Resource to express yourself

[Windgreen]

@Windgreen

This guide to learning to speak Japanese poses an interesting idea:

Speaking Japanese is similar to playing a sport, especially for the process of being a good player and speaker. There are only three factors; Knowledge , Practice , and Experience . Suppose that people have read several how-to books on basketball and know the rules and the theories behind them, do you think they could sink a shot on the first try? Suppose that a basketball team has practiced shooting a lot, but has never experienced actually playing real games, do you think they could win their first one? This is applicable for languages as well.

	Knowledge	Practice	Experience
Basketball	Rule, Theory	Shooting, Passing, etc.	Participation in games
Japanese	Writing System, Vocabulary, Grammar	Pronunciation Practice, Read-Aloud Method, Instantaneous Composition Method	Interactions with native speakers, Intensive and Extensive reading

I see these practice techniques as nice, free or low-cost exercises you can use on your own. Of course they are not the same thing as having direct experiences with native speakers (having a conversation with them, or having them read and correct a text you wrote), but they are still useful.

They might seem silly, but I do see a point, especially with the read-aloud method. Musicians and athletes often talk about muscle memory, and I believe the same idea also applies to language learning, especially when learning to speak a language with a different set of sounds or sense of rhythm. In this case, using a combination of native text + corresponding audio to practice reading aloud and shadowing could be helpful.