Hi all! I have been studying for quite a while now and I’ve had a Japanese tutor for about a year through italki. For the most part, things have been fun. The thing is, I keep getting super frustrated with myself because I can’t seem to conjugate verbs and adjectives right. I know the conjugation rules, and they make total sense! It seems like it should be easy. But when it comes to me actually using my brain to conjugate, I always screw up. It’s making me feel so discouraged. My tutor is wonderful and has been doing her best to help but I’m still struggling when I speak. I feel like there’s something wrong with me.
Does anyone have any advice for me?Are there any good apps or websites or *anything* that just does conjugation practice? Just reading things like Genki doesn’t seem to help me at all (ADHD is my #1 nemesis). I’ve tried writing down words and their conjugations, and I’ve tried repeating them over and over but it doesn’t stick.
I don’t really need vocabulary help, and my kanji studies are okay. Listening practice is going well. It’s just those darn conjugations. I get to do speaking practice with my tutor but I still have a lot of trouble.
I used Bunpro for a bit and it sort of helped. I have a whole bunch of other apps too, but some of them require subscriptions and I’m afraid to spend money if I don’t know if they will actually help.
Has anyone else been through this? Sometimes it feels like an insurmountable wall.
4 comments
The goal is to make it something you dont have to think about at all, it just falls out naturally. Language is a continuous flow of ideas and thoughts, not something you build piece by piece. Reading and listening a lot should help you get used to grammar, then conjugations and grammar feel more like their own words than something you have to construct from other words
It’s frustrating, but if you find a good speaking partner or tutor, and speak slowly without thinking, eventually you’ll be able to correct yourself and get faster. It’s not a fast process, it is slow and frustrating but you can do it.
Maybe practice picking a random adjective and saying 〜くないんですか 〜かったね もっと〜かったらいいのに and other things 10 times to yourself. Like try to talk to yourself in Japanese and check that you’re using the right conjugations.
[https://baileysnyder.com/jconj/](https://baileysnyder.com/jconj/) <- Japanese Conjugation Practice