I am scared of speaking and I can’t speak well even though I kinda understand 60% of the japanese spoken to me. I wish to be at least able to speak few sentences or have a casual conversation with someone. Please help T-T
For me it was getting used to finding work arounds for things I couldn’t produce verbally right away. For example, humidity=air water when I knew what it was but wasn’t used to saying it at conversational speed. This gave me the courage to speak when my confidence was low.
Also, it’s no joke finding a significant other and speaking Japanese with them is one of the quickest ways to learn.
I got a teacher on Verbling.com and then met a language exchange partner from conversationexchange.com. I got to meetups in my city for English/Japanese exchange as well.
Understanding more of what’s being said is definitely gonna help. That’s why some people think you should get quite a bit of input first before trying to output. In other words, read native works before trying to write yourself, and hear native conversations before you go deep into conversations yourself. I’m not saying it’s an ironclad rule; just that it’s something some people had recommended to me repeatedly and it kinda helped a lot.
The stuff in the previous paragraph was easy for me to follow since I’m too shy and socially awkward to start a conversation most of the time. To get over **that** problem though… There was no helping it unless push came to shove. In other words, just do it. Luckily, I have family members in Japan so my family often encouraged me to speak with them. Barring that, going to Japan with a phone battery that was dead upon landing with nobody picking me up at the airport was a pretty good stress test/way to get over the whole “too scared to speak” thing.
Definitely not economical or even necessarily doable, especially with Japan’s reluctance to let individual tourists back into the country, but what can I say? The experience did help.
one to one with teacher via skype on italki – 2 hours a week
The short and utterly boring, but correct answer, is practice. Output is a skill seperate from understanding input and it has to be practiced or you can’t do it very well. You can practice a bit of output on your own by talking out loud to yourself, but the best practice will be with someone.
That doesn’t help the fear part. So, try and figure out a way you can practice speaking in an environment that gives you minimal fear. For example, do you feel better practicing with people you don’t know (because if they judge you they’re not people you care about)? Or do you feel better practicing with people you’re close to (because you trust them)? Do you prefer groups (because then not all the focus is on you)? Or do you prefer one-on-one (because there’re fewer people)? Have a think about what would make you the most comfortable, and then find an environment similar to that and just practice, practice, practice.
To answer the question in your title, the thing that made me able to speak it was being *forced* to practice it. Because, like you, I was quite afraid of speaking. I felt really awkward doing it, so I avoided it. Then I got a job that required it, and I had to use it, which made me practice until I eventually felt comfortable using it.
You’re thoughts in English are complicated and complex because you’re an adult. You’re first instinct is to try and express those complex thoughts in Japanese, but you can’t because you’re not at that level yet. The first step is simplifying your thoughts. You need go from
I always feel really lethargic in hot weather, so I tend to prefer indoor activities during the summer, but I do enjoy doing outdoor activities as well during the cooler months.
To
When it’s hot, I’m tired. So, I don’t like being outside in the summer. But when the weather’s nice, I like being outside.
Being thrust into a discord channel with a bunch of natives and a friend by a friend and being somewhat surprised at how not entirely awful my first actual conversation in spoken Japanese was.
Actual Japanese people who instinctively slow down and use simpler phrasings are quite easy to understand compared to 漫才 television spoken at a very fast pace, I found.
When I had cute girls trying to talk to me in Japanese.
I very quickly learnt how to ask and confirm what was being said to me.
For me the most important thing is that the other person can’t speak English. If they don’t know English, for some reason my brain stops freaking out over mistakes and I can just relax and do my best to communicate. I also started taking classes at a kimono school where I was basically forced into using it regularly.
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For me it was getting used to finding work arounds for things I couldn’t produce verbally right away. For example, humidity=air water when I knew what it was but wasn’t used to saying it at conversational speed. This gave me the courage to speak when my confidence was low.
Also, it’s no joke finding a significant other and speaking Japanese with them is one of the quickest ways to learn.
I got a teacher on Verbling.com and then met a language exchange partner from conversationexchange.com. I got to meetups in my city for English/Japanese exchange as well.
Understanding more of what’s being said is definitely gonna help. That’s why some people think you should get quite a bit of input first before trying to output. In other words, read native works before trying to write yourself, and hear native conversations before you go deep into conversations yourself. I’m not saying it’s an ironclad rule; just that it’s something some people had recommended to me repeatedly and it kinda helped a lot.
The stuff in the previous paragraph was easy for me to follow since I’m too shy and socially awkward to start a conversation most of the time. To get over **that** problem though… There was no helping it unless push came to shove. In other words, just do it. Luckily, I have family members in Japan so my family often encouraged me to speak with them. Barring that, going to Japan with a phone battery that was dead upon landing with nobody picking me up at the airport was a pretty good stress test/way to get over the whole “too scared to speak” thing.
Definitely not economical or even necessarily doable, especially with Japan’s reluctance to let individual tourists back into the country, but what can I say? The experience did help.
one to one with teacher via skype on italki – 2 hours a week
The short and utterly boring, but correct answer, is practice. Output is a skill seperate from understanding input and it has to be practiced or you can’t do it very well. You can practice a bit of output on your own by talking out loud to yourself, but the best practice will be with someone.
That doesn’t help the fear part. So, try and figure out a way you can practice speaking in an environment that gives you minimal fear. For example, do you feel better practicing with people you don’t know (because if they judge you they’re not people you care about)? Or do you feel better practicing with people you’re close to (because you trust them)? Do you prefer groups (because then not all the focus is on you)? Or do you prefer one-on-one (because there’re fewer people)? Have a think about what would make you the most comfortable, and then find an environment similar to that and just practice, practice, practice.
To answer the question in your title, the thing that made me able to speak it was being *forced* to practice it. Because, like you, I was quite afraid of speaking. I felt really awkward doing it, so I avoided it. Then I got a job that required it, and I had to use it, which made me practice until I eventually felt comfortable using it.
You’re thoughts in English are complicated and complex because you’re an adult. You’re first instinct is to try and express those complex thoughts in Japanese, but you can’t because you’re not at that level yet. The first step is simplifying your thoughts. You need go from
I always feel really lethargic in hot weather, so I tend to prefer indoor activities during the summer, but I do enjoy doing outdoor activities as well during the cooler months.
To
When it’s hot, I’m tired. So, I don’t like being outside in the summer. But when the weather’s nice, I like being outside.
Being thrust into a discord channel with a bunch of natives and a friend by a friend and being somewhat surprised at how not entirely awful my first actual conversation in spoken Japanese was.
Actual Japanese people who instinctively slow down and use simpler phrasings are quite easy to understand compared to 漫才 television spoken at a very fast pace, I found.
When I had cute girls trying to talk to me in Japanese.
I very quickly learnt how to ask and confirm what was being said to me.
For me the most important thing is that the other person can’t speak English. If they don’t know English, for some reason my brain stops freaking out over mistakes and I can just relax and do my best to communicate. I also started taking classes at a kimono school where I was basically forced into using it regularly.