Language barrier problem...

Hi Everyone, not sure if any of you have been through this but here goes anyway,

I'm from Jordan, now since Arabic is supposed to be my first language, everything should be fine, except my arabic sucks big time.

Naturally I feel more comfortable around English speakers, the problem is, I went through a phase where depression made me isolated. The whole episode left me pretty much without friends, not that I really care, because if they were good friends they would have stuck around but they didn't so I'm better off without them. I started hanging out with my cousin, except the only problem is, all her friends pretty much communicate in Arabic. I have tried and tried to build rapport but it just seems impossible, it's like some of them will not even listen to me if I spoke to them in English.

What would you guys do if you were in my place?

well try to speak arab then? it won't hurt to try will it?

JonnyD said:

well try to speak arab then? it won't hurt to try will it?

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Seconded, if they know you haven't been speaking the language a lot for a while they won't mind if your arabic sucks, and they might help you to improve. And maybe it doesn't even suck that much. Once you speak it a lot more often, maybe you'll notice you haven't forgotten that much. (Happened to me with French. I thought I had forgotten a lot, but when we were stranded in the middle of France, you should've seen how quickly my French-fu came back to me)

tuxtux said:

JonnyD said:

well try to speak arab then? it won't hurt to try will it?

Click to expand...

Seconded, if they know you haven't been speaking the language a lot for a while they won't mind if your arabic sucks, and they might help you to improve. And maybe it doesn't even suck that much. Once you speak it a lot more often, maybe you'll notice you haven't forgotten that much. (Happened to me with French. I thought I had forgotten a lot, but when we were stranded in the middle of France, you should've seen how quickly my French-fu came back to me)

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Thanks Tuxtux, the problem with that is you keep getting scared you'll screw up and people will start cracking up, but you are right, that is probably the best way, I need to get past the fear.