postr/StutterOctober 11, 2020

Stuttering in Different Languages

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Stuttering in Different Languages Hello, I had a really tough time early this year with my stutter. It started around late January or early February. My stutter randomly started getting worse and because of it I became a lot less social. I would always be having internal battles with myself when I had information I was passionate to share but felt I couldn’t because of my stutter. Once the lockdown came, it got a lot worse. I started stuttering a lot even with my parents which was a first for me in my many years of stuttering. Both of my parents are immigrants from Brazil and although I don’t know much Portuguese they have me speak it to the best of my ability when I’m on the phone with family from Brazil. One thing I noticed from these phone calls is that I was stuttering a lot more in Portuguese than in English. In English I would stutter pretty frequently but it would be a lot less common and severe. With Portuguese though, I could barely get any words out. Fast-forward to around June when things were starting to open back up and I started putting myself out there more, I noticed a change. My stutter had basically gone down to pre jan/feb severity which was pretty mild and even semi-fluent. With the new confidence I had gained from this notice, I spoke with my relatives on the phone again but my stutter when speaking to them was pretty much the same as lockdown. Fast-forward again to when school started in early September. I started participating a lot more in classes and hadn’t had much trouble stuttering which is still true now. The one exception to this is French class though. In French class I participated a bit for the first few days but kept stuttering every time at a level much worse than in any other classes. So, my first question is does anyone else have similar experiences with foreign languages? Also, I am really hoping to become fluent in other languages in the future and move to their corresponding countries, but I am not sure how my stutter will affect this. Could anyone here share their story of speaking and learning a foreign language with a stutter? Thanks

Themes

Causes & VariabilityIdentity & Disability

Subthemes

Situational VariabilityPropositionality & WeightAuthenticity vs. Masking

Codes (2)

public_speakingreading_aloud