>>>>I suspect in my case, it's more my timidity in using the language (Really, you can all stop laughing now. <s>), and perhaps a lack of fluidity.
>>>>
>>>
>>>I hear you. We all have our comfort zones. But I think Charles is right, alcohol helps <g>
>>
>>It does... once we got drunk with a bunch of Germans; somewhere around the 4th beer (or 6th, recalculated into these small beers), I became fluent in German and others in English. Later, we were just fluent.
>
>Maybe these foreign language tape courses should be accompanied by a six pack :)

I see ads in The New Yorker regularly for a series of language learning tapes, featuring a nubile young blonde Swedish woman. As in, if you buy our tapes she'll give you the time of day. Pretty funny.