Hello everyone, I’ve been in Japan for about 8 months now and I’m really struggling to learn Japanese.
I have definitely learned a lot since I got here in terms of listening and reading, but I CAN’T speak.
The pronunciation isn’t the issue, it’s like? being able to produce sentences. I have this issue with writing too.
Most foreigners who learned Japanese in Japan went to a language school, which I would love to do, but can’t really do so while I’m working. Plus they’re so expensive.
I would love any tips that worked for any current or former JETs. Or even anyone who self-studied Japanese. I don’t really know how to study I guess. I go through different grammar points in Genki and another textbook but it is just not sticking.
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“Most foreigners who learned Japanese in Japan went to a language school” What? No. Not at all.
You work at a school – or more – in Japan, yes? Plenty of Japanese speaking practice available with teachers. Read the air and figure out when they’re busy, but there’s practice to be had.
If you find yourself struggling to produce sentences, practice writing! Then as you get better at writing, you will get better at speaking. You can always have your writing checked by a Japanese friend, teacher, or tutor.
You can also see if you can find a tutor in person or online to help you practice your speaking. It is the hardest element to master, so keep at it!
The way I’ve been practicing building sentences is taking whatever particle I’m studying/reviewing/have a hard time with, along with vocabulary ofc, and writing sentences in English, sentences I would use for daily life, and translating those directly. It’s slow but it helps me break everything down.
A couple of weeks ago I started using the Kanji I know as well in those sentences, instead of relying on just hiragana.
As someone who has been in japan for 3 years now, you just need more time. I know it’s frustrating when you wanna get good already, but think of it this way: You’re an 8 month old baby in Japanese. How many 8 month old babies can produce sentences? Not many. It took me about 2 years before sentences could flow naturally out of my brain. Just make sure you’re doing a little bit of everything everyday. A little listening (overhearing conversations, putting the news on while you clean, etc), a little reading (signs, notices, junk mail, etc), writing (copy sentences from your genki book), kanji (highly recommend wanikani if you haven’t started already), and speaking (your coworkers will love it! I also highly recommend Pimsleur audiobooks).
Keep at it little by little. Learning a new language is HARD. There’s lots of ups and downs. Sometimes you’ll suddenly understand a conversation next to you, and sometimes you’ll ask for a bag and not get it (happened to me 2 days ago at 711 👀)
If you can, sign up for the JLPT too. The next one is in December. It’s not great for learning how to speak, but it will give you motivation to study and you’ll have a curriculum to follow which helped me not feel overwhelmed, not knowing where to start.
Hang in there and good luck!
You can fit Kumon around working. You form sentences and have a chance to Skype in the teacher. It means doing a small workbook everyday. I recommend it, and can recommend a particular teacher too.
Do you drink? Because I honestly gained most of my speaking ability as an early-intermediate learner by getting some beers in me and chatting to people at bars. The Dutch courage meant that I could just struggle along without feeling embarrassed, and eventually it becomes less embarrassing and you become more used to speaking.
It’s like learning how to play music. You can become a total expert of music theory, how dissonance and harmony function in music, about acoustics and phenomenology, about the history and development of music through time. But if you want to get good at playing music, the only way to do it is to play music, a lot. There are plenty of music theory experts who aren’t good musicians; but *every* good musician got there by playing music a lot. If you just speak Japanese to people regularly and consistently, you *will* get better at Japanese. And just like with music, eventually you’ll be able to improvise and create your own sentences, make your own jokes, and develop your own style.
Also, if you’re working through Genki, then you’re still fairly low-level in Japanese – be patient with yourself, you won’t be able to speak about anywhere near as many topics and themes as you might want to, which may make you feel like you don’t know anything.
I have an online tutor.
But here’s the thing, you’re probably being a bit too hard on yourself because you’re in Japan. It’s honestly not that useful being here when you still suck.
With that said, it can be done. You can learn Japanese whilst you’re here. So don’t listen to the people telling you it’s a waste of time because you can’t get very far – not sure if these people have came to this thread yet.
Hello! I am not in the JET program but I have been looking into it. Something that I found was that you are able to take 3 language courses with the JET program! They are free and offer beginner level as well. Here is a direct link; [http://jetprogramme.org/en/languagecourses/](http://jetprogramme.org/en/languagecourses/) hope this helps! Sorry if anyone has already mentioned this 🙂
Hi there! Former JET who learned Japanese while in Japan. It took me a long time, but it is entirely possible to learn Japanese while doing Jet. Here’s what worked for me:
– start with Genki textbooks: of all the textbooks I read and used, they really were the best for foundational Japanese. It’s bread and butter stuff.
– spaced repetition/flash cards work best for vocabulary, but aren’t great for grammar. I loved WaniKani, but I needed to look elsewhere for how to actually put the words I was using to good use.
– make friends with Japanese people and put yourself into non-English situations. It’s great to practice with friends or other English teachers, but the crutch of knowing you can switch to English at any time will prevent you from really learning. I know it’s uncomfortable, but if you want to learn, you have to submerge yourself.
– go drinking. Alcohol takes away your embarrassment and inhibitions. Honestly, talking to random people in bars or with other teachers at nomikais was the best way to practice.
Besides that, just be responsible and stick to studying. You need to practice every day. No excuses.
Did you have any prior Japanese language experience?
Anyways, find a tutor or visit bars. The best way to learn to speak is going to be practice. I also struggle to produce reasonable sentences but I got a tutor now who I have regular conversations with. This helps me gain confidence in creating sentences and overall just learning more about the language.
Going to a bar can also help depending on where you are since locals may just slam ya with japanese and you’ll be forced to use the language. I’m not a big socialite so the tutor was my go to.
Like learning any language, if you don’t use the grammar and vocab you’re learning in the books, you’ll probably end up forgetting it.
TLDR: Practice Practice Practice.
I speak fluent japanese and i have nevver been in a school. I studied on my own and reached N4. I just basically talked to all the kids all the time in japanese. It took me 1 year to be a beginner and 2-3 to reach my current level. I sometimes talk to teachers and people out of school, but a good 75% was thanks to the kids.
I had that same problem; I can listen to Japanese quite well, but stringing together a complex sentence gives me trouble.
One sort of stop-gap option is to learn a new grammar point, and then try to use it as much as possible with coworkers/students/etc… over the next few days. Rinse and repeat with a new grammar point
Being able to only understand is a part of the learning process. Think of it like this how did you learn your mother tongue. You listened to others talk and emulated them(or at least tried to) Try speaking to yourself while you’re doing things, have a simulated conversation with yourself. After that move on trying to speak to others. Make mistakes! You’ll learn faster.
Are you sure it isn’t nerves? I had a lot of social anxiety as a kid and I’ve noticed that for whatever reason it comes out more when I speak Japanese. I’ll know what to say but I get so nervous sometimes that it comes out a jumbled mess (which is really hard to do considering how flexible Japanese sentence structure is compared to English ðŸ˜).
You have to actually have conversations. Making mistakes and having them corrected is the fastest way to learn.
As someone who can’t self-study anymore, I signed up for the Kumon Correspondence Course. If you’ve never done Kumon before it’s essentially tutoring with worksheets. If you add the oral course option, then you’ll be assigned a tutor and meet with them twice a month to practice reading and conversation. I decided to do it because my Japanese was really rusty and wanted to practice conversation. When I compared prices for a language school that meets in person, it was a bit cheaper and probably for the best because of Covid.
I never went to Japanese language school (although I did study it for a while before arriving) and I gained fluency fluent during my term as a JET.
The biggest advice I can give you is to do comprehensive learning. This basically means going out and challenging yourself to do things. Your speaking sucks? Go out and speak. Make a ton of mistakes. Slowly you’ll notice the difference between how you say things and how natives say things and it will naturally correct itself. Also, minimize your time speaking English or interacting with other English speakers. I know that’s a bit controversial but the best way to learn quickly is to fully immerse and have no choice but to use the target language as much as possible.
Personally, I would just leave the tv on in the background while I did errands, participated in as much community events as possible, and pushed myself to learn how to communicate myself effectively in a variety of situations like at the hospital, car stuff, bank stuff, etc. I did study Japanese for 3 years before coming to Japan, but I quickly realized it was useless. It didn’t help me at all. I was shocked. While in JET, I never once picked up a text book. I just went out and experienced it through immersion. Not saying it’s easy. I struggled a lot and have frustrating moments. But once I learned something, it stuck!
I don’t know what your plans are, but I thought I’d share my personal experience with you. I wish you luck no matter how you go about learning Japanese.
Honestly, you live in one of the best countries to be able to not speak its language. Most if not all locals will always make you feel like your Japanese is better than it really is, its just part of their culture to do so. So just use what little skill you have to try and express what little emotion/information you can and most people will figure out what you’re trying to say and work around it.
If you want to actually be fluent, unfortunately you’re going to need, minimum, 5-10 years depending on how many hours of study you put in everyday. If you’re only method of study is talking to locals and occassionaly studying a few kanji a week then you’re looking at around 10+ years to reach some level of fluency where locals don’t need to change the way they speak to match you.
You get good at what you practice. So if you spend your time in a quiet room with a textbook, you get good at studing textbooks in quiet rooms. That’s probably not what you want to accomplish, so you have to actually go out and do the things you want to be able to do. There’s no substitute. Your brain isn’t going to want to rewire itself, because that takes a lot of energy and the brain doesn’t like to use energy it doesn’t have to. So you have to make it necessary for the brain to adapt to a new situation and get stronger in the process, and the only way to do that is to put yourself in uncomfortable situations. Textbooks are good for vocab and reading practice, but there’s no substitute for getting out and actually doing it. This is largely biological. The human brain has adapted to not spend energy on pointless tasks, so unless you really give it no other option, it won’t want to rewire itself with a new language.
Trying to speak Japanese is too fast. Have you tried writing in Japanese first? Enter discord groups/group chats/message people in Japanese all the time. It takes time to produce sentences at a fast rate with your brain and fingers but once you’re at a good speed and you can come up with understandable sentences with text, you can start trying to speak in person because your brain is able to construct sentences in text form fast already. This is how i transitioned to being able to speak Japanese.
Good Japanese study goes from:
Step 1: Reading
Step 2: Listening and Writing
Step 3: Speaking
Work on writing before jumping into speaking.