Hi all,
Been studying Japanese technically for almost 5 years, but have really been hitting it hard in the past 1.5 years. I totally reset my WK 1.5 years ago, have been doing a weekly speaking/listening lessons with a teacher for about a year, Bunpro for grammar stuff. Started reading some grade-school books, trying to do more casual listening practice when I can (podcasts during my drive to work, etc).
I definitely recognize how far I’ve come, but want to look for more ways to get a little better everyday. Unsure what else I can do, other than just have more self-discipline.
Advice is appreciated!
(I assume you have already explored stuff like podcasts, news, youtubes, etc.) I’ll just share what worked for me, for whatever it’s worth.
For me the thing that moved the needle most was output — though I guess it depends how far you’re trying to take it.
What I ended up doing was trying to say everything in my head in Japanese. Whatever was going on — some feeling, complaining about my boss, something I’d just done, whatever was on my mind — I’d stop and think, “okay, how would I actually say this in Japanese?” It kind of fed itself after a while: every time I couldn’t say something, it bugged me enough that I’d go look it up or ask someone.
At first I got stuck constantly, and I’d just patch it with words I already knew, even when I was pretty sure it wasn’t natural or right. But I’d find the better way later and jot it down, and that’s what slowly made the difference for me — those little notes really added up.
I never did it out loud or to anyone, either — mostly just in a notebook, and sometimes narrating my day to myself in the shower. Never took long, maybe 5–15 minutes. Honestly it was just that constant little reach for “how do I say this” that kept pulling me forward.
Not a bad idea, I def have tried this before, maybe just need to do it more often. My only fear is not having any feedback to correct anything that sounds wrong/rough 
What’s your goal with the language? Is there something you want to be able to read, like novels? Do you like video games or anime? It’ll help to decide what your next steps should be if you have a goal for something you want to do with the language.
Not even sure at this point! I get asked that a lot by Japanese friends. I enjoy learning the language and building a skill, it’s mainly a hobby I guess.
I do enjoy traveling in Japan a lot, so perhaps something along those lines - Know how to properly speak the language, express full thoughts to the people who show me hospitality.
In a perfect world, I go work at some EE company in Japan and love there, but that’s really stretching it.
Well, in that case I’d just keep progressing your skills and see if you start discovering what kind of Japanese stuff is exciting for you.
For reading, there’s Satori Reader if you haven’t looked into that yet. Here’s a thread on the forums discussing the resource.
We also have a lot of book clubs of all levels on the forums, those are good for finding new books and manga to read. If you want to get started with novels, there’s the Children’s Novel Club and the Intermediate Book Club.
There’s also learnnatively.com for finding books of different levels. If you check out the ‘lists’ page there, the list ‘Entry Level Novels for Adults’ is a good one for getting into reading as well.
For listening, keep working on listening to podcasts. List of podcasts here. You can also start branching into watching stuff on Japanese YouTube but that depends on your interests. Just search stuff you like in Japanese and start exploring.
If you want to get started writing in Japanese, there’s LangCorrect.
Hope that helps!
One great tool available these days would be Gen AI. They can help you sound more naturally.