Text author: Raiani Sibien
In 2006, my family relocated from Brazil to Italy. Back then, I could only speak Brazilian Portuguese but it didn’t take long before I became fluent in Italian. Fluency in the new language didn’t mean speech fluency, on the contrary, for some unexplainable reason, I realised my stuttering often got worse when speaking in Italian. I’m not sure whether it’s the structure of the language or its phonetic sounds that influence the level of fluency in my speech, all I know is that I find it harder to get the words out in Italian.
Some would take advantage of the heavily used hand gestures – common in the Italian culture – to communicate and interact with others, but we can’t escape verbal communication for long. My days living in Italy were full of ups and downs in terms of speech fluency but new challenges were just around the corner.
In 2010, I moved to the United Kingdom to study. I had basic knowledge of English but was far from being fluent. After some months living and studying in London, my language skills confidence increased and I felt comfortable speaking in English. In this case, feeling comfortable included my ability to understand and express myself in the new language and therefore increase fluency patterns in my speech.
It’s interesting that the severity of my stuttering seems to change according to the language I am speaking. For instance, I am less likely to block in English than in Italian, while in Portuguese my fluency varies depending on my emotional state and self-esteem level. For some reason, since the beginning, I always felt at ease speaking in English. In my opinion, speaking Italian required a lot more effort to properly pronounce the open sound vowels and consonants such as ‘R’, which do not come naturally to a Brazilian speaker. The reality is that I have no clue why I am more fluent in one language than another, nevertheless, it fascinates me that fluency changes can occur when speaking a foreign language.
Some people believe that we change personalities when speaking in a foreign language. This could help explain why individuals who stutter tend to be more fluent in a specific language. Perhaps, when speaking another language, we unconsciously impersonate a character that is not completely ourselves, like an actor in a movie pretending to be somebody else. I remember watching an interview with Bruce Willis about his stuttering, he explained how he learnt to better control his speech impediment while playing a character on stage. This stayed in my mind for many years and made me reflect on the relationship between stuttering and self-esteem. I believe that impersonating a character could increase fluency in some cases, but stuttering is handled and felt in different ways, thus it’s hard to predict what impact this would have on speech fluency. Furthermore, I guess most people who stutter don’t want a palliative but a real solution for their speech impediment, where they feel they can truly be themselves.
It’s also interesting to note that depending on the severity of the stuttering, it can go unrecognised due to being misinterpreted as a difficulty in speaking a foreign language. This is something that happens to me all the time and I can’t deny I’ve used it in my favour. Knowing some people might confuse disfluency as a language barrier often helped me shift my focus away from the way I speak, decreased my self-demand for fluency and reduced stuttering altogether.
I’m not sure how foreign languages impact stuttering, but the fact is that I do see a difference in my speech when speaking other languages.
Do you stutter and have similar experiences? Share your story with us :).
Richard Hall
Hi, so I am 45 years old (next week) English and I’ve lived with a stutter for about 35 years now that I picked up on a house move. I only ever went to one speech therapy session as a pre-teen and I thought it was a waste of time and was never encouraged to return so I’ve kind of self taught myself to speak fluently ever since. I work as a desk clerk in a warehouse and communication is important in my role so I’ve learned to work around my stutter, but I do have off days.
Just recently I’ve been learning to speak German with Duolingo and the other day I took on a challenge to strengthen my German speaking on the app. I found that when I read the phrases out loud I didn’t stutter or even “work around” my stutter. It was as if I didn’t have one at all. I wonder if it’s because of the part of the brain I’m using to speak German, and if I’m converting English to German whether the extra “travel time” from my brain to my mouth is helping, but I wonder what your thoughts are on this.
RaianiSibien
Hello Richard,
How are you? Thank you for sharing and nice to meet you! That’s a VERY good question to which I don’t have a clear answer. Nevertheless, I believe when we speak a foreign language, we can unconsciously incorporate a character as if that person speaking is not us entirely. For example, when I am imitating someone else speaking, I normally don’t stutter. Some actors who stutter say that on stage they are completely fluent as they are playing someone else. Thus, I believe that when speaking a foreign language, we can sometimes become more fluent as we detach ourselves from our mother tongue, which is part of our identity.
I hope you are enjoying learning German – I find it a really difficult language to learn :).
Côme J
Hi this article is very cool
i’m a young french man and ive been stutterin since a long long time.
I’ve always stuttered more or less in french. what’s interesting is that i learned english in school since i was like 11 and i can’t recall havin too much problems with stuttering in english. I even spent 2 weeks in england with a host family when I was 16 and I wasn’t stutterin too much in french and in English.
Fast forward to mid 2024 i was 17, my stutterin was almost inexistent, I was real comfortable with it till it came back realllyyy strong when I was speakin with a friend a random spring afternoon.
During summer 2024 , i was boutta go to NY to meet my english speakin side of the family and I was at the time in france dealin with a little annoying stutter but nun too bad cuz i can still say things i wanna say. The fact is that the night before my flight i went out with some of my best friends i aint seen in a month. I love them but they don’t like the fact that i stutter even tho they support me still and they try to be nice bout it. I was stutterin a bit all night long then I took the tube with just my best friend to come back home. I can remember i was stutterin a bit more n i maybe felt ashamed stuttering real bad in a public space and with my friend. The fact is that the next morning i got on a plane to ny and met my aunt i have’nt seen in yearssss. On the way back to the airport, we spoke for like 3 hours and I remember having a bad stutter during the ride and I could sense my aunt really feeling pity for me. I could still use the language barrier excuse to explain my strong stutter and maybe the language barrier caused my stutter but i don’t think it’s just that. I think maybe i had a trauma of the last night tube stutter or maybe i was in a stuttering state of mind. Maybe the stress or excietement also played a role in it. After the ride I got home to the rest of the english family n it was better, I was still stutterin tho n it pissed me off cuz i really spent months learning english, listening to music movies etc. I still think these 2 bad stutters traumas i experienced affect me today in 2025 when i speak english.
The other interesting fact is that as u may also know, i sort of change words when i stutter in french or i use some cover words in my phrases to break the stutter. I dont know if that was clear in english but i could have what we call some comfort words like some words i never stutter on and that helps me get back in my phrase. in french these words are: là ,comme or mais. The fact is that after i stuttered in english with my auntie in ny this summer i started to use these same cover words but in english. I was repeatin: but, so and like at the begginnig and in the middle of phrases even when it didn’t make sense. I don’t know why i did dat but maybe i felt like I was protected by these easy words. Anyway i find it quite weirdly interesting. Also In february 2025 i met up again with one of my cousin from ny that i saw last summer and the first time i saw him, i sort of felt this less strong but same stutter feeling that i had last summer. I also had to kept using cover words sometimes to speak in english. Anyway this was way too long but i find it interesting how 3 years ago i wasn’t stuttering too bad in english and i don’t recall using these cover words that i may use now. I think i was maybe a bit traumatized by these bad stutters i had when speaking english