I'm learning a language and it's changing my view of native speakers.

Okay, I'm a white English speaker, and I recently started learning Japanese. A few weeks ago, I was thinking about how native English speakers don't know any other languages and how messed up that was. We live in an increasingly globalized world and our native language is on everything. Meanwhile, a lot of other countries require their kids to learn English along with their native language.<br><br>But the more I learn Japanese, the more I realize that I don't want to talk to native speakers in Japanese. I'm just not confident enough. It's embarrassing, and I don't want to talk to someone in the language we're both fluent in if I'm not fluent myself. <br><br>If I were to be living in Japan right now, I don't think I would go out of my way to talk to native speakers in Japanese. I'd probably just speak English to other English speakers and Japanese when I had to.<br><br>I think that's the case for a lot of native English speakers traveling in other countries. There's no shame in learning a new language, but it can be embarrassing to speak one poorly when you know your mistakes will be more obvious to native speakers.