It’s often suggested people wait to output until they have a reasonable level of comprehension. I think that way of thinking does have some merits but a big weakness is that people may end up getting comfortable with just getting input and studying and then aren’t used to the far more difficult and high pressure situation of actually talking to natives. In the same way that “tolerating ambiguity” is a skill that needs to be trained for input, I strongly believe that “tolerating being shit” is a skill that’s essential to output.
At the end of the day, N2 is not a high level (if your goal is to be “perfect” or at least just be genuinely fluent) and it’s natural to make mistakes that you feel you shouldn’t and also to have rather gigantic holes in your vocabulary and expressive ability. However, conversation is a social skill as well as a linguistic one and if you are putting effort into engaging in conversation and the listener is interested then even with many mistakes and stumbles and circumlocution the conversation can still be a fruitful one for everyone. In fact basically most conversations that I have which aren’t about like the weather or food are like that.
It’s probably also worth mentioning that conversations through a language exchange app are about as low pressure as conversation practice could be due to the context and the fact it is online.
I personally think having conversations (both the speaking and listening parts) are extremely beneficial for learning, even if you are someone who doesn’t plan on becoming a good speaker, as it is extremely engaging and probably the most “active” form of using the language. I have no research behind this claim but I also think it helps your brain accept the language as “real” and thus not something to ignore. I’m sure many beginner learners know the feeling of looking at a page of Japanese text and their brain refusing to properly look at it without being forced.
Last point, speaking is extremely difficult and probably takes more time to develop than other skills. People rarely talk about this (I guess either because they don’t speak to natives or they are yet to be at a level where a conversation is viable). I think partly this is natural due to output always lagging behind input however I also think it because conversation is far more complex than just reading or listening.
Anyway, good luck and just stick with it! If you want to be perfect then first you have to suck so go out there and errr suck…!
but yeah, I’d guess all of the above :3 haven’t used WK in 3 years though…but some vocabs probably still hold even if unused since I got most of it burned before I got busy with life last time.