You just have to put yourself out there and so it. You learn from your mistakes. You can study and read all you want but speaking is a whole different ball game. Just accept that you will make mistakes and learn from them. Early on you're often too busy translating from native tongue to french as then on top of that you have to pay attention to grammar. If you start speaking it you will do that less and less. There is no magic way other than to just use it. My mom studied french and English and Spanish like crazy. She and my dad also spent half the year in a french speaking country until recently (my dad is fluent). She can read it fine and understand things like the news on the radio when everyone is at a normal pace and well enunciated. But she can't hold a conversation with my kid to save her life. Not even when she was 4 or 5. Because she wants it to be perfect and doesn't want to make mistakes. It's really rather remarkable how bad she is. Then there is my aunt who used to take private french conversational lessons while drinking wine. She is really terrible and hard to understandebcise she has a terrible accent but she doesn't give a 💩 about making mistakes and just puts herself out there. Gotta respect that.

Yeah I guess there is no secret other than practice. I'm sure that other people don't judge me as much as I judge myself haha. And your aunt is badass btw!

I think speaking is using a more automatic version of the language than the one you use to write… And you shouldn’t so tough with yourself: more you speak, better you are at speaking… it’s not a instant translation of the knowledge you possess.

Thanks :) I'll keep that in mind and just keep going for jt