I don’t see speaking mentioned that much here, and I always found it harder to keep speaking level on par with other skills. I’m curious how many people feel their speaking level is keeping up with the rest of their skill set? Are you able to have a conversation? How do you practice? Would you like to improve? Share your speaking story!
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As per my last OPI, I’m Intermediate-High (it may have changed since). I wanted to be a teacher for a while, so I’ve put a lot of effort into the skill.
My speaking is way better than my reading because I don’t study enough kanji, but I have to speak in my daily life. That being said, it’s really easy to get by just saying phrases, or saying the English word in Japanese pronunciation, just trailing off the ends of my sentences and people fill in the gaps for me. Japanese people tend to think my Japanese is better than it is because I’ve picked up natural-sounding speech habits from hearing it every day, but that doesn’t mean I actually translate the grammar I’m using or can understand it in different contexts
think of any random ad hoc topic, try to make an instant 3-minute speech about it, record yourself, replay, listen, think
Three years in? I have absolute confidence that I can walk into a restaurant, make the wait staff wince with my attempts at small talk, but be understood well enough to be well served. I’m getting better.
My speaking is probably 2nd . Listening first . Thanks to being in Japan
I was able to travel in the boonies by myself without too many mistakes after a year of study. There were difficulties, the worst not being able to tell a regular train and an express train, but I managed.
After N4 or so, I did a weekly hour private lesson which let me speak regularly and consistently. Shortly, I met who would become my wife, and her English is terrible, so the relationship is in Japanese. That gave a massive improvement as I used it daily at home. But it’s casual Japanese, and where I had mistakes, she understood and wasn’t correcting me.
Later, I entered a Japanese workspace, and most staff only knew Japanese, and that’s when I just achieved speaking fluency in short order. I generally understand 80% of what’s said to me, and can get my idea across, though it gets inelegant at times. I started my own business, requiring me to talk to natives all the time, and that’s years in and going well. I started taking weekly private lessons again to help at a more nuanced level too, since I accept I’ll never be 100%. There’s English I can’t understand sometimes.
Speaking was the ultimate goal for me, the most important thing. Reading and writing are okay, but in real life, speaking is what really makes a difference
My speaking ability is trash! I’m not concerned though I have bigger fish to fry and a long way to go with everything. I can communicate simply enough to get the job done in a team play game which is fine for me. I have zero worries about it for the future, it won’t take my long to acclimate it when I reach the appropriate level, so another 1000-1500 hours maybe. I’ll probably introduce some amount of shadowing when there’s no longer much larger issues blocking my progress. Aside from shadowing my future plans to improve my speaking when I feel it matters is: VR Chat, Hello Talk VC Rooms, Discord with Friends, Video Games, and reading to myself written passages (reading out-loud), and speaking out-loud as I compose/type messages.
crap
I speak to myself and Duolingo has really helped out a lot in building my phrasebook and I use that to build other sentences. I don’t try to translate from English to Japanese and vice versa. I just try to stay in Japanese when I m speaking Japanese. Otherwise I start to do literal translations which don’t help.
I do have a tutor and he helps me a lot with words I don’t know. I can hold a basic conversation and order my food. My goal is to form longer sentences without thinking too much about it. Speaking is hard if you’re not surrounded by it so I try to immerse myself as much as I can with it.
I can speak much better than I can read or know kanji. I’m probably opposite most people here in that I’ve been focusing on speaking over just endless studying, memorizing and reading. I feel like the high output (and low book smart) learners of the language get drowned out by the extremely studious types of people on this forum.
I hate studying and hate reading reading and I’m 20 years out of college (only did 2 years of Japanese classes at university) and adulting gets in the way of regularly doing SRS stuff. Even in English, I hate reading and suck at it unless it’s high technical topics. When covid started I tried to restart learning Japanese but studying was way too boring so I just continued listening to podcasts (pimsleur and jpod101) and eventually started doing 1 hour conversation lessons each week on italki and then last year upped it to 4 conversation lessons (1 hour long each) a week and while on vacation that can go up to 6-7 lessons a week. Last year I also started listening to Teppei, Yuyu Nihingo, and Miku Real Japanese podcasts nonstop on my commutes. Media watching has always been 50-80% jdramas and anime when not watching kdramas. Lol. Music is 50-50 split between jpop and kpop.
I took the N4 last week and I don’t know if I passed. The listening part was easy enough but the kanji and especially reading parts I didn’t do well. But as far as output, I can talk about things that interest me fairly easily, albeit inelegantly, but picked up enough bad Japanese speaking habits that I no longer get jouzu’d and instead get asked how long I’ve lived in Japan when I visit there. Lol.
When I was in Japan during my study abroad period I met a lot of people that were pretty decent at speaking but could not read any Japanese with the exception of the most common words. On the flip side, I’ve met a lot of people in my Japanese classes back in the US that could read to a pretty good level but can’t get hardly any of their thoughts across by speaking. I started attending a weekly Japanese language exchange program at my university and it has helped a ton. I think confidence is one of the hardest parts at first. The fear of saying something wrong or being corrected holds myself and many others back. This goes away really quickly once you start to do it though, and like any other skill it doesn’t improve until you actually start to do it.
Probably my worst attribute. I’m here for the media, so output progression is basically accidentally anyway
I teach a conversational Japanese class that has a speaking portion with voulenteer Japanese speakers each class. A number of my students are actually at a higher level in terms of listening/reading than they are at speaking, but take my level because they’re not as confident in their speaking skills. I’ve noticed many will lapse back into English, even when they know all the Japanese related to the content and they know the person they’re speaking to doesn’t know much English, because they don’t have the practice of switching on “Japanese mode” and keeping it on. I’m guessing it’s also mentally taxing to stay in Japanese speaking mode as well, so that’s a way they can unconsciously give themselves mental breaks. As the term progresses, they do get better at staying in Japanese for longer periods of time, but it really is something people have to practice doing, to build up that mental stamina.
Living in Japan for 3 years, studying for 5. I don’t have any problems living here and communicating with anyone. They all understand me BUT… I’ve been told that I do sound like 小学生.
From what I’ve gathered, it’s like when you understand exactly what your son or daughter is saying but they just sound like kids. Basically I am anya
The best test is to buy a ticket to Japan and do the no English challenge.