Anyone else like me and put off actually trying to speak for 2 years? :/

15 comments

1. You’re over thinking.
   Tutors have experience with students of all levels. Their *WHOLE JOB* is to identify your level and work with the knowledge you have.
   The last person to judge your shittiness is a professional teacher/tutor, trust me.

2. A good tutor will be used to students at lots of different levels – they are there to help you, not judge you. It doesn’t matter where your start point is, only that you work to improve from there.

   Just have a conversation with them and they should get an idea of where you are now. You might want to try a couple of people and find someone you feel comfortable with.

3. yep did that too

   don’t worry the tutor doesn’t care if you are good or bad, only if you make effort

4. Do you want to get good at speaking? You will never do it if you don’t practice.

   Other people have already answered your questions about tutors so I’m just giving you some facts.

   You will never, ever be able to speak Japanese in any meaningful way if you don’t take this step. It is obviously something you want to do so go and book a lesson right now.

   Besides, it will be fun once you get over the nerves.

5. Tutor here.

   You’re not the best. You’re not the worst. We’ve seen it all. Any tutor who’s judging you is an asshole.

   Usually when I have a student who’s background might be spotty, I’ll do a mock OPI.

   Tell me about yourself (name, age, nationality…), some basic info (likes and dislikes, hobbies, family…) before trying to see what you can do (You said you like traveling. Where have you been recently. Where is there better food? If I were to go to PLACE, what should I do there?)

   From there, depending on the level, I’ll look at and use textbooks to either fill in holes or bring you to the next level.

   So if you were having difficulty with comparisons, we might do some practice. The next level would be incorporating that into a larger sentence or context (Paris is more expensive and the food as good as Rome, so I think you should go to Italy.)

6. Like other posts said, youre over thinking….

   Getting a tutor is always best..but if you are really not feeling connfident at thistime, there is some self training you could do to get a bit more comfortable at speaking that does not require another person

   If you speak to yourself or think outlout (its k, i do too lol) try saying what you want to say in japanese

   Talk to your smart phone assistant in japanese

   After you finished reading or listening to something, talk to yoursel….trying to summarize in japanese what you just read or listened to in japanese

   I get doing these things will not correct you when you inevitaly make mistakes, but they will get you outputting japanese much faster…and if you haave had enough input the past 2 years….you should be able to at least get your point across…with a lot 9f difficulty and probably basic grammar, but still…then i’d say “get a tutor” 🙂…

7. Look at that , I just completed 2 years of studying too and I’m in the same boat you are lol. I’m super 恥ずかしいto talk Japanese but everybody here is right , we have to just man up ( or women up) , get a tutor and start talking to make quicker progress. がんばって

8. You have to practice to get better.

9. Today I worked up the courage to go up to a food stand (they were all speaking Japanese) and I wussied out.

10. Ehhhh I do the complete opposite, every time I see anything written in Japanese I try to pronounce it until it feels right, apparently I speak better then my mom

11. I am putting off speaking now because it’s not my focus

12. I teach English. I make no judgement about students based on any area of their skills, although obviously part of my job is helping them find areas for improvement and ways to improve.

    It’s just a skill, like anything else.

13. I put off speaking because I don’t have anyone to speak to in Japanese :’)

14. If you’d like an amazing tutor that is extraordinarily supportive and amazingly kind, I can definitely give you the recommendation of my tutor on italki. This woman is absolutely incredible and extraordinarily knowledgeable. She’s a professional Japanese teacher in Japan. I hadn’t been speaking Japanese to anybody and I’m getting ready to go to Japan. I called up the Japanese hotel to confirm my reservation and my mind went blank and I could barely stutter out some basic Japanese enough to tell them that I would call back later.

    It was in that moment that I realized that you can absolutely answer every question in your coursework and be completely unable to function on an even basic level. You really do need to practice speaking the language with someone. Since I started doing this my understanding of Japanese has shot through the roof. Not my book smarts, but that bit of your brain that intuitively learns when and how to use specific aspects of a language. I don’t know the most Japanese in the world but I’m starting to feel like the Japanese I know will actually be useful to me, and that’s so incredibly valuable.

15. Akki on italki is really good, supportive.