Welcome to the “Speak/Write Every Single Day” Challenge! 
Speaking is probably my weakest skill when it comes to Japanese. This is a combination of not using it nearly as much as my other skills plus the fact that, for whatever reason, it is extremely intimidating for me to practice. I suspect I’m not alone in feeling this way.
Compared to the Reading or Listening Every Day challenges (started/continued by @Redglare, @windupbird [reading] and @KJules [listening]) I think trying to have a speaking, or even writing, challenge is a tougher sell. Plus, if you wanted to participate in all three, well, that’s a lot to have on your plate. 
Since both the reading and listening challenges last for two months (in this case, during October and November), this challenge will be for 31 days, running in December (during those challenges’ “off-season”).
The goal of this challenge is to get you out of your comfort zone in a positive and encouraging environment and put all of the vocab and grammar you’ve learned to use. There’s all sorts of ways you can go about participating:
Wanna try speaking for all 31 days? Go for it!
Itching to improve your writing skills? Awesome!
Dying to practice both skills at the same time or interchangeably? You do you!
Take a class/meet with a tutor and want that to count towards your goal? Excellent!
Just want to use this challenge to practice your pronunciation or handwriting? Cool!
You can talk or write about anything you like: your day, a book you’re reading, a show you’re watching, your cat, your neighbor’s cat, a story about a tanuki that you made up, or simply practice using new vocabulary. The sky’s the limit!
You can speak or write as much or as little as you desire (though maybe don’t go too overboard with it). Most of the recording tools listed below also have upper limits (5-10 minutes, depending), so there’s zero pressure to speak for any longer than that. You’re also free to adjust the challenge to your own needs: if you want to try speaking on-the-spot, that’s fantastic, but even if you’d prefer writing out what you want to say and then recording it, that’s great, too.
To quote KJules quoting windupbird quoting Redglare (that’s a lot of quoting):
This is a thread for people who:
want to spend more time speaking/writing
want to improve their output abilities
want to hold themselves accountable and have a place to document their progress
simply want to join in on the challenge!
Time Frame: December 1st to December 31st
Late comers are always welcome! 
Click for windupbird's amazing calendar template for tracking your progress!
To use, reply to this post, click the “quote whole post” button (little speech bubble), and copy/paste the part below into your post:
| 12月 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 月 | 火 | 水 | 木 | 金 | 土 | 日 |
| 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | |||
| 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
Click here for a link to a prompt generator, courtesy of potatonaught!
Recording Tools (for those who want to share their speaking practice):
Vocaroo (can share via link / download recording)
Reverb (can share via link)
Voice Spice (can share via link)
Online Voice Recorder (can download recording)
TwistedWave (can download recording)
For download-only tools, you can upload your recordings to a file sharing service and link to them using that, if you so wish. If there are other tools you’d like to share with everyone, let me know and I’ll add them to the list!
There is no pressure to share a recording. Do so only if you feel comfortable. If all you want to do is post a calendar to track your own private speaking/writing practice, that’s 100% okay. What matters most is that you try your best at whatever goal you set for yourself during this challenge.
- Yes
- Yes, but I might start late
- Not sure
- No
0 voters
My goal is just the basic “get as many check marks as I can” one. Last challenge I managed to do an even number of days for writing and speaking. It’d be kind of cool to achieve that again this time around, though I’d frankly prefer to have more days speaking. We shall see.
Fixed now. Sorry also for kind of posting this thread last-minute. Life’s been a lot this past month.)
日記
Credit to my coworker who found it originally and we used it during a portion of our company retreat last year.
writing prompt
