After immersing myself with japanese, I’ve became great at listening but can’t make sentences.

After immersing myself in japanese, I was able to become great at listening. I can understand about 80% of chibi maruko chan. But when I was gonna speak to a japanese person I had a hard time making up sentences.
My study methods are as follows,
– Anki +5 Kanji/Vocab everyday.
– listening to japanese media (game streams, anime, dramas)
– Speaking japanese everyday to myself.

I hardly studies grammar since I was once watched a youtube video about something that grammar can be learned through immersion.

Should I start studying grammar or should I continue what im doing?

10 comments
  1. I have the exact opposite problem. I can use the grammar I learn but can’t hear worth shit

    But yes I think you should study grammar. That’s the fast way to get good at speaking

    Do you have any links to any of the stuff that you listen to? I’m looking to improve my listening

  2. To learn speaking better, it’s probably best to actually speak, as much as you can, to a native speaker who is willing and able to correct you if you err. Talking it to yourself is good. Copy whole sentences to say from media if you can, and try to substitute single other words you know, to change the meaning of the sentence. Play around with combinations. Another way is to just try to narrate your life or try to say things you said in English or another language during the day, in Japanese. Compose some sentences, and then critique and edit them, and play off of those with the word-swaps as well.

  3. When you get to like 98% you’ll be able to. 80% sounds like a big number but if you were to read a paragraph in English with 80% of the words replaced by gibberish you won’t understand anything. It is enough for exponential growth so keep going.

  4. If you want to get good at speaking, you have to practice speaking too.

  5. You need to practice speaking with someone. Either join a class, get a tutor, or find a language exchange.

  6. That’s to be expected. For example, my reading and herding comprehension in English are pretty much on par with my native language, and I can write pretty well too, but I still struggle a bit with speaking. It all comes down to practice. If you want to get better at speaking you need to find a practice partner.

  7. Have you started practicing writing? It’s good to get used to expressing your thoughts in Japanese, look at what you’ve written, and have a chance to immediately correct yourself without having the pressure to “keep the conversation going”.

  8. yes please study some grammar. immersion is great but it can only suggest patterns for what to do, not explain why or demonstrate what *not* to do and why.

    dig up pdfs for genki 1+2, tae kim’s guide, and the kanji learner’s course

  9. I saw a piece of advice somewhere that seems useful. You should write a dialogue or just a text in Japanese, have it corrected by a native speaker and then learn it by heart. Especially try to use grammar, words and phrases that you can use in your daily life before proceeding to some sophisticated, academic-like but cool phrases

  10. The easiest and best and quite selfish way though not always achievable:
    Japanese girlfriend
    bonus: if she has shit English and little desire to learn English

    When you serious about learning Japanese the last thing you want to do is teach English, yawn.

    Some more random but useful tips:
    get your slang and swear word vocab up learn slang sentences, just memorize then, they confuse at first but are practical, useful, entertaining for the locals you talking with and quite quickly you begin to understand the structure of the sentence

    Manko wo namasette. (Lit)Let me lick your manko

    Aisukuriimu wo namasetai. (lit) I want to lick ice cream

    Take advantage of and make the most of practising speaking when ever intoxicated, this is where sentence come together, inhibition is out the door, and somehow gets replaced with bullet proof confidence that enable you to speak not just without fear of fucking up, but with an authority that you act like you are fluent with Only 50 words anda few sentences slapped together using English grammatical rules.
    So this is another reason why you should Patrice learning sentences repetitively, this is a better way of learning grammar, rather than trying to think about it each time..

    Initially self taught in Japan sentences and basic conversing at a navigable level by 6 months and at 1 year was at a level that I could tell people i can speak Japanese

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