Why you forget the most basic words when speaking with natives

When you're relaxed and on your own, you can say different words. You can say sentences and things flow when you're not under pressure. But as soon as you try to speak with a native speaker, your mind goes blank and you freeze. That's a retrieval gap. It's the difference between what you want to say and what actually comes out.

I'm native in English, I can speak Spanish and Italian, and I've got 13 years of language learning experience. For most people, especially if you're intermediate and can have a basic conversation normally, the problem starts when you try to speak with native speakers in a certain situation, maybe a social event, and you can't remember basic words you feel you should know. Here's why I think that happens.

1. How you train your brain to use the language

Many people use pen and paper or listen to content, which is good, but you need practice speaking too, and that can be the most difficult thing. Maybe you'd like to move abroad at some point but you're not there yet, so it's hard to get the practice in. These principles apply to any language.

Your brain needs to get used to retrieving words under pressure. Many people use language apps to keep a daily streak, which is great for motivation. But that doesn't help when you've got your phone in front of you with suggestions to fill in the blanks. It doesn't help when someone asks you a question and you have to think "what does that mean?" and then what to say back.

A lot of people wait until they've got the perfect sentence, with all the words lined up, before they say a thing. What you should do is start talking. Even with two or three words ready, you're letting the other person know roughly what you're talking about, and they can guess from the context. And as you say more words, more words will load, because your brain feels more relaxed. It's like being in a traffic jam with a load of traffic lights. If you wait for every light to be green you'll never go. It's a weird analogy, but you've got to start before your brain has a chance to load the rest.

2. Your filter is too strong

You might relate if you've done a presentation or spoken with a manager. You've rehearsed it loads, but when you come to say the first thing you think, "What am I going to say?" and you freeze, and you can see everyone staring at you.

That's because your filter for perfection is too high. You're telling your brain, "Don't say anything unless it's perfect. Perfect grammar, perfect pronunciation, exactly the correct words in the correct order." Realistically no one is perfect at speaking their native language, never mind their target language. If you set your brain to a really high filter, imagine how many times it won't say anything. Your filter is stopping you because it doesn't think what you're going to say is correct enough to be said.

The solution is to lower your filter. Tell yourself, "I might not be perfect at saying this." If you're in Spain, it's really hot and you want a glass of water, you might at the most basic level go "water" or pretend you're drinking something. You might look a bit like an idiot, but that's fine, you get your point across. They'll laugh with you. They know you're trying to speak their language and they'll appreciate it. It doesn't matter what level you're at, every level gets this.

3. The environment

Many people don't consider their environment when trying to speak a different language. If you're living in another country, or meeting a group of natives sat around a table, and they ask how you are and you're under pressure, that's the same as being in England speaking with friends in your native language. With lots of people around you, you might be nervous, anxious, not sure what to say.

So take into account the environment. Am I stressed? Am I anxious? When you're relaxed and calm your brain can focus. If you've got a lot of pressure on yourself to say everything grammatically correct and be really good, that's when your brain freezes.

Say you're in a noisy bar or restaurant. You can't understand what the other person is saying and they can't hear you. That makes you anxious, you feel tense and think, "Am I awkward? Am I embarrassing myself?" That's not your level in the language. If you were sat in a quiet area with a native speaker you could probably have a normal conversation, not perfect, but better than now. So blame the situation, not your language level.

4. Finding people to practise with

It can be nerve-wracking to have conversations with native speakers, and hard to find them to meet up with if you're not living in the country where it's spoken. That's why I built Voco, a conversation practice platform where you have real spoken conversations with AI personas in your target language, with suggestions on screen when you get stuck. If your mind goes blank, it predicts what you're likely to say next. I built it from my 13 years of experience, and a lot of psychology has gone into it. You listen to an AI voice that feels like a human, it gets to know your level and interests over time, and you speak back and see your transcript load as you say each word.