I’ve made a routine that I’m comfortable with. I do a few lessons a week going through genki with my professional sensei. I also learn kanji and words on a website called kanshudo.
I’m wondering if I should take conversation lessons too. I’ll be finishing Genki 1 soon but I do know some extra things. I’m at around 240kanji, 1000 words, N5 grammar + several N4 ones at the moment.
I would feel more confident if I knew how to handle some scenarios like ordering food, shopping, asking for directions etc. I would feel even better if I could make small talk or basic conversation. I also think it would be fun to learn grammar and words for thoughts I want to communicate during conversation. It seems like I would learn the most useful things that way but it would probably be a lot more difficult.
I’ve seen some italki teachers require you to be intermediate level before you take conversation classes. So I’m thinking they might not benefit me much at my current level. What do you guys think?
2 comments
Now I would have thought that going through Genki includes doing the dialogue exercises, which themselves include those basic conversations you speak about.
Benefits of conversation exercises are:
Call and response
Active listening and ear training, not just for words but spoken nuance
Practicing pacing and pronunciation
Getting used to the idea of “thinking” in Japanese, meaning you’re preparing a response in Japanese instead of receiving Japanese input, formulating the thought in English, and trying to “translate” that thought back into Japanese output.
Getting comfortable speaking the language all around to another human being.
Building better vocabulary and grammar points and actually utilizing keigo
There are a TON of tutors on iTalki alone who have beginner conversation courses. Keep in mind that they’re all individual people as well and are willing to work with you. Your best bet is to find one that seems amiable, and just send them a message detailing what point you’re at in your studies, the material you’ve worked with and covered and what your goals are. Send that message to multiple people if you want to find someone who lines up with what you’re wanting to learn.
EDIT: When looking on italki for tutors, you can filter by them knowing both English and Japanese. This is super helpful in that if you have questions about things or don’t know how to say it in Japanese, you can always ask in English.