I find that many native speakers of German, at least that I see on iTalki, have very good English skills. Most seem to list several languages they are learning, and there don't seem to be too many that list German as a native language that also list English as the only language they are studying; English is often on a list with one or two other languages. This leads me to guess that they are probably more focused on the languages they are less proficient in.
Not that they wouldn't necessarily want to practice English, but it seems like for many of them it might not be a priority. I also worry about the gap in skills being a problem. My German is at a very rudimentary level, and it is downright embarrasing to only be able to stutter out a few halting syllables after someone has chattered on and on in great English.
Is this just my own ego problem, or are their practical difficulties with such differences of skill? Is it harder to find German converstaion partners as a result? Has anyone else had this kind of problem? If so, how did you deal with it? Were you successfull?
I guess you are right. Most Germans learn English in school and even if many of us are probably not very fluent, it is quite enough to be able to talk somehow. Moreover we are just ignorant of our mistakes and our bad accent, and therefore we jump at the next language we would like to learn.
Concerning different skill levels I have made the experience, that usually the person with the higher level will talk more while the other one is feeling embarrased.
Knowing all that you could either try to take conversation lessons with a professional teacher (because in this case, the difference in levels wouldn't matter) or you ignore the problem and try to find someone which you find interesting and you accept the challenge that it will take a while until you will reach his/her level.
Just don't give up learning German because you are disappointed now.
I think the issue is mainly psychological on my part, rather than linguistic. When I was attempting to learn Spanish, I had lengthy conversations with a Spaniard, and it was exactly like this; I was embarrased to stutter out a word, and she chattered on and on in very good English. As a result, I think she got much more out of it than I did. I need to be more willing to embarras myself.
Hasta ese momento, yo no he buscado un partner con un nivel de idioma italiano mejor de mi nivel de lengua espanola, es lo mismo, yo tenìa suerte.
