I have been conversing daily via WhatsApp with a Japanese friend (who is a Japanese language teacher). Since I started from scratch, I’m actually proud of the long messages we have been exchanging.
But when I attempt to say something in Japanese, my mind goes completely blank. It seems I’ve gotten accustomed to having a lot of time to think and structure my sentences when writing. I feel quite disappointed that my speaking seems to have made no progress. I guess I need to have verbal conversations to improve if I want to be conversational? Any tips?
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If you’re already talking to a friend via whatsapp, you could ask to call them instead? Or if that’s not suitable, voice messages? I personally don’t like voice messages, but if it’s the best option then it’s an idea or a start at least.
same. my brain freezes and just blanks out. Commenting for visibility.
To be honest half a year isn’t very long starting from scratch. I would recommend to continue studying, and learning from your friend. Purchasing a textbook like Genki to begin studying grammar conjugation would help if you aren’t doing that already. Edit: Would also recommend you purchase a shadowing book to practice pronunciation.
Do you use inner voice when you think? If yes, then you can start with thinking in Japanese. If full switch isn’t possible, then try to replace as much as you can.
Instead of typing, speak into the keyboard. I do that with Duolingo and I feel like it helps with muscle memory. I also record myself reading regularly to spot mistakes. I strongly recommend doing both — you’d be surprised how crazy bad we sound when we hear ourselves outside of your heads lol
Speaking skills are no joke! I wish I had known a good method in the beginning of my journey.
That can be weird but : speak at yourself. If you’re alone at home, or not in fact, you just have to speak in japanese, describe what you do. Loudly.
Just a « Well, I’m going to work », « I need to write everything I will need to buy », etc etc. If you do that, you will be fluent with basics sentence, and the progression will be faster and smoother
Of course you will be seens as a weirdo but who cares 😉
The brain is weird. Skills and thoughts are usually so well integrated that we lose sight of the fact that individual skills are actually highly partitioned. With language you’d think that reading and writing, and listening and speaking were simply facets of a single competence – but they are not. They are individual skills that need to be practiced separately.
In short – if you want to get better at speaking, speak more.
Practice talking to yourself. Start simple, ridiculously simple, and the work your way up.
Give yourself a simple topic, for example “my favorite food,” or “weekend plans.” And then record yourself speaking about the topic for 1 minute. You’re not allowed to plan out what you’re going to say ahead of time. Pick a topic then immediately hit record. Don’t worry too much about having perfect grammar, etc. Just try and say words for the whole minute. Then play back your recording and count how many words you were able to say. Write this number down. Repeat this exercise a few times a week with different topics and track how many words you’re able to say. I do this activity with my English students and it’s crazy how much their extemporaneous speaking skills have improved
yes you need to speak to practice speaking, no secrets here
I’m a beginner at Japanese but I have experience in other languages and am fluent in Spanish. I think one the the things other than the obvious, “practice speaking to get good at speaking” is to learn set phrases. Not so much as in idiomatic set phrases but just phrases that you would commonly use in a conversation. So since “How is the weather today?” or “What are you going to do this weekend?” make sure you have those ready to go as well as the likely answers. I don’t mean entire sentences, but my answer to the last one is pretty much always going to include, “Well, this weekend I’m going to go..” So I want to be ready with, “この週末．．．に行きます。” If that part is ready then in speaking I only have to figure out the middle part. I didn’t mean to drag this out….you just made me start thinking about why I don’t have to THINK about Spanish, because for me finally those fragments are all sorted in my brain already. I just think what I want to say and the fragments all jump in, just like in English (native speaker). I’m trying to do the silent conversations like someone suggested in Japanese now and it’s helping. I just wish I had more practice speaking other than the one hour a week on Italki with my teacher…. Anyhow, good luck! I’m in the same boat….again!
The four skills in language (reading, writing, listening and speaking) ALL need practice- you can’t just do one and hope that you’ll be good at the others.
So, you have to find a way to practice talking. As other have said, as weird as it is… just try talking to yourself in Japanese first. And yes, at first it will take you time to put words and sentences together. But it; all about practice and repetition- the more you do it, the better you will get at it.
this is probably obvious but make sure to do lots of listening practice (podcasts, tv shows, etc) in your free time between you daily conversations