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Speaking Mastery is a Long Drawn Out Battle — 6 Comments

  1. Agree agree agree. I’m still trying work on talking to objects. Still strange for me to do even though I’m by myself in my room.

    • You’ll get used to it. You might even start doing it in public. I’m sure you’ve seen a number of オバハン that talk to themselves!

  2. I talk to my dog in Japanese all the time. She always gives me a confused face haha. I always beat myself up for always sticking to simple sentences and not branching off, but now I feel good knowing I was doing the right thing all along. ^^ I will work harder on my inner monologue.

    • Maybe your dog will start learning Japanese from listening to you all the time. Don’t beat yourself up anymore. You are doing the best thing you possibly can for your Japanese.

  3. “The more your other skills improve, the worse your speaking ability feels to you.”

    This is exactly what I’ve been experiencing! Just as my reading and writing have been increasing, I felt like my speaking had gotten worse. When really, it was just that reading and writing were finally getting better.

    Another tip: Repeat what you listen to (it’s like reading aloud a book), and listen to the same material often (to catch things you didn’t catch before).

    This has really been working for me during my commutes. This semester, I more than doubled my listening material for my commutes and listen to them constantly. Suddenly, I’ve been speaking a lot more in class, with my husband and in internal monologue. Unlike a book, it also teaches you natural rhythm and other qualities that don’t come out in a written language.

    Another reason my speaking has been improving is because I’ve been Skyping with my mother-in-law every Friday, and my husband and I speak Japanese in the car. I also have a Japanese-only Japanese class three times a week (amounts to 50 min per class).

  4. I’ve noticed that with my English speaking as well. I tend to mix up the syntax a lot whilst speaking English. And I’ve been studying English for 10 or so years (only passivle through immersion in recent years) and I’m still terrible at speaking English.

    In short, I am fairly aware that speaking another language is difficult when your not in an environment where you can constantly practice speaking it.

    My only Japanese speaking practice is reading anki cards aloud, and I listen to an FM Tachikawa online stream at least for a few hours every other day.

    Some friends of mine are planning to go to Japan for a week or two next summer, so I’ll join if I can afford it.

    /incoherent rant

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