Tips on listening and speaking

Japanese Language
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Hey everyone, I hope you’re all doing well!

I’m dealing with a bit of a difficult situation in my Japanese studies and was hoping for some advice.

I finished the complete Japanese From Zero series, checked which grammar points were still missing compared to other textbooks, and recently started studying with Quartet textbook. However, I’ve started to notice a problem, listening and speaking feel much harder for me than reading and writing.

For listening, I can understand about 95% of a YouTube podcast or listening practice video (targeted up to N3) when Japanese subtitles are available. But without subtitles, especially with podcasts that have no visuals ,I still find it very difficult to follow what is being said.

Speaking is also difficult. When I read or write Japanese, I usually say the sentences out loud when I’m at home, but speaking spontaneously is much harder. On the other hand, my reading and writing have improved a lot. Even though they’re not always perfect, I can usually express myself clearly that way.

Do you have any advice on how I can work on these problems? Is it mainly a matter of listening more and improving over time, or is there something more specific I should be doing?

Also, I’m planning to go to Japan for about five months in 2027 (I went last year as well), so I’d really like to improve as much as possible before then.

Thank you in advance!

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I think it’s mostly a function of volume. Even If you don’t understand everything also try to conciously listen to stuff without the subtitles. Understanding what the other party is saying is the first step in any conversation.

The same can be said about speaking, the best practice is speaking.

A thing you can do is get a language partner, or If you have the money, book online lessons for speaking practice. Other than that, you can try shadowing to unlock common speaking patterns that can be used in conversation. If your mouth is so used to saying certain phrases that you don’t have to think about them while speaking it totally helps.

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It’s going to be difficult to speak without being able to understand what’s being said to you, so I would personally prioritize listening until you get to a point where you feel comfortable with everyday speech without subtitles.

I watched a lot of learner focused YouTube in the past, but not with subs. My suggestion would actually be to go down in video difficulty but turn off subs for them. In order to understand a conversation you’re going to have to train your ear to hear the words that you already know how to read. Subs aren’t going to build that skill, and are potentially even slowing that progress.

Shadowing in the meantime is probably a good idea (I can’t speak to it myself because I’m always too lazy :sweat_smile: it does seem to be helpful though). A teacher could also be helpful, if you have the money to pay for lessons, but make sure that you get a teacher who is spending most of the time speaking Japanese. If you’re speaking in any other language for a significant amount of time in the lesson, it’s not a productive use of your time (or money) for this problem.

Good luck! Like downtimes said, it’s really a volume thing so more listening, of any type, will help you. This is just what I can recommend to specifically target what you’re having difficulty with.

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