Hi so I’m socially anxious and I can barely carry a conversation in english so carrying out one in a language I’m learning is impossible right now
I’ve found some speaking practice like on marugoto where you have fake conversations and I was wondering if anyone new anything similar or YouTube channels that do that.
I also use Rosetta stone for that too.
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Try shadowing. You can reflect the sentences of others in the comfort of your own home, record yourself, and listen to it and the original all on your own.
There are shadowing books for beginners and intermediate levels. I recommend them.
If you cannot talk with people you could start chatting with them. There are even chat bots out there (人工無脳), like Airfriend on LINE.
I have a similar issue, but with English. It’s not my native language but I speak it very well, I’d say. On my own, or when I express it in writing. When I have to speak it it’s like I just started taking the English class. What I found helped me a lot in the past was shadowing. It’s something that works for any language so it should help with Japanese as well. I shadow the example phrases in my Anki deck and that helps a lot, and I read articles in NHK News Easy out loud too. Slow and steady, it’s been getting better.
I don’t have any authority on how to learn the language, and am still studying myself so i can only speak from personal experience, but speaking to myself has really helped my familiarity with forming sentences, and the speed at which I can say what I have on my mind. There are obviously clear limitations to this, and I recommend looking into the other suggestions provided by other users, but this has really helped reinforce things as I learn without needing a partner at all times just to speak. Either narrating thoughts if possible, or commenting on things out loud have been two common things I do frequently.
I don’t know how useful it is, but I don’t have a speaking partner either outside class, so I got an Echo Dot and set it to bilingual English/Japanese. I often just ask Alexa different questions
It’s probably not as good as shadowing or a real conversation partner, but it’s practice nonetheless.
Four people in this thread have mentioned “shadowing,” and I’ve never even heard of it before. What exactly is meant by that? Simply speaking the words that are being spoken by someone in a audio or video recording of a dialogue? In other words, when an individual says their line, you simply try to say it at the same time?
Keeping a diary/journal and writing down your thoughts (in romaji if writting is hard for you). Worked for me while I was learning English
Sometimes when I’m bored at work I try and make up sentences describing what I’m doing, my day, my weekend plans etc. Depending on your job you can do this out loud or in your head!
These things helped me:
– commenting out loud on what you are doing and things around you (when you are alone). “I’m washing the dishes” “Later I will go out for dinner”. Even if it sounds simple compared to your recognition level, it’s helpful to practice producing sentences on demand. It will also highlight gaps in your grammar knowledge.
– drilling (out loud) lists of things like days of the week, counting variations, colours, seasons, methods of travel, etc.
Conversation practice is useful for learning a language, but not necessary. Think about how babies spend years listening to their parents before they start saying anything significant.
Suppose you spend 10 years learning on your own and get to the point where you can follow anime and movies without too much trouble. Then you meet some Japanese people and try to communicate. You’ll amaze yourself with how much you can actually say. You get speaking ability almost for free when you’ve consumed enough intelligible input. Our brains are wired that way.