"Froze" 🍺

Yeah, it's rough for my fellow anxious people who tend to dwell on their mistakes too much, but it's really something you just have to toss yourself into at some point. I'm sure there will be someone who had the absolute opposite experience to me, but there's never really going to be a point where you've studied enough that you can suddenly understand everything people say in your target language, and find you can confidently express yourself as well as you do in your native language. You get to a point where you're good enough to follow along most of the time and it starts to get weird being the only person who still needs to have your responses translated, and you just jump in and go for it. You will make mistakes, probably even some incredibly stupid ones. But the thing is, unless you're making your first attempt at immersion double as your audition for an episode of Locked up Abroad, your mistakes are almost never going to have any real consequences. Like, don't try and make your first foray into immersion buying a property without consulting with a lawyer who can explain what you're agreeing to, but for talking with staff at restaurants and stuff, or shooting the shit with your coworkers, 99% of the time, you will remember your mistakes long after everyone else has totally forgotten them, if they hadn't immediately done so.

Having had to do it a couple times now, I have seen both how low the stakes really are, as well as how much it will hold back your progress if you can't conquer that initial fear of making a fool of yourself.