On a scale of 1 to 10, how valuable do you feel an immersive area in the forums world be (10 being super valuable, and 1 being of no value to the community). This area would be meant for users to predominantly use Japanese to practice/communicate.
0 voters
Please express opinions below about why/why not, how to set up the guidelines, etc.
All opinions welcome — hopefully we can all respect others perspectives regardless of how different they might be.
I’m a bit conflicted on it, honestly. On one hand, I wanted to vote a low score because I think it has the potential to reinforce bad habits with no corrections, but on the other hand, I wanted to vote high because practice is helpful, and I’m sure people will try to correct each other whenever possible.
I voted just above the midway point (at 6) because I believe it would also provide value in being something fun for the community.
It will be mostly dead zone and will divid community.
There is whole Japanese internet to write in Japanese. Granted: people there will be not impressed with your Japanese but who cares? Do they own the language?
And having pseudo japanese forum here will discourage people from immersion. It is better to just go and use the language - even in unperfected way - than keep on practising it forever. You are clearly at the stage that with some initial hardship you should be able to be part of some friendly forum in Japanese which is on subject that made you interested in the language in the first place.
Japanese people are not crazy. They will not kill you for mistakes. 
I am even sure other people here will help you find that forum.
But every time I hear “日本語、上手！” I feel like they just stabbed me and fed my corpse to their dog wtf.
Means hands up? are they arresting people for poor japanese? 
Nah, it means your craftsmanship is of upper quality.
…
How I will reply to you taking this seriously?
These two videos should give you context (both are 30 seconds):
Both has been seen before…
Joke, mate, that was a joke 
Maybe not the best one in my life but don’t make it so obvious to everybody please 
Sht, ur not as dumb as I thought, so I should have assumed you knew 上手
(just poking fun)
omg it’s a surname 
I would love to be called Jouzu.
It is completely different word ばか. Have you heard about pitch accent? xD
BTW, you can easily add pitch accent on YomiChan. Take a look at this:
This is something you can do with absolutely no extra effort to start getting familiar with word-level pitch accent patterns.
The only concern I might have over such a forum would be if important topics/discussions took place there that would only be readable in Japanese. I.e. they would be inaccessible to beginners and even many intermediate learners.
I like how you post ‘rough English’ in a spoiler-section, though. If that was how people used an immersion forum, then that would counter my objection.
Or, if the policy was not to talk about anything important (i.e. stuff related to BunPro itself, or learning Japanese in a general sense, and grammar in particular).
Or if the new forum also came with some sort of auto-translation thing that would allow beginners to read it with a rough auto-translation. (Geez, it’s like we’re almost living in Star Trek times with the possibility of ‘universal translation’! 
)
If you are familiar with the WK forum, they have a beginner and advanced; one with some english to help confirm intent and another just Japanese only. However, both are moderated by a Japanese native and the idea is to have a practice space with a feedback loop on a given topic. There isn’t anything divisive about this, just a different place in the forum and an excuse to produce some Japanese.
For BP, experienced users can help but there is no match for a native and there is always the room for bad advice or even not the most elegant of recommendations. So it would really be up to BP if they have the resources for someone to moderate and it’s really a favor to service the community (takes time to edit and correct so should be respected). Even WK staff, they don’t always check these forums regularly.
As for just randomly talking with natives on the internet, don’t expect much interaction if your basics are off or just free advice. My best advice would be integrate writing with italki lessons or an exchange partner you can help each other with. Or just get a WK sign in, it’s free. But if BP has a JP only section, I would engage but it’s best with a feedback loop.
Jouzu Joestar! I can see it now!
I think this is just initial hardship ones has to accept. And you don’t really need people correcting you all the time (it even bad thing since it will for sure discourage you from making attempts) since the fact somebody can’t get what you just tried to say is strong enough indicator that something is off.
You guys all speak english and has been to countries with English as main language so you know this. There is a lot of people just starting with really really poor english or with no English at all and they are making huge progress just by trying to communicate. Sure thing: they will not master the language without some extra work at home to add structure to what they say, but for sure will improve over time.
I was that guy on forums trying to write with early versions of google translator and my wild imagination how english should look like, and in no time I was able to just speak what I want to. In no time Polish disappear from my mind when I write or speak English.
Have there been rude people? yes, most of them at first. But who cares? A few polite ones was enough to start.
Japanese people can’t be more rude than people from US. I will not believe that.
These are all great points and I commend your English journey! I agree, I do believe it’s much better to be brave and make mistakes rather than have fear of imperfections and never communicate. Personally, I’ve gotten some cold responses online but then again many have been responsive too. Actually, interacting with people is more of a motivator than anything else, I’ve since have made some lifetime friendships and has made the language journey much more fulfilling.
It makes the language personal, isn’t it? It is not anymore just “subject of study”, but something real on emotional level. And I believe it is important part of the process.
I want to be able to do it now, can’t wait 
And actually having somebody saying I am stupid because I have some silly theory about what will happen next in Naruto and pointing to me why I am moron, was one of my most happy experiences with English. Somebody understood my point! That’s a great feeling and I couldn’t care less that he was quite offensive over manga theory xD
