Greetings everyone!
So I have been learning Japanese seriously since summer (before that it’s just on-and-off, since I watch anime & movies, and listen to J-Pop regularly), and I can say that my studies & experiences have been very great, I love it. I am Asian so I’m already familiar with the culture, and other etiquettes.
However, as I transition from N5 to N4, I feel like I need to practice my speaking/verbal skills more. This is where I discovered a bit of an issue: If speaking slowly, I can do it decently; but if I ramp the speed up/speak faster, I will just either stumble on words or completely miss/skip them. It doesn’t even sound close to half-natural.
So, I am sending this post to kindly ask you guys for some tips to improve my speaking skills, since I assume some of you might have shared the same issues as me. How did you get through it? Is constantly practice over and over the way to go? Please let me know down below, I’m very much appreciated!
Best regards,
\- R
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6 comments
Read things out loud, just to get practice physically forming the words!
You have to practice speaking regularly. If possible, please practice with a native speaker. In this age, you can do that with Zoom, Skype…. There are online classes offer speaking practice with Japanese. I know one that has been very successful. Listening is also important. If you can listen to Japanese radio station, watch Japanese TV stations, it will also help you to carry on your conversations.
The solution is quite straightforward – just talk.
I have friends who joined random discord chats, those that are made for Jap/Eng learners. Or if you are a gamer, it should be quite easy for you to link to Japanese servers and join voice chats.
You can use paid websites such as italki to engage with proper Japanese speakers/teachers. I’m not so sure, but there may be free ones out there.
However, since you mentioned that you are transitioning from N5 to N4, I strongly suggest that you focus on your grammar and vocabulary for now to gather enough knowledge to actually engage in a conversation that is longer than a self introduction.
Personally (this may make me sound like a creep), I try to have an internal monologue or think in Japanese. It helps with rote learning, and you can learn faster. 頑張って!
Talking to yourself may help. I heard a teacher recommends that. Since not everybody has time to sit down. Plus you can even use new vocabulary to describe that situation that you’re in
I’d recommend using apps like discord/especially hellotalk. You can just join to a voice room and try to listen/engage in a conversations with natives or other learners. Natives often talk with other natives (…..or Koreans that sound like natives) so its also a listening practice. Japanese voice rooms are open almost all the time (not like for example polish)
It’s also fun to record yourself speaking about random topic like hows learning going so far.
If you have problems to understand people’s conversations there are a lot of podcasts with conversations (Nihongo with Teppei and Noriko, Miku real Japanese podcast, YUYU nihongo etc), they are a bit harder than podcasts when only one person speaks but they’re very interesting and a good practice.
Shadowing will help you. It’s a way of practicing language, speaking out loud when listening japanese at the same time.