Since the start of 2023, I first decided to join meetups and use apps like HelloTalk to find Japanese people in my city to meet with weekly.
Fortunately and quite luckily I got randomly invited to this huge group that meets up weekly and always invites new Japanese people who arrived in our city on work visas. So they stay here for a year (sometimes permanently) and then returns to Japan.
Through the past almost 2 years (as soon as January arrives), I’ve meet hundreds of Japanese people and make a load of friends.
Now that you understand how I find people, what I want to speak about is the benefits.
I’ve witnessed Japanese natives come to my city with almost no English to speaking fluently in just a year.
I speak with them and ask them how they did it. They simply force themselves to make friends with locals and they speak English everyday. If they don’t understand something, they ask what it means and carry on. It’s really simple.
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Now I’ll speak for myself. It’s been a crazy 2 years to be honest. I haven’t posted here in 3 months but the past 2 years have been a mix of socializing, events, etc.
My conversational Japanese skills such as speaking and listening went from very basic and lacklustre to confident and will eventually feel fluent.
I contribute it to forcing myself to speak in Japanese with my friends 1 on 1 and letting them correct me if I say something wrong. I learn and then carry on. New words, grammar, etc sticks so much more when you actually put them to use rather than only reading books and reviewing flip cards.
I was living with my girlfriend who is Japanese for 1 month. Her English is pretty good but still she only wants to speak in Japanese majority of the time. In that month alone, she helped my conversation level greatly. Just doing everyday things like cooking, cleaning, talking about ourselves, when we go shopping, dates, arguments, etc. can’t put a price on that. She speaks her normal native speed and doesn’t dumb anything down which was great since I can catch it.
So my advice to those who want to actually speak Japanese and also improve their listening skill. Look for meetups apps in your city and join Japanese language groups. Use any opportunity to meet and practice your speaking skills.
If you don’t care about speaking and listening then you can disregard what I’m saying but if you’re looking to improve quickly; it’s the best way.
by japan_noob