You’ll get there, it just takes time and there is no other way forward than to practice.
Some tips to help you practice well. – Think as much as possible in Japanese – Don’t worry too much about grammar, overthinking will trip you up – Accept that you will mess up and keep on going when you do
takes time. Studying only gets you so far.
Something that worked well for me in Chinese was getting an Anki deck with example sentences and then for each card that comes up, keep repeating the sentence out loud until I could say it at a natural pace without looking at the card.
This isn’t the same as true production, but it gets you in the habit of using certain common speech patterns.
Language acquisition takes time and willingness to look silly. Say a few things in Japanese and even if you goof up, the locals will tell you how “joozu” you are.
I assume you’re self taught? I have this same issue.
Two tips, I reckon.
1. Practice. If you’re self taught then you just haven’t had enough practice speaking to people. Most of your study is listening, reading or writing, not speaking. So it’s only natural that you’re not as strong verbizing.
2. Slow down! Your mind moves faster than your tongue and lips because it doesn’t have to physically move. It works at the speed of lights whereas your mouth works at the speed of sound. You need to give your mouth time to process what your brain is telling it. Your mind is probably like 4 – 5 words ahead of your mouth so you end up confusing yourself because they’re not in sync. So slow it down baby. There’s no rush.
You’ve studied for a few years, but how many minutes have you spent? Millions of Japanese people “studied” English for a few minutes a week for 6 years and can’t put a sentence together.
Have you tried something like Pimsleur or Mango Journeys? You can check if your library has them for download to save money. There is also a series of books called Shadowing: Let’s Speak Japanese that I highly recommend.
There are other things I can recommend, but these three are great at making speaking more comfortable. If you struggle with these, then I would recommend the Spoken Japanese or Beginning Japanese books and audio by Eleanor Harz Jorden. They are older books, but she breaks down learning the various possible sounds of Japanese and then words and phrases.
A free option would be to choose a short video in Japanese and repeat what they say over and over until you get it right. You can manipulate the speed on YouTube to slow it down and then gradually speed it up as you get better.
How long have you been in Japan? I feel like you’ll get plenty of practice if you’re going out and doing things and interacting with people.
Find some dialogues and learn them by heart. Physically repeating them until they come out smoothly and without thinking.
Repeating lines from TV shows helps a lot too.
What did those few years of study consist of?
Don’t stop talking when you fuck up Don’t get embarrassed when you fuck up Laugh off your mistakes Try again
Practice. Input is nothing without output.
Go get drunk with Japanese friends. Your inhibitions will be lower and their willingness to forgive mistakes will be higher.
Talk to yourself, read books/ manga/ novels and read them out loud. That’s what i have done and how i can talk super simple but it is much more effective than nothing
If you know the language but cannot speak, you need some more speaking practice. It‘s always best to find a native speaker to speak to and correct you when you make mistakes, but if you‘re on your own this is what helped me in several languages: Imagine you’re doing an interview or have a discussion in Japanese and look up some interview questions in Japanese. Read them to yourself and act as if you just got asked that question and answer out loud in as much detail as you can. Feels weird the first time you do it since you’re probably alone in the room, but it helps a ton. That being said, you‘re in Japan – try to use it as much as possible there. Usually the locals appreciate you trying to speak Japanese and will be happy to talk to you, even if you’re not speaking perfectly. The more you speak, the better, that’s the bottom line I guess.
Take your time and practice saying everything you learn as you’re learning it. Even if you’re whispering or speaking without making sounds (in public) it’ll all help. Get as much speaking practice in as possible. Play on Japanese servers in games like vr chat, or go to a local Japanese store if you have one near by. The more you speak, the better it gets.
100% recommend getting a tutor. I really struggled too, but since getting one, we can talk in Japanese and it really increases confidence. As I think anxiety is the main issue, and lack of experience of speaking out loud to someone (the two are linked no doubt).
been there. you def need a teacher or a tandem partner just to get fluent.
try not to use the best phrases and the best words, but whatever comes to mind and use hands and feet and all the gestures to make yourself understood. Most people will gladly help and not care how badly you talk so just try to get over your pride and self-consciousness.
Almost all teaching material is based on how Japanese students “learn” English. It’s in general not very effective.
Start looking for Comprehensible Japanese. There is very little, but you’ll find some on YouTube.
Language doesn’t all come from the same part of the brain. The part of your brain that can create sentences needs to send messages to the part of your brain that tells the muscles how to make the sounds. You can create sentences all you want. Your brain won’t be able to say them if you don’t practice.
I wonder if it’s a perfectionism thing. Why don’t you try just letting it rip. If you mess up, don’t stop. Don’t go back and correct yourself, don’t even pause to think about it, just move on to the next sentence.
Lol feels.
I reckon it’s the same with how I learnt to speak English and Indonesian as a once upon a time mute. Just practice really. I spoke a lot myself / repeated monologues I liked. Copied characters I enjoyed etc
Talked to myself roflmaoooo
But talking to others who speak the same language rapidly improves it. But first yeah gotta be able to speak basics.
Would recommend to find a friend willing to teach / help ya practice? But mostly at first self-practice really.
I cleaned up my pronunciations a bunch via Google home lol
Bitch can’t understand me if I’m not pronouncing properly lel J ask it a bunch of random questions.
Also listen to a lot of podcasts / audiobooks while doing stuff and just yeah talk lol I like talking a lot now after going from mute lol
It goes: understanding it when you hear it, then being able to speak it
Our Ancestors designed the language that way for a reason.
It just takes some practice. Japanese is broken into two parts. Speaking is seperate from writing, comprehension, reading.
Speaking Japanese really is it’s own beast. Keep at it though
Have conversations with yourself out loud when you are home alone.
It takes time and a lot of practice. I had a bit of a shock when I first came to Japan. I had studied all throughout college, but when I got here I suddenly couldn’t speak. I was afraid to mess up.
It took about a year until I really felt confident, and now I have a Japanese partner and speak mostly in Japanese. Getting a language partner will definitely help. Maybe book some lessons on italki to start with!
28 comments
Talk more. Practice.
You’ll get there, it just takes time and there is no other way forward than to practice.
Some tips to help you practice well.
– Think as much as possible in Japanese
– Don’t worry too much about grammar, overthinking will trip you up
– Accept that you will mess up and keep on going when you do
takes time. Studying only gets you so far.
Something that worked well for me in Chinese was getting an Anki deck with example sentences and then for each card that comes up, keep repeating the sentence out loud until I could say it at a natural pace without looking at the card.
This isn’t the same as true production, but it gets you in the habit of using certain common speech patterns.
Language acquisition takes time and willingness to look silly. Say a few things in Japanese and even if you goof up, the locals will tell you how “joozu” you are.
I assume you’re self taught? I have this same issue.
Two tips, I reckon.
1. Practice. If you’re self taught then you just haven’t had enough practice speaking to people. Most of your study is listening, reading or writing, not speaking. So it’s only natural that you’re not as strong verbizing.
2. Slow down! Your mind moves faster than your tongue and lips because it doesn’t have to physically move. It works at the speed of lights whereas your mouth works at the speed of sound. You need to give your mouth time to process what your brain is telling it. Your mind is probably like 4 – 5 words ahead of your mouth so you end up confusing yourself because they’re not in sync. So slow it down baby. There’s no rush.
You’ve studied for a few years, but how many minutes have you spent? Millions of Japanese people “studied” English for a few minutes a week for 6 years and can’t put a sentence together.
Have you tried something like Pimsleur or Mango Journeys? You can check if your library has them for download to save money. There is also a series of books called Shadowing: Let’s Speak Japanese that I highly recommend.
There are other things I can recommend, but these three are great at making speaking more comfortable. If you struggle with these, then I would recommend the Spoken Japanese or Beginning Japanese books and audio by Eleanor Harz Jorden. They are older books, but she breaks down learning the various possible sounds of Japanese and then words and phrases.
A free option would be to choose a short video in Japanese and repeat what they say over and over until you get it right. You can manipulate the speed on YouTube to slow it down and then gradually speed it up as you get better.
How long have you been in Japan? I feel like you’ll get plenty of practice if you’re going out and doing things and interacting with people.
Find some dialogues and learn them by heart. Physically repeating them until they come out smoothly and without thinking.
Repeating lines from TV shows helps a lot too.
What did those few years of study consist of?
Don’t stop talking when you fuck up
Don’t get embarrassed when you fuck up
Laugh off your mistakes
Try again
Practice. Input is nothing without output.
Go get drunk with Japanese friends. Your inhibitions will be lower and their willingness to forgive mistakes will be higher.
Talk to yourself, read books/ manga/ novels and read them out loud. That’s what i have done and how i can talk super simple but it is much more effective than nothing
If you know the language but cannot speak, you need some more speaking practice. It‘s always best to find a native speaker to speak to and correct you when you make mistakes, but if you‘re on your own this is what helped me in several languages: Imagine you’re doing an interview or have a discussion in Japanese and look up some interview questions in Japanese. Read them to yourself and act as if you just got asked that question and answer out loud in as much detail as you can. Feels weird the first time you do it since you’re probably alone in the room, but it helps a ton. That being said, you‘re in Japan – try to use it as much as possible there. Usually the locals appreciate you trying to speak Japanese and will be happy to talk to you, even if you’re not speaking perfectly. The more you speak, the better, that’s the bottom line I guess.
Take your time and practice saying everything you learn as you’re learning it. Even if you’re whispering or speaking without making sounds (in public) it’ll all help. Get as much speaking practice in as possible. Play on Japanese servers in games like vr chat, or go to a local Japanese store if you have one near by. The more you speak, the better it gets.
100% recommend getting a tutor. I really struggled too, but since getting one, we can talk in Japanese and it really increases confidence. As I think anxiety is the main issue, and lack of experience of speaking out loud to someone (the two are linked no doubt).
been there. you def need a teacher or a tandem partner just to get fluent.
try not to use the best phrases and the best words, but whatever comes to mind and use hands and feet and all the gestures to make yourself understood. Most people will gladly help and not care how badly you talk so just try to get over your pride and self-consciousness.
Almost all teaching material is based on how Japanese students “learn” English. It’s in general not very effective.
Start looking for Comprehensible Japanese. There is very little, but you’ll find some on YouTube.
Language doesn’t all come from the same part of the brain. The part of your brain that can create sentences needs to send messages to the part of your brain that tells the muscles how to make the sounds. You can create sentences all you want. Your brain won’t be able to say them if you don’t practice.
I wonder if it’s a perfectionism thing. Why don’t you try just letting it rip. If you mess up, don’t stop. Don’t go back and correct yourself, don’t even pause to think about it, just move on to the next sentence.
Lol feels.
I reckon it’s the same with how I learnt to speak English and Indonesian as a once upon a time mute. Just practice really. I spoke a lot myself / repeated monologues I liked. Copied characters I enjoyed etc
Talked to myself roflmaoooo
But talking to others who speak the same language rapidly improves it. But first yeah gotta be able to speak basics.
Would recommend to find a friend willing to teach / help ya practice? But mostly at first self-practice really.
I cleaned up my pronunciations a bunch via Google home lol
Bitch can’t understand me if I’m not pronouncing properly lel J ask it a bunch of random questions.
Also listen to a lot of podcasts / audiobooks while doing stuff and just yeah talk lol I like talking a lot now after going from mute lol
It goes: understanding it when you hear it, then being able to speak it
Our Ancestors designed the language that way for a reason.
It just takes some practice. Japanese is broken into two parts. Speaking is seperate from writing, comprehension, reading.
Speaking Japanese really is it’s own beast. Keep at it though
Have conversations with yourself out loud when you are home alone.
It takes time and a lot of practice. I had a bit of a shock when I first came to Japan. I had studied all throughout college, but when I got here I suddenly couldn’t speak. I was afraid to mess up.
It took about a year until I really felt confident, and now I have a Japanese partner and speak mostly in Japanese. Getting a language partner will definitely help. Maybe book some lessons on italki to start with!
Nose in the books too long – no practical stuff