Learn Hardcore Spanish (Latin America): De niño me daba terror hablar en público, pero ahora lo disfruto más. - As a child I was terrified of speaking in public, but now I enjoy it more.

Literally, de can mean “of/from”, but here it’s more like “in the period of being a child.”
De niño and cuando era niño both mean roughly the same thing and are both correct.

Nuance:

De niño sounds a bit more compact and is very common in both Latin America and Spain.
Cuando era niño is slightly more explicit, but stylistically they’re interchangeable in most contexts.

If the speaker is a woman, should it be de niña instead of de niño?

Yes. Niño/niña agrees with the speaker’s gender:

Male speaker: De niño me daba terror…
Female speaker: De niña me daba terror…

Other possibilities:

Talking about yourself and someone else: De niños nos daba terror hablar en público.
More informal/colloquial in many Latin American countries: De chiquito / de chiquita me daba terror…

In me daba terror, who is the subject, and what is me doing there?

The literal structure is like: “Speaking in public gave me terror.”

Underlying order: Hablar en público me daba terror.
- Hablar en público = the thing causing fear (the subject)
- daba = verb (dar)
- terror = what is being “given”
- me = indirect object pronoun (“to me”)

So:

me = “to me” (indirect object)
Overall meaning: “Speaking in public terrified me.”

Spanish often uses dar + miedo/terror/pánico with an indirect object pronoun:

Me da miedo volar. = Flying scares me.
Te daba pánico hablar en público. = Speaking in public used to panic you.

Why is it me daba terror (imperfect) and not me dio terror (preterite)?

Daba (imperfect) describes a habitual or ongoing feeling in the past:

De niño me daba terror hablar en público =
“As a child, speaking in public used to terrify me / generally terrified me.”

Dio (preterite) would refer to one specific moment:

Esa presentación me dio terror. = That one presentation scared me.

So imperfect (daba) is correct because it’s about a general, repeated state during childhood, not a single event.

Could I say me daba miedo or tenía miedo instead of me daba terror? Do they mean the same?

They’re close, but there’s a nuance:

Me daba terror hablar en público
= Speaking in public terrified me (stronger, more intense).
Me daba miedo hablar en público
= Speaking in public made me afraid (more neutral).
Tenía miedo de hablar en público
= I was afraid of speaking in public (focus on your internal state).

All are correct; terror is just a stronger word than miedo.
In Latin America you’ll also hear:

Me daba pánico hablar en público.

Why is hablar in the infinitive? Could it be hablaba en público?

Here hablar is used like English “to speak” (verb as a noun):

me daba terror hablar en público
= “Speaking in public / to speak in public terrified me.”

In Spanish, after expressions like me daba miedo/terror, the action that causes the feeling is usually an infinitive:

Me daba miedo conducir. = I was scared to drive.
Nos daba terror volar. = We were terrified to fly.

If you say hablaba en público, you’re no longer naming the activity; you’re describing an action you did:

De niño hablaba en público. = As a child, I used to speak in public.
De niño me daba terror cuando hablaba en público. = As a child, I was terrified when I spoke in public.

So hablar (infinitive) is the correct form here to express “the act of speaking in public.”

Why is it hablar en público and not hablar al público?

They mean different things:

hablar en público
= to speak in public / to speak in front of other people.
It’s about the situation, not a specific audience.
hablar al público
= to speak to the audience/the public (as a group you’re addressing).
This focuses more on the group of people you’re addressing.

In this sentence, the idea is the act of public speaking in general, so hablar en público is the natural choice.

In pero ahora lo disfruto más, what does lo refer to?

Lo is a direct object pronoun referring back to the entire idea “speaking in public.”

pero ahora lo disfruto más
≈ “but now I enjoy it more,”
where “it” = hablar en público.

So the structure is:

Before: hablar en público (the activity)
Later: lo (that same activity, now as a pronoun)

Can I leave out lo and just say pero ahora disfruto más?

You can say pero ahora disfruto más, but:

On its own, disfruto más sounds incomplete: “now I enjoy more (what?)”
Spanish strongly prefers to include the object, usually as a pronoun, when it’s clear from context.

More natural options:

…pero ahora lo disfruto más. (using lo)
…pero ahora disfruto más hablar en público. (repeat the infinitive instead of a pronoun)

Both are common. The original sentence is the typical, compact way to say it.

Where can I put lo in lo disfruto? Can I say disfruto lo?

With a conjugated verb like disfruto, pronouns go before the verb:

✅ lo disfruto
❌ disfruto lo (incorrect in standard Spanish)

You can attach lo to:

An infinitive: disfrutarlo
A gerund: estoy disfrutándolo
An affirmative command: ¡Disfrútalo!

But with regular present tense (disfruto), it must go before: lo disfruto.

Why is there no yo in me daba terror and lo disfruto? Where would yo go?

Spanish usually drops subject pronouns (yo, tú, etc.) because the verb ending already shows who the subject is.

me daba already tells you “I (yo) used to feel this.”
disfruto already tells you “I enjoy.”

You can add yo for emphasis or contrast:

De niño yo me daba terror hablar en público, pero ahora yo lo disfruto más.

Here yo would emphasize “I, myself”, maybe contrasting with other people.

Is it okay to mix me daba (past) with ahora lo disfruto (present) in one sentence?

Yes, that’s exactly what makes the contrast clear:

me daba (imperfect) = how things used to be in the past (childhood, habit).
ahora lo disfruto (present) = how things are now.

The sentence is structured to highlight the change:

Before (as a child): I was terrified.
Now: I enjoy it more.

Why does público have an accent (pú-bli-co)? What’s the difference between público and publico?

Spanish accent marks show where the stress goes and sometimes distinguish different words.

público (with accent)
- Stress: PÚ-bli-co (third-to-last syllable)
- Meaning: “public” as a noun (the public / audience) or adjective.
publico (no accent)
- Stress: pu-BLI-co (second-to-last syllable, by default)
- Meaning: “I publish” (first-person present of publicar).

In hablar en público, the word is a noun (“in public / in front of the public”), so it must be público with an accent.