Neglecting output

Japanese
#1

I’ve been studying Japanese for about a year. I began by using みんなの日本語 along with WaniKani, Bunpro, and more recently, Satori Reader. My goal is to speak fluent someday and be able to consume media without subtitles or translators.

I made the mistake of thinking it would be a good idea to first build up my vocabulary and learn some basic grammar before starting to write and speak. But before I realized it, I had added so many things to my review queue that working through them was taking up most of my study time. Six months ago, I even had to reset my vocabulary progress on Bunpro because the reviews kept piling up, even though I was consistent every single day. Around that time, I had a burnout. When my Bunpro reviews alone went over 300 a day, it just stopped being fun. I also stoped taking new lessons on Wanikani for a time. In addition to resetting the vocabulary, I also changed the settings to focus only on reading, reveal, and grading. This helped me improve my session scores, but now that I’m trying to write and speak, it feels like I’ve wasted my time — I can’t even remember the words I need to say what I want.

With gramma even though I use manual mode and fill-in answers, it seems like I just learned to recognize the questions without fully understanding the structure or meaning.It would be great if grammar could be reviewed in different modes — like I’ve read you can do in Anki.

A few days ago I forced myself to write a few sentences in a physical journal every day, and I just started using ChatGPT. I know AI tools for language learning aren’t perfect right now, but I’d like to know if there’s a better option than ChatGPT for practicing output. I’ve heard of apps like TalkPals or Praktika, but I haven’t found frequent recommendations for them, unlike WaniKani for kanji, SatoriReader for reading, and BunPro for grammar. If you know a good site or app to practice these skills, I’d appreciate the recommendations. Or, if you know any other good way to practice output effectively, I’d love to hear about it.

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#2

FWIW I dont think its a mistake to put output a little later. (assuming you were already doing some formulaic writing as part of studying minna no nihongo).
There are two camps of thought on when to start speaking.
One is “start now.” This method is good for some people, I think.
Another is “start at the higher beginner/ lower intermediate stage.” This was more me.

Both sides have merits and drawbacks.

In terms of practicing output at where you are now, I think it’s better to use an app like Hellotalk rather than AI tools. That’s scary for some people, but learning to do output with real people at this stage is much better for your language development and motivation. Further, it will help you break the barrier and get more comfortable using the language in real situations than AI tools will.

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#3

Yeah, there’s no doubt that recognition and production are related, but different muscles.

In my experience, vocab acquisition tends to follow the natural pattern:
rote memorization (from textbook, flashcards, etc) → start noticing the word in context (conversation, immersion, etc) → begin to use the word myself.

I think it’s just a natural progression and the fact that you’ve been super consistent will bring you the win if you stick with it.

Shadowing can be a great stepping stone between recognition and production. Plus it will help you start building muscle memory for speaking too.

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#4

If you have an ok PC, an easy and free way to get some practice is to download VRChat on Steam and just talk to Japanese people. There are servers where Japanese folks go to practice English, and vice-versa. I’d recommend using those instead of trying to just jump into JP-only servers until you’re a bit more comfortable with output (there will be a lot more JP natives listening to you than the learning servers, so might be more intimidating while you’re thinking of responses.)

The great thing about VRChat is you can literally hop on whenever you have time, chat for a few minutes while having a coffee or something, or you can spend longer and just chat away.

This is my recommendation for people not living in Japan, over using a tutor at the start. Even if you make grammatical errors (you will), its better to get that conversational fluency before stressing about trying to speak “correctly” imo, as someone who waited until I felt “confident” before starting to speak, I feel like it was super frustrating to have better grammar/vocab understanding than some of the people around me but still not being able to really talk. If I could redo it, I’d have focused less on stressing correctness at the start and just gotten comfortable talking at all.

Ultimately, starting production will never feel like a good time. No matter when you start, you’ll struggle anyway.

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#5

It’s not really a problem to have neglected output so far, you learned other things so far and those will prove very helpful. Having a nice base of passive (input) vocab and grammar already is a great start! But output is a different “muscle” of the brain you haven’t trained at all so far, so of course you’re not good at that, noone would be.

With a nice passive base though, all you have to do right now is to start. The beginning will be a bit rough (absolutely normal) but it will become easier with time.

Personally, I recommend textbook exercises that focus on writing sentences yourself, like those that give you a few words, a grammar point and an example. Genki has a lot of them and chances are high to find genki in your local library or online library. Lookin up words you already learned jp → en is not a failure, it’s part if the learning process. And after a while, you’ll notice you need to look up less words.

Speaking is also a very different skill, but when you’re still struggling with writing, reading sentences out loud and repeating shorter sentences from memory is a nice start. Genki also comes with easy dialog exercises that you could try.

In the end, language learning is a process, where you have to learn the same thing from different perspectives over and over again. If you focus on all aspects from the start or focus on one aspect neglecting the others and shift your focus later doesn’t make too big of a difference.

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#6

It’s intimidating to talk to people off the bat, but the VR chat is a good suggestion I think. (Though not my cuppa tea-) I actually used Rosetta stone to really kick off my speaking ability, just to get a basic feel for the language and only did like 3 units before I stopped using it. I’d recommend giving it a try, i think they have 1 month memberships through the app and stuff- give it a go if you need practice just starting to speak the language, it really does snowball till you hit the intermediate wall.

#7

For writing, I use the Slowly app to exchange letters with japanese people, and journaly.
I have found journaly more useful than HelloTalk. I tried that app for a long time before, and I barely got any good interaction. It was usually people flirting, or my posts would just get buried under hundreds of VIP posts.
So what I do now is read, I write a summary of what I read, and then post it on journaly and wait for corrections.