I finally did it! I started in February with Bunpro, Wanikani, and Duolingo. I have finally finished all the N5 grammar and N5 vocab. Yet when I am speaking or trying to make good sentences I draw blanks because I am a penguin in the desert. I don’t have any japanese speaking friends. What should I do to improve. I started using busuu but is there a study buddy group or something?
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Got a weird one:
Talk to an imaginary friend / have imaginary conversations whenever you have down time (e.g. while driving).
Gets those reps in for pronunciation and coming up with things on the spot.
You’ll feel like a weirdo but it helped me a bunch
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How do I learn the sentences to say. Ill say dou desu ka, and then I run blanks. Is there a way to learn full sentences? I know phrases like oname wa, or shusshin desu ka, but nothing natural sentence wise.
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Hmmm that’s a good point. Being post-N5, it would be hard to have all the tools to have a natural feeling conversation.
Depends what your goals are, but my hot take is that I would almost say you could skip speaking until you’re like N4/N3.
How much time do you have each day to dedicate to Japanese?
Increasing the surface area of your study (more Vocab/Grammar each day, even if you get low % in Reviews) would mean you could get to immerse yourself in native materials sooner.
I got to like N4-ish level, was able to barely read Yotsuba& and watch Crayon Shin Chan on Netflix, and from then on my pace improved greatly.
Seeing a Vocab usage in the wild is worth 3x the value of doing that same Vocab as 1 SRS review.
Speaking to me was basically just mimicry of what I was consuming.
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I love speaking. Out of the four language skills (speaking, writing, listening, reading), it is by far my favorite. to the point that, over the years, I’ve restructured how I learn foreign languages to add as much speaking practice as possible, and use it as a motivator to study other things (e.g. grammar, vocabulary, etc).
That being said, speaking is hard. It is the only real-time, output skill. So, over the years, this is how I’ve been approaching it:
- Adopting a beginner’s mindset: Speaking is hard and mistakes will happen all the time. I try and enjoy the chaos of saying the wrong thing over and over again, without punishing myself, since this is part of the process.
- Speaking from day one: Regardless of how little I know of a language, I like to practice speaking from the get go. If I don’t do that, I tend to get very shy and afraid of making mistakes. However, if I’m speaking from the beginning, I’ll be able to see the progress from no knowing how to say anything at all to being able to express something. That’s a fascinating experience.
- Shadowing: This is particularly useful in the beginning so I can improve on pronunciation/listening and acquire some set phrases early on. It also helps with getting used to producing the phonemes of the target language more easily. Then, when I start to consume content in the target language, I try and repeat the sentences as I’m hearing them.
- Getting an online private tutor: This is the highest leverage move. I absolute thrive in a private tutor setting, compared to group classes, becase of how much speaking I can practice in little time. I’ve been using italki for a few years and really like the service (it isn’t free, though), but any place where you can find other people to talk to (in-person or online) would have the same effect—as long as they are fluent/native in the target language. Language exchange groups can be helpful for that. I try and go for one 30-minute class per week focusing on free conversation.
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