I'm not afraid to speak in the languages I learn, it's more that I worry how my ability to speak is affecting the other person. Such as, am I boring them with my 5 seconds between words etc.

Like Miriam, I prefer to talk to people I like and share interests with, otherwise at least for me, I feel like it is pointless. Mainly because I'm interested in getting to know people from different countries, about their culture etc. I'm interested in real conversation and not just pretending we care so we can improve our skills in the language.

Yes, i have a little bit fear but not because of speaking English. It's because i don't know how to cough off my idea.

@Gray People often switch to English/Spanish (very Cali, I know) when I speak in Cantonese or Mandarin so I often have to guess from context to avoid the switch entirely. Should they end up switching then I usually keep speaking in Canto/Mandarin just to get my practice in. As long as you aren't taking up a busy stranger's time its usually not a big deal. Most Cantonese speakers are usually intrigued enough to stick around, at least outside of HK since they're no strangers to foreign learners.

As for restaurants, HK has little patience but your average Fujianese/Guangdong ran American Chinese restaurant operates at a much slower pace. I can usually chat with staff for a few minutes each time I visit. Its a decent supplement to my lessons and it lets me hear a lot of the different accents of Cantonese. Having exposure to Dongguan, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, HK, etc. Cantonese is pretty useful in my opinion.

I lived in Portugal for 10 years and barely spoke a word of Portuguese to anyone. My wife is Portuguese and speaks English like a native and for other reasons, I didn't really 'need' to speak Portuguese.

In my case, it was social anxiety. Being surrounded by people who are fluent in something you are bad at is intimidating and hard to work around. One thing that never helped and even had the opposite effect was people thinking they were helping me by throwing me in the deep end.

The idea of one day being fluent in the language was never frightening to me. It was the associated stress that goes with something as failure based as learning a language. You could say I have a love of travel but a fear of flying.

For me, there can be some anxiety. It’s not because I fear making mistakes; I know I will make a lot of them. French is my learning language and I lived there briefly. From experience, I know the French are generally not that patient so if I ask someone to repeat or slow down, there’s a good chance they will switch to English and I get anxiety knowing that if I didn’t catch everything, the opportunity to have this dialogue in French is lost. If I respond in French, they will continue on in English no matter how many times I respond in French.