The greatest stumbling block to achieving fluency in English is the fear of failure. Many language learners suffer from anxiety and nervousness about their learning. Learning languages is different than learning other subjects. There is no formula and no cheat sheet. It will take time until you see that you are making progress and for a while, you probably will be embarrassed of your inadequate language skills. The only way to master any skill is by practicing them regularly. The more often you speak English and get used to speaking English, the easier and more natural it will become. Undoubtedly, it can be incredibly intimidating to speak a language you just began to learn with someone who has been using it since they were a child.

It is more respectful and kind to approach them in their own language rather than assuming they will speak yours. It is only once we develop our ego do problems start to appear. There are only a few ways to respond to fear. We can avoid our fears. We can do this in any number of ways including by stopping what initiates fear, justifying this with any number of plausible reasons. As it is said that if you say something often enough, you end up believing it. We can also defer facing fears by mistakenly believing that somehow they will just disappear. In other words we persist learning the language with the belief that somehow the fears will just melt away. The only really effective way to deal with fears so that we overcome them is to face them one by one with whatever courage we can master to keep moving forward.