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When Should you Start Conversation Practice? — 6 Comments

  1. What motivates you to state Jalup Advanced as a measure of Intermediacy? I only ask because I spent some time contemplating whether or not I was truly intermediate today and realized I haven’t even reached the 8 month mark yet which World 1’s “What Level are You” states as the approximate time required to reach Intermediate. It won’t be until 9 and a half months that I complete Jalup Advanced. Do you cite Jalup Advanced as a good bench mark for intermediate because by this time one has 3000 sentences under their belt and then have the vocabulary of an intermediate learner…

    Onto the topic of the article, I have had to begin conversation in class, little bits at a time coincidently conforming to the guidelines in this article. I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad about speaking bad Japanese at this level if I don’t speak it enough to crystallize any bad habits. I had been wondering when to start conversation and whether or not it was a good idea to wait until I visit Japan this summer for 3 months. A lot of what I have read on this site has eased my concerns about not conversing in Japanese until this point and made me feel that it was actually a good thing to refrain from conversation.

    I think after completing the Jalup series before Japan and starting on Manan’s deck during my Japan trip while practicing conversation seems like a good plan and a good way to propel me to the proficiency mile marker which I assume is only truly accomplished if one is also proficient in conversation… I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this. Well, anywho, Cheers!

    • Please excuse the direct nature of my comment, I realize now that it may sound a little confrontational if that makes sense. I don’t want to sound perturbed or anything, so I apologize in advance for my tone.

    • Sorry if the wording was kind of confusing (I just changed it slightly). It’s really just an estimate, and I was basing it because I know a lot of people start heavily getting into conversation practice around Advanced. There is no requirement though, and people should start when they feel they’ve cemented down a good amount of Japanese.

      Of course this is just observation and opinion. As I mentioned above, people are split up into the two groups above, and while I prefer a combination of both, people have done just fine with group 1.

  2. In my non-professional opinion, you should start conversation practice when you want to do it. I know some people want to dive into it immediately, which is awesome, and then for others they take their time as it isn’t a priority (me). As long as you’re not forcing yourself to the point that you resent or get bored of it.

    Also, maybe there’s an introvert/extrovert split on this? I could see extroverted people want to start speaking way earlier than introverts would. A huge generalization but I wouldn’t be surprised.

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