To reach an advanced level of speaking from an intermediate level is dedicated speaking practice or general knowledge more important?

Hi all,

Looking to get some thoughts from people that have achieved relatively fluent speech. I'm studying for N1 and feel somewhat comfortable with my level of understanding of Japanese, but I am a bit unhappy with my level of spoken Japanese. I'm conversational and get the typical ”日本語上手い” ”どのくらい日本” etc, but frequently find myself making stupid mistakes still like forgetting a word, messing up/using the incorrect conjugation, and often have a difficult time phrasing my thoughts naturally or want to discuss a topic more deeply but find myself unable to. To clarify, not talking about pitch accent.

What I am wondering is if this will improve if I just continue to overall improve my Japanese and focus on improving my vocabulary (rn about 11k-12k words if I had to guess) and general level of understanding and comfort with thinking in the language. Or rather, should I shift to more of a focus on dedicated speaking studying/shadowing/lessons. This may seem like a silly question but if I can't think fluently in Japanese it seems as if I may be putting the cart before the horse in trying to speak fluently.

Thanks for any ideas or personal experiences!

by dz0id

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