I recently downloaded HelloTalk, which is a language learning app that allows you to speak and text with people who speak the language you want to learn natively.
I downloaded it, and immediately felt out of my depth. I’ve been studying Japanese for about a week and know most Hiragana, but not many basic phrases.
Is there a point I should begin talking with native speakers, like once I’m more comfortable with hiragana and katakana, or know most basic phrases? I ask because a video I watched advised that I begin talking to native speakers immediately.
2 comments
To confirm this again, the whole period you’ve been learning Japanese so far is ***one week***, am I right?
If we see Japanese language as learning how to play guitar.. How much can you learn within one week? Then a video you watched advised you to immediately play John Mayer’s Neon.
That’s not a healthy way.
Learn to walk before you learn to run.
It’s not about talking with the natives that should be your goal.. It’s your comprehension and your speaking ability that matters.
Talking to natives, in guitar terms, is your first-time live performance.
Meaning you have to master the song that you are about to play (same in talking, talking is very broad, start gaining knowledge about simple topics first).
Every conversation usually starts with you or the conversation partner. You talk about yourself, your family, your job, hobbies, etc.
From there, the topic will branch. You start to talk about different hobbies (“I like music, you like sports”) and it will go even further from there (“do you like K-Pop? Which one? Do you like basketball? What do you think about this year’s NBA Final?”)
Therefore I think, try to be able to express yourself first in Japanese, then you start to find a conversation partner. Don’t go straight away with a native speaker, that’s the stage boss.. Level yourself up first by talking with fellow foreigners.
Good luck.
Going from learning how to pronounce basic sounds like「つ」and 「ふ」and then jumping into full on conversations at native level is of course going to be overwhelming and be extremely discouraging. Imagine having a conversation with someone who has only started learning English that same week? How much could that person realistically be able to communicate?
Not saying you have to learn 2,000+ kanji to be able to have conversations, but I would suggest getting to the intermediate level where you know 500~800 kanji, good feel for all most basic grammar, can put together simple sentences. Keep in mind, even at that level, it still will be very difficult. Challenging yourself is good, but in small increments, skipping to the native level is going to have the opposite effect and make it even harder to learn.