How to develop Japanese talking skills?

Japanese
#10

moving to japan and develop your talking skill by talking? You need a solid foundation, to actually be able to improve by talking. And just being in Japan doesnt help at all. Yes, you can get alot of ressource, for example in a bookstore, but in terms of people, its not like they come at you, and offer japanese lesson for free and try to be your friends. Finding meaningful connection is much more unlikely in japan, and also depends on you on a person how social skilled, charasmatic, circumstance you are in. What i just said maybe comes off as pesimistic, but i just want to make clear, that just going to japan isnt automatically the bewst way.

If you don t intent to go to japan due to lack of money or time, i recommend learning useful phrases. You can extract words and grammar this way, which i find myself in alot. And after that, its basically repeating youself phrases, in therms of efficiency, i would say a japanese pod, in terms of my recommendation, anything that makes you keep practicing more and not drop it. I personally would recommend breaking down songs, translating and learning them since that could make alot of fun, if youre already a little bit more advanced.

If you go to japan, i recommend atleast:

-going to a language school.(i m currently at genkijacs and the student support is great)

-staying at a japanese homestay.

Both recommendation ensure a basic amount of social interaction with japanese people, which will be crucial if you find youself alone in japan.(me currently in summervacation lol)

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#11

It is as you say, that depends on the type of person you are. However, going to Japan is DEFINITELY the best way to learn to speak the language, but you do have to make the effort of meeting people and speaking with strangers. It’s not going to happen by itself.

For example, I recently went to visit Japan for a month, and I interacted with Japanese people (mostly in Japanese) almost every single day I was there. In that short period of time, I notice improvement in both listening and speaking abilities. Living there, even for a year, would’ve given me even more gains, for sure! I made that happen though, and I threw myself out there, making lots of mistakes, etc. I even got the 日本語上手ですね！several times. If you’re just chilling in your apartment/hotel, and not interacting with strangers, then that’s obviously not conducive to meeting the goal of learning to speak. And I’m not even an extrovert. My desire to learn Japanese is all I needed to push me into uncomfortable situations.

I don’t know, this topic just seems too obvious to me. When people say it’s hard to do “X”, all I hear are excuses (especially given ALL of the tools we have at our disposal these days). You know who had it tough? It was those learning Japanese before the Internet was a thing, with no YouTube, Podcasts, Apps (what’s that?), BunPro, Social Media, etc, etc.

The best way to speak any language is simply to speak it with other people. Period!

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#12

OP was looking for ways other than visiting Japan.

How about getting Japan to visit you?! Err… how would that work…

ah!

You could advertise free homestay accomodation for Japanese students…

I mean, it does sound like the start of a horror movie but you don’t necessarily have to disembowel them after you’ve assimluated all their language learning worth.

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#13

My first reply to this thread was literally that, ways to improve speaking skills without going to Japan. You followed it with a similar reply.

That last reply, on the other hand, was in response to what Gabriel said. I partly agree with it, in the sense that going to Japan doesn’t guarantee that you’ll learn to speak the language, unless you put effort into engaging with natives. A lot of people, when they go to Japan, start making acquaintances with other foreigners, which is fine, but not very helpful in the endeavor of speaking Japanese. That’s the main reason why I brought up my experience when I went to visit.

Suggestions of shadowing and learning set phrases are good up to a point, but they don’t help develop the skills necessary to maintain a fluid conversation. The moment someone asks or says something you don’t have a set phrase for, you’re screwed. Plus you run the risk of sounding robotic and/or repetitive. That’s why it’s important to find a speaking partner as soon as you can say a few things, around N5 to N4 level.

If you want to improve your listening skills, you listen. If you want to improve your writing skills, you write, etc. This is why I find this topic obvious, and the reason why I think some of what was said (in terms of shadowing, listening to pod casts, etc) not very helpful in getting someone to actually speak fluently.

In short, there are no tricks nor shortcuts. You just need to speak with people in order to get better at speaking. Thankfully there are ways to easily do that these days, if going to Japan is not an option.

Take care! :blush:

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#14

I used The Mixxer (https://www.language-exchanges.org/) to find a conversation partner.

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#15

Personally I did find a consistent language exchange partner years ago and that helped tremendously. But like some of the other people here have mentioned, having a solid foundation really helps. My language exchange parter would talk about other people who had no to little communication skills in Japanese but still wanted to do language exchange. It was very frustrating for her. Make sure you can at least talk about your daily stuff.

Things aren’t always going to go smoothly, I sure as hell know they didn’t always for me. But it did get to the point that I forgot I was even speaking in Japanese, and that’s one of the best feelings.

Also, Japanesepod101.com is great for learning conversational Japanese. People will rag on it for various reasons, especially among the “immersion, no other method works” devotees. But I keep going back to it after several years.

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#16

Honestly, rote learning phrases is not worth the time if you are actually aiming to reach an okay level in the language. If you are talking about conversation then that isn’t actually “speaking Japanese”. Shadowing is perhaps the best “solo” activity one can do. I guess also slowly reading a text with perfect intonation, if you are into that kind of thing. My opinion though is that shadowing is kind of like practising reading by just doing vocab reviews - you will gain some ability to read but you will never be able to actually read properly.

As mentioned above, if you can’t hold a basic conversation about your day then most native speakers are not going to want to talk to you for more than 2 minutes. Conversation is a two way street so being able to understand your partner is just as important (probably even more important) than having perfect speech. As such one of the best things you can do to improve your conversational abilities is to just get better at understanding Japanese. You still need to speak to get better at speaking but not having to worry over what your partner is saying will make everything a whole lot easier. Just don’t put talking with native speakers off forever as some people use the “gotta get my comprehension up” excuse a bit too much.

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#17

Just adding here that I recently started joining “voice rooms” in hello talk and have had a pretty good time practicing conversation in those, for me there’s less pressure as it’s not one on one.
But yeah, hello talk is for sure worth trying out if you want some free conversation practice.

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#18

Haven’t try it myself so I’m not sure of how effective it will be to improve conversational skills but there’s https://www.fluentu.com/. It’s supposed to help with immersion through “from the country” videos, quizz and stuff, alas it’s not free :confused:

If anyone has feedback on it I’m interested still!

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#19

Hello, I was going to say shadowing, but then like other people pointed out, that doesn’t help you speak fluently. I use it to work on my pronunciation and intonation, one aspect of speaking, but not fluency.

One thing I’ve tried to do recently is look for Japanese language groups in my area. A university, college, or meet up group might have a Japanese-speaking hour or something like that to practice speaking.

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#20

Use Bing Chat. Set the language to JP. It has text to speech capabilities.

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#21

Pimsleur is expensive to buy but it is available on Audible and maybe your local library.

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#22

One method I like to use is to set a timer for ten minutes and then explain something to myself in Japanese. I have talked to myself about what happened during my day, about the characters in Yotsuba, and about what kind of video games I like.

I find that this method increases my fluency and also is very stress-free. Because I am talking about things in my life, I am using grammar and looking up vocabulary that is relevant to me.

If you can stand to record and listen to yourself talk, you can check for pronounciation or missed words. But I personally haven’t got the guts to do this, yet.

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#23

You can do vocal exercises whenever you have free time, I usually try to say hard words like 暖かかった or go down the list of syllables in order あいうえおかきくけこらりるれろ。。。etc as fast as you can.

Listen to lots of music or podcasts and try to sing along or mimic their speech.

Read aloud everything all the time, or at least whisper it.

Narrate your life in your head or aloud in japanese, this is particularly helpful later on when you hit critical mass and start to think in your target language. Don’t be afraid to say things the wrong way or unnaturally, children learn this way by experimenting with their mouths. When you make mistakes and realize it you will imprint your memory more easily than if you are afraid to make mistakes at all.

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#24

This is very interesting advice. I will try it for sure. Thank you!

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#25

As mentioned previously, living in Japan is by no means a guarantee that your speaking Japanese ability will improve. I’ve met ex-pats living in Japan for decades that have little to no Japanese ability. You have to put in consistent, meaningful effort to improve.

For me, I’ve lived in Japan for 9 months now and my reading and listening have improved substantially which is awesome. But my speaking has improved a bit, but marginally at best.

I still do an hour of iTalki a week with a tutor and I’ve found that immensely helpful. Especially because my tutor actually uses words that Japanese people say.

Rote-memorization of passages and reciting it back does not work for me. It does for some, but definitely not me. Like others have mentioned, narrating your day in your head is a way you can practice for free. Even try to have conversations in your head!

Learning Japanese is a marathon, not a sprint. It won’t take you days or months to learn, it will take numerous years. The only thing you can do is put in the consistent effort and things will gradually start to come to you.

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#26

Btw, how much do you pay for the tutor? Is it affordable price?

#27

I pay $14 an hour for mine. Once a week not bad at all…

#28

On this theme: I also live in Japan and the vast majority of my speaking is with friends, strangers in bars, and my students. The thing is that there is a limit on how much someone is willing to listen to you struggle speaking and the domains which can come up naturally in conversation. So in my case the only things I can really talk about in Japanese without serious stopping and starting are daily topics and English/Japanese grammar (and even then…).

For example, the other day I saw the new Studio Ghibli film in the cinema with a friend but despite understanding almost all of it (except for one part near the end; you’ll know what part I mean if you have seen it) I still could not fully discuss my thoughts and feelings about the film afterwards. At least, I couldn’t say what I wanted to say in anything other than broad strokes. It was annoying and I wanted a chance to practice the same conversation again.

So a few months ago I started using an italki tutor specifically for occasions like this where I decide I want to have a conversation beyond my level so I can stretch myself. Now every few weeks I will book a lesson and after 20 minutes of easy daily convo warmup I will have a very stilted conversation with lots of pausing and checking vocab and trying out phrases and constructions I am not certain about etc. Basically everything I don’t get a chance to use very often. Some topics I have recently tried to discuss include the new Ghibli film, Norwegian Wood (which I recently read), Hong Kong’s 90s political situation, and the current debate about that Oppenheimer film in Japan. Keep in mind I am trying to talk about these topics for 30+ minutes and I normally hit a solid brick wall after about 5 minutes (which is normally when I would change subject in real life).

I personally find it useful as it forces me to stretch myself. Many people use it for actual lessons as well although I have never done that. Whether it is expensive or not depends on your personal situation. You get 3 free trial lessons, I believe, so it is worth signing up and just trying it out - no need to be nervous as it is the tutor’s job to sell themselves to you, not the other way round.

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#29

What’s that game where you have to describe something without using the word? That’s pretty much where most of my conversation time goes. Can’t think of a specific word, so I start the game of trying to get the other person to guess and tell me, ‘it has a slope, it’s smaller than a mountain… it’s got お in it…’ ‘丘？’ ‘正解！パチパチ’

When I think how annoying it must be to talk with me in Japanese, that’s what reinforces the need to pay people to do it at the moment.

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