I did awful 😭
When I tell you I forgot every word I knew, I mean EVERY word. It’s like she was speaking a foreign language that I never even knew existed. And the only thing I could muster up was muzukashi and hai.
My teacher was extremely encouraging and patient thankfully, but man was it a big reality check that I need to improve a lot. I sometimes couldn’t even tell if she was asking me a question or a just making a statement and so I would just sit there in silence like a lost kid 💀
I’m excited to improve though, I know it only gets easier from here. Feel free to share any tips if you’ve had a similar experience 😂
15 comments
Oh, man. I’ve been thinking about getting lessons like this but this is my biggest fear. Idk if I’m ready. How long have you been learning Japanese?
Congrats for taking the first step! Keep on keeping on.
Hey, congrats on starting the journey! I started in the same place almost three years ago, all I remembered was hai! Now I’m much more confident about my abilities. We all start somewhere!
That is a good first step. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I know how it feels. It was same for me a year ago. Keep study and practice and you will get better.
Well, language ability is related to topics and situations. Obviously, this is a sign that you need to improve, but not a sign that you cannot speak at all.
At language exchange I’ve found that some people talk quickly using words I don’t know at all, but are still much easier to talk to. Some people also talk *quietly*. Also, as a teacher, I’ve noticed myself sometimes asking questions that I realize would be a little hard to answer even in their native language, and I’ve made students burst into a sweat or and even made some cry. So I promise you that teacher is also wondering what he can do better, if he’s worth his salt
But you have a choice, you can look for an easier teacher or keep giving this one a try. It’s possible that a different teacher would be better, but you shouldn’t decide from just one lesson. Keep going for a while and check if you are getting better, learning useful phrases or fixing your bad grammar and so on.
Edit: oh, ten months! Honestly if you mustered some responses at the right time after ten months it’s a good sign aha. Most people take ten years to get fluent.
Throw yourself all in. Don’t be shy to make mistakes, it’s the only way you learn. Listening is important for speaking, so there’s no shame in just doing that for awhile.
That is great. Now you’ll be sure to have a few more phrases ready for next time and you’ll do much better. Onwards and upwards!
I feel your pain and so does most everyone who’s ever learned a second language. My husband was scared to order food anywhere except for burger king when he first started studying English in the U.S. because someone took him there on his first day and he learned the necessary motions but God forbid he try the same thing at a McDonald’s lol. And now that I’m in Japan after studying and talking to Japanese people in the U.S. for years, I had my own incident where I fumbled at a convenience store. What made it even more embarrassing was the fact that what seemed like gibberish in the store became entirely understandable a minute or two after I left. Language is on the spot and not refined under a microscope. You definitely have to get experience interacting and you’re going to sound silly to yourself, but as long as you’re communicating, you’re doing it! Consider your failure a success and keep at it.
Balls to you to start talking with a native speaker when you say u just start 10 months ago and innefficently.
Anyway, listening is very hard.
Talking, writting, reading , at your own pace.
Well done for taking that step! I’ve been doing lessons online with a tutor for a few weeks (before that about the same as you time-wise of just reading and some apps on my own) and my first few were terrible. I’ve surprised myself with how much more confident I’ve got in a short time and even when I get it wrong (often) he politely corrects me and we carry on. I’m much less afraid of failing now, which I think is probably a good thing. Good luck! 🍀
My sensei is Japanese but she’s able to speak bahasa Indonesia, when she full on Japanese all the words all the kanji all the things that I’ve learned just vanished, I feel you
That was the same for me years ago: I couldn’t understand a thing and, even worse, I chose a teacher who was able to speak my language (italian), so we ended up talking in italian for most of the time. Obviously, I changed teacher and, in the meanwhile, I’ve been studying hard japanese.
I’ve been working as an English teacher in Japan with kindergartners. English instruction comes first, but you do end up communicating a fair bit in Japanese. Their language is a lot simpler (though sometimes too slurred to understand) and it’s not easy when you have 10 kids shouting different things at you and screaming all the time, but definitely I find it easier than trying to talk to adults.
With some of the older kids, I can tell them about my weekend or my plans for the evening, eg “週末は名古屋に行きました、名古屋の食べ物はおいしいでした” or something like that. I’m still a beginner by the standards around here. I know maybe 1500 words or so and am not amazing with grammar or reading yet but it feels rewarding when a kid points at you and says “I remember you from last time” and you know what they’re saying.
Obviously they don’t speak to me in the same textbook Japanese that I learn, so I end up learning more casual conversation as well.
It’s always like that anyway. The best you can do is continue as much face to face dialogue like this (even for free with language exchange with Japanese natives in your city), and it will help you improve.