I know this is a very general question but most of my conversations with people in Japanese don’t get past introducing ourselves. after the introduction, I just blank and don’t really know what to say next. I have been studying for a while but never really had any chances to use the language and don’t know what topics to bring up or even topics I should learn about to bring up when in actual conversation.
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Think about what you would talk about with other people.
I have this problem too. So, I try to keep in mind conversations or posts I’ve made during the day, and try to convert those to Japanese.
What do you talk about in your native language? Ideally you would talk about that.
Realistically that might be hard, so you might try to come up with topics within the space of the vocabulary you know. But in the end the goal is to talk about basically the same things as in your native language, albeit perhaps with more chatter about foreign language learning experience and culture differences than usual.
暑いですね？
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When conversing, ask questions, especially about things you might want to talk about (depending on the context).
Food is usually very save.
you can read the book “how to make friends and influence people” and it tells you some stuff to talk about
but basically look at the situation you guys are in and try to talk about that. Avoid topics like work (probably no one wants to hear about your job), religion, politics. Don’t talk about yourself, no one basically wants to hear that. Keep conversation about something you guys are both into or about the setting you are in or current event or some common interest.
Does this happen to you in your native language as well?
Because if you have learnt at least N2 this wouldn’t be a problem. I think that this comes from the personality of each person. Or you just need to use what you’ve studied and get used to the rythm of japanese, and of course, think in japanese. (Stop translating in your head to make up what you want to say)
I personally don’t have this problem, once you start thinking in japanese everything come naturally. I would suggest you to write in japanese by only thinking in japanese
Forced conversation is never comfortable.
It helps if you have some common point as your reason for being together in the same place to begin with. It’s easier to find things to talk about when you’re engaged in the same activity, be that work, a volunteer activity, a hobby, a sport, etc.
idk if we have the same problem but i struggle to have conversations with absolutely nothing to go off of in english as well. like if you put me in a room with a random person and just told me to talk we probably wouldnt get past “nice weather lately, huh.” so maybe if you’re trying to talk to somebody just to talk, you should instead look for someone with common interests with you and then meet them and talk about that