I understand, but I still can't speak

Japanese
#1

I know that this has become a bit of a documented phenomenon at this point, but I’m finding myself falling solidly in the camp of “would do ok on JLPT and can understand what’s happening, but can’t actually hold a conversation.”
In my case, I’ll at least roughly understand pretty much everything that is being said, but the minute I try to respond I just freeze up and my brain ceases to function. Then, inevitably, a minute or two later I’ll be sat there coming up with a whole list of ways I could have responded.
I’m honestly not sure if it’s purely the speed at which I put together sentences that needs work, or if it’s a nerves issue, or what. Jury’s out on whether I need a Japanese tutor or a therapist at this point.

My question is this: Is there anyone here who has been in a similar spot and managed to dig themselves out of it, and if so, any advice?

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#2

If you have the cash for that: I made a pretty long post about just picking the cheapest available teachers on preply. Lots of them don’t really speak English, and they make great conversation partners.

https://community.bunpro.jp/t/i-still-cant-speak-japanese-this-is-a-study-log-now/179339/5

I would say this is helping me a lot

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#3

I assume that you’re pretty well into your studies at this point, so you’re probably aware that language learning can be split into two categories: input (listening, reading) and output (speaking, writing). While both input and output are related to a degree, you can treat them as separate skills and, consequently, should be trained separately.

When you learn how to listen or read Japanese, you’re training your brain’s recognition–the ability to understand what you see/hear. However, to speak or write, you need to train your brain’s recall–the ability to fetch that very same information. Your brain may have thousands of words and hundreds of grammar points stored inside; but it can only use the data to identify language, not construct it.

The only real way to improve your output in any language, not just Japanese, is by actually doing output practice. If you want to get better at speaking, you must speak regularly. This can be done in multiple ways, including, but not limited to:

  • 1-on-1 conversation lessons with Japanese teachers
  • Shadowing (repeating sentences spoken by native speakers)
  • Self-conversations (assuming the role of two characters in an imaginary conversation, and playing it out)
  • Speaking with other native speakers in online games and forums (places like VRChat)

You freeze up because your brain is thinking not only about the topic at hand, but also what word to use, how the sentence should be structured, etc. Natives don’t think about these other points because it’s something they’ve learned to do naturally through practice and reliance on common collocations/phrases. This is something you can only really train through methods like the ones I’ve outlined above.

Truth be told, I’m in the same boat as you; my recognition skills far outpace my recall skills, and I want to improve my ability to speak Japanese, though my current goal is to pass the JLPT this July, so it’s not something I’m focusing on at the moment. Still, I can only speak Japanese as “fluently” as I can right now because of everything I just mentioned, so hopefully you can get some mileage out of the methods I’ve recommended, too. Good luck with your studies, fam.

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#4

For reference this is called automaticity and shadowing helps a lot with this!

2 Likes
#5

Same boat. I joined a volunteer run class in my local ward office, my speaking was so bad my teacher asked me if I knew hiragana lol.

I’ve gotten a bit better at speaking since going to these classes but I haven’t ever practiced speaking before! I imagine its just like studying for input and that it will all take time, patience, and practice.

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#6

I work at a school, and a couple months ago I was sitting at my desk reading the school newsletter (entirely in Japanese) and the principal google translated the article, printed it out, and brought it to me without saying anything

the vast gulf between my understanding and speaking ability causes many such scenarios lol

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#7

ngl I went to my conversation class last night and I don’t think I made a single grammatically coherent sentence :")

but then sometimes I just be chatting away like nobodies business…

learning to speak is a struggle ha h a h aa

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#8

man i need a conversation class so bad but i am well and truly in the middle of nowhere. theres genuinely nothing in person within like an hour radius cause there just arent enough foreigners around

#9

I think in that case your options are roughly

  • getting adopted by a local ojii/obaasan
  • going to a tachinomi
  • joining a club
  • slightly gentler on your soul than joining a club, taking private or small group lessons in something (not Japanese, but like learn a traditional craft or something IN Japanese)
  • finding a volunteer circle of some kind (usually full of the type of obaasans who would adopt a foreigner)
  • becoming a regular at a local establishment (the slow burn option)
  • joining an online Japanese class (most costly)

I get a not-insignificant amount of listening practice in at kendo (my conversational chances are a bit fewer) and I find it quite rewarding. I also know at least two people learning koto and you just have to kind of ganbaru in Japanese.

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#10

Use AIs like Grok to speak and improve

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#11

This might not be what you wanna hear but honestly the best way to get better at speaking is just to have as many of those experiences as possible and hopefully you are able to get enough out to ask how to say something or to slowly work your way through it even if you sound like a child. It’s the same as listening and reading at the start it’s just really slow and you feel like you know the words and grammar but can’t keep up. I joined a language club and just sounded like a todler for forever before I could comfortably have conversations and even today I am constantly messing up but I know enough to describe what I want to say and ask how to say it better. Good luck and you’ll get there very soon!

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#12

lol! Know this feeling well! I’m amazed when the other person understands anything I said. I just fire out nouns and verbs and some bits of grammar to link them if I remember. I work on the theory that if I fire out lots of mistake-strewn Japanese quickly enough, they will kinda get my vibe…

edit; seems English is a struggle too today

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#13

oh but the good news with regards to speaking Japanese as a foreigner is that the bar is set very low, so even the mistake-strewn garbled nonsense I feel I’m saying goes down well in my experience.

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#14

Yepppppp that’s exactly the vibe

Thankfully the facilitator did indeed assume I meant my boyfriends wallet was stolen and not that he stole a wallet when i failed to conjugate the passive form :upside_down_face:

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