Over the weekend, I finally uploaded my Public Language Challenge Pledge to YouTube for all the world to see. That’s it now, the pressure really is on!

Over the weekend, I also had my fifth German lesson via Skype as part of the italki Language Challenge so I’m officially a quarter of the way there, which seemed a good point to post an update blog!

My first lesson was on Wednesday 15th January – the start date for this year’s New Year Language Challenge. Can you tell I was keen?! Now things were not in my favour that day. The phone line, and thus Internet, was down! WHAAT?! This never happens! That meant I was going to have to do my first German lesson in a cafe to borrow their Wi-Fi.

This would by no means have been my first choice. In my 18 months studying German with The Open University, I’d only spoken in a conversational situation with my tutors and fellow students in the comfort of a tutorial. Speaking out loud in real time with a real German person who’d never heard me speak German before was scary enough. Doing that in a public cafe in my hometown with people all around was even scarier. But, do you know what? It was just the pressure I needed for the first lesson. Imagining no one around me spoke German I immediately reverted to this meme mentality:

And away I went. If no one else in the cafe was impressed, I certainly was. I surprised myself with my ability to converse naturally with very few English words I just couldn’t translate. And to top it all, I picked a great tutor! Hooray!

I suppose the pressure of being in a public space works in the same way as putting yourself out there and committing to the Language Challenge in the first place. When you make people aware of something you want to achieve, then you’re going to try even harder to get there. Italki outlined this (and even backed it with scientific research!) in their original blog post that inspired me in the first place. So it must be true!

My other four lessons haven’t been in a cafe, but they have all been equally as beneficial and I’m even finding myself speaking German in my head, which I’m going to take as a sign of madness good sign.

Are you taking the italki Language Challenge? (If so, good luck!) Have you done it before? I’d love to read about your experiences in the comments below!