Spain.

What Cuentacuenta is built on

That experience is exactly what we designed Cuentacuenta around. The Coaching Audios work as a simulation fore conversation when you a) don't have anyone to practice with, b) want a safe place to practice with no judgement or pressure, c) need some guidance.

For each audio, you answer out loud, without live pressure, and you get thoughtful feedback after. Not in real time. Not while you’re still mid-sentence. After. So you can think. So you can actually speak. It’s the thing that finally worked for me. And it’s what we’ve built a whole product around because we’ve seen it work for our students too. If you’ve never felt like yourself in Spanish, that’s not a permanent state. It’s just a stage. And it ends faster than you think when you practice in a way that doesn’t make you freeze.

Our quiz is a good starting point if you’re not sure where you are. It takes a few minutes and tells you specifically what steps to take next! 
About the Author
Rachel is the co-founder of Cuentacuenta. She spent years studying Spanish — the classes, the apps, the grammar books — before moving to Spain and realizing she still couldn't express herself the way she wanted to. Cuentacuenta was built around that frustration.

Frequently asked questions

Why do people freeze when speaking Spanish even if they know the language?

Speaking freeze is almost never a knowledge problem — it’s a performance anxiety problem. When the stakes of making a mistake feel high (like being corrected in front of someone), the brain’s stress response interferes with language retrieval. Practice in lower-pressure conditions is what breaks the freeze.

Is it normal to understand Spanish but not be able to speak it?

Yes, extremely common. Comprehension and production are different skills that develop at different rates. Many learners reach a high level of understanding before their speaking catches up — this is called the comprehension-production gap, and it’s one of the most common experiences at the intermediate level.

How do you overcome the psychological barrier to speaking a foreign language?

Reducing the live performance pressure is the most effective approach. This means practicing speaking in conditions where you’re not being judged in real time — answering prompts alone, recording yourself, or working with a format that gives feedback after rather than during the conversation.

What helped you finally get comfortable speaking Spanish?

For the Cuentacuenta founder, the turning point was practicing speaking — answering questions out loud, finishing sentences without being interrupted, and receiving feedback afterward. Removing the live pressure made the difference.
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