I have been studying japanese for almost two years now and I feel like I have gone through beginner level quite pleasantly. Fast learning and always getting new structures, vocabs and verbs.
However, about a year ago I started feeling stagnated. I’ve read multiple threads about this, but couldn’t find a solution for my case. I’m level 38 on wanikani and I’m taking it slowly now because of two main reasons: (a) my available time to study japanese is really reduced right now and (b) it doesn’t help me enough to develop dialogue skills, since it’s more about kanji recognition.
I am much more interested right now on developing dialogue skills. It’s really frustrating to sometimes understand a lot or all of what is said and not being able to reply, either speaking or writing, because creating my own sentences feels like a huge effort and sometimes comes out unnaturally (cases where it is comprehensible, but nobody talks like that, or there’s another vocab with the same meaning meant to be used in that context).
I’m taking classes but it has not being enough and I think it’s my fault because I should find something outside class too instead of just practicing in class. However, my level is such that native content seems too difficult, beginner content seems too easy / uninteresting, and my time is very limited. I wish there was a systematic method I could go through to get results on dialogues. I am not sure if tools like Satori Reader are appropriate for that. Maybe I should just dive into native content made for learners and, afterwards, migrate to native content made for natives or just go straightly to this last option. Any advices or methods to apply?
3 comments
>It’s really frustrating to sometimes understand a lot or all of what is said and not being able to reply, either speaking or writing, because creating my own sentences feels like a huge effort and sometimes comes out unnaturally (cases where it is comprehensible, but nobody talks like that, or there’s another vocab with the same meaning meant to be used in that context).
With speaking – you kind of have to be willing to speak knowing that you won’t make perfectly natural sentences. You don’t have to make perfectly natural sentences to communicate with the person you’re talking with. If you run into a barrier because what you said isn’t understandable, back up and rephrase. It’s a huge effort because you need more practice, and unfortunately, the only way to get more practice is to make that huge effort.
With writing, you can usually do better if you’re willing to put the time in. I’m kind of a perfectionist, so when I have to write something in Japanese, I Google just about every sentence or part of a sentence that I write to find out “do people actually use this word this way?”, and if they don’t, then I keep going with trial and error and Google until I’m more confident in how I’m using the word.
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>However, my level is such that native content seems too difficult, beginner content seems too easy / uninteresting, and my time is very limited.
I know your time is very limited, but really, the only answer is to keep trying more stuff. If it’s too easy, that’s fine! (Is NHK Easy News too easy? It will still expose you to a lot of grammar and current events vocabulary!) In terms of native content, you can probably find things that are just a *little* bit too difficult for you but interesting enough to push through that difficulty.
Turn it into intermediate heaven by reading books.
With books you get to enjoy how the different characters talk and you get to imagine what the scene looks like. You get to experience grammar on every sentence multiple times. You get exposed to so much vocab.
If your kanji is weak get a book with furigana. Sure it’s just a book for a 5th grader but it’s 10,000x times better than textbook dialogue.
> However, my level is such that native content seems too difficult,
You should have started listening to native content from day one. No combination of classes, courses, or books meant for foreigners learning Japanese is ever going to get you to the level that you can just sit down and understand media in the language.