I have the following problem:
When it comes to listening comprehension, I am relatively happy with my progress. Since I’ve been watching anime and dramas in Japanese for over 10 years now, I’ve already built up a certain level of comprehension.
What I always have trouble with is speaking myself. For example, when I listen to a conversation or podcast, I understand quite a bit, but would have a hard time speaking myself.
How do you practice this? Do you have any specific tips or tool recommendations?
You could try Instantaneous Composition Method, which is a method of hearing a simple sentence in English, thinking what the equivalent would be in Japanese, saying it out loud, then repeating back the Japanese used in the lesson’s audio file. The idea is that through repetition, the time it takes for you to think of the Japanese and say it out loud becomes instantaneous.
There’s an article with a more detailed write-up as well as links to audio files used to practice.
here’s also a YouTube video with another chance to practice
Another approach would be to start narrating your day in Japanese. Think and/or say quietly to yourself what you’re doing at the moment you’re doing it as you go about your day. This gives you a chance to practice speaking Japanese as well as recall words you know.
I didn’t start really improving in this area until I started regular one-on-one tutoring with a native Japanese speaker on italki. It’s one thing to try to answer questions or form sentences on your own, but it’s a totally different experience to have someone try to help you out when you get stuck in real time, or ask you simple/guiding questions when what you’re saying doesn’t make sense.
It was scary and embarrassing at first (and it’s expensive! for me anyway), but the experience has been worth it. Even now it feels like all of the vocabulary I know when I’m reading or listening is hovering just beyond my reach when I’m speaking, but after trying all sorts of tools and programs on my own, actual human interaction has been the only thing that really seems to have helped me improve.
Do you know where I could find anymore Instantaneous Composition resources, like books or other YouTube channels? I liked that video, but I’m struggling to find any more like it.
for YouTube channels, I haven’t found anything exactly like that (the video I shared was also new, so remains to be seen if the creator does more in that style), but here are some recommendations for similar types of practice:
Let’s speak Japanese with Yuki - teaches a grammar point and has opportunities to practice using it in roleplay scenarios in the video
Resurrecting this thread to say THANK YOU for posting these resources, especially the Wasabi site. I’ve been worrying about my lack of improvised verbal output practice, but was finding it difficult to start because I didn’t want to think up a bunch of scenarios which would probably require a ton of vocab I don’t already know (which wouldn’t be a problem except I’m already maxing out my brain’s capacity for new things every day.) It was making it difficult to make grammar points stick! Use 'em or lose 'em, y’know?
This completely removes the initial hurdle and makes everything bite-sized so I’m not overwhelmed or distracted by another short-coming. Thank you so much!
You’re a lot farther ahead of me in fluency, so I don’t know if this will be helpful, but I use a youtube channel called mikurealjapanese, and she incorporates a lot of talking into her practice. She also has a Kajabi podcast will even more speaking practice. Of course, just shadowing a book or podcast is suppose to really help with speaking.
I use RocketLanguage.com. They have spoken conversations with each lesson so you can practice. You can repeat and listen to your recording of the conversation. I was recently astonished to realize that I was able to make up independent sentences of my own, more than I had ever inagined being able to do. These conversations really help you to start thinking and using various vocabulary and grammar points on your own.
My method was to walk around and listen to short podcasts for beginners: Sakuratips with Mari and Nihongo con Teppei for beginners. After an episode (they are only about 3 - 5 minutes long) I would then try to imitate the style of the speaker by speaking freely about the same topic. Today’s theme is all about bread. Minna san, do you like bread? I’m from New York, which is famous for bagels. Now, when I take long bike rides I spontaneously talk to myself about all sorts of topics in Japanese. Occasionally I record them, and sometimes I leave voice messages for my language exchange partners.
I had the same issue with speaking when I was learning Japanese. What helped me was shadowing—find a short video or podcast, and try to mimic it right after you hear it. It really helps with getting the rhythm and pronunciation down. Also, chatting with native speakers made a huge difference for me. I used apps like Tandem and HelloTalk to find conversation partners. Recording myself and listening back was eye-opening too.
I relate to this. My comprehension of natives is a different level than my actual speaking. I was wondering, even if I haven’t formally learned N5 or N4 grammar but kind of understand the grammar points through context, would it be a good idea to sit down and study N3 grammar and commit it to memory? because i heard somewhere that once you learn N3 grammar you can essentially express almost anything you want to say, and i think my main issue is forming structured sentences
Best of luck on your continued learning journey. がんばって!