Short version: Girl who overcame social anxiety wants to /speak/ Japanese now but overwhelmed. [Warning: Over-dramatic.]

I was hoping to get advice on my "midlife Japanese crisis". I've been self-learning Japanese for 5 years, but my level is not impressive. I passed the JLPT level N4 in 2013. (I live in a Wisconsin town with no Japanese natives or classes. I go to Illinois for the JLPT.) The first couple years, I used to study 6 hours a day and wrote on Lang-8 (I feel that output helps you sort out grammar rules and remember vocab).

But lately, I can barely focus on studying and give up quickly due to guilt. I feel like I'm living a lie. I have never once in my entire studying career /spoken/ Japanese to a Japanese person (typing on the computer doesn't count). I feel like a chump who can't even say they have a Japanese Skype-pal. I feel like, "Wow, you're getting to the 5 year mark. When exactly are you gonna, y'know, SPEAK Japanese? 10 years from now?"

I like to look up opinions on the best way to learn Japanese. It seems that most of the time, people who have a high level of speaking Japanese have, well... /spoken/ Japanese. (Worked at a job with Japanese coworkers, moved to Japan, go to school with Japanese people, Skype a lot...) I want to pass N3, but I don't think it's possible to pass N3 with no conversation practice.

What's holding me back: From junior high through life after college, I had crippling social anxiety. I felt like my presence was a burden, I couldn't make eye-contact, mumbled, cried to "emotional prepare" myself before I had to make a phone call, and could not even go shopping. (I worried "What does it look like inside? What do I do when I go in there?" and would return home after crying in the car instead.) It was painful doing these things that didn't make sense. After working hard to change my life, I consider myself normal, can talk on the phone, joke and laugh and smile with people, and can go places without being afraid. I taught myself how to ask open questions and now I'm quite the jabber-jaw.

But I don't have courage when it come to speaking Japanese. In September, I joined a Google+ Hangout group with about 6 other English speakers who take turns reading in Japanese and explaining the grammar/vocab for 1 hour once a week. The first session, I was so nervous that my heart felt like it was gonna bust out of my throat, I felt sweaty, and my hands shook for /50 minutes/! I wanted to run screaming out of the room and thought, “What did I get myself into?!” I know other people get stage fright, but mine is clearly not average. (Even though I was terrified, it was honestly so much fun! The time flew by. I would take a deep breath when it was my turn to read and not let my fear be known. My sister was in the room while I talked and said I seemed completely normal and read my parts properly, it sounded speed-wise like how I speak in English.) This week's session, I just had the butterflies for about 5 minutes. The group leader said I did a good job and I feel comfortable with the other members.

This is good, it's progress. But I'm afraid of the unknown related to speaking one-on-one with a Japanese person rather than fellow English speakers. I don't know how to find a good partner, how to take turns switching between English and Japanese, what to do if you can't understand your partner, what do I do if I can't describe what I want to say, and how to decide what to even talk about. (Basically, I keep worrying and imagining some worse-case scenarios and am probably blowing things out of proportion.)

Has anyone been in the same boat as me for dealing with embarrassment/fear? I am looking for some advice, tools (like websites for meeting people), or strategies (like a lesson plan or checklist) on having a productive English-Japanese conversation. Or maybe someone can recommend group chats if they exist? I just need re-assurance, I guess. Sorry for rambling. I don't know anyone else who speaks Japanese that I can ask.

Keep writing on lang-8.com. Write in a casual conversational style.

Having Japanese conversation partners is overrated, but nice to have.
I get by watching anime or dramas with Japanese subtitles and studying kanji or grammar.

As for studying, maybe study RTK1 for kanji and "Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication" for grammar. For Japanese websites, you can use Rikaichan (Firefox) or Rikaikun (Chrome).

I don't know what to say about your fear of Japanese.
Do your best to change and stop being a wuss.
That's what I tell myself sometimes.
Sometimes you have to fight your fears head on instead of running away from them.

You really don't need a lesson plan, checklist, conversation partner or any of that.
And certainly don't wait around for any of that to happen.

There are plenty of resources in these forums.

Hi Haley, Welcome.

Can I ask what your main reason for learning Japanese is? The reason that I ask is that it sounds like you may never have the need to speak with Japanese people. It seems like you have a belief that speaking Japanese will improve your Japanese. While speaking should improve your SPOKEN Japanese, there are probably better things you can do to improve your reading and listening comprehension. Are you planning on traveling to Japan? Or do are you most interested in reading Japanese literature or watching Japanese movies? It sounds like this is causing you a great amount of stress, if it's not part of your end goals, speaking is not something that's required to be good at listening or reading. Or maybe speaking Japanese is part of overcoming your anxiety...? I can respect that.

It sounds like you problem is not a problem with Japanese, but a social problem. There are some pretty smart people here so someone may have some good advice for your anxiety. I'm not one of the smart ones an am not so good in social situations so I don't have much advice for you there. Although I'm sure you know that the worse case of speaking to someone over skype is unlikely to be too bad. The worst case is probably that you find the one in a thousand person who is a jerk and you can hang up on them if they are rude to you. But overall most people are very encouraging, especially language learners who are probably a little self conscious about their language skills. Have you tried italki? Perhaps you could set up a very low stakes lesson or language exchange where you read something for a few minutes and they give you pointers on your pronunciation. Start out small and work your way to larger challenges as you feel comfortable.

haley_usa Wrote:Has anyone been in the same boat as me for dealing with embarrassment/fear? I am looking for some advice, tools (like websites for meeting people), or strategies (like a lesson plan or checklist) on having a productive English-Japanese conversation. Or maybe someone can recommend group chats if they exist? I just need re-assurance, I guess. Sorry for rambling. I don't know anyone else who speaks Japanese that I can ask.

I had typed a long reply about overcoming social anxiety but realized you already said you had done that.

Thing is, what you are describing about getting courage to speak? That is still social anxiety and I think you need to look at how you conquered your social anxiety in the past and apply it to your current situation. Honestly, I think you already doing that with the Google+ group. Putting yourself in uncomfortable situations and overcoming them is the key to beating the anxiety and it will get better. It's all about small steps.

I wouldn't call these tips but these are things that I found made my speaking better and just improved my Japanese all around. They also prevented moments that caused anxiety because I felt conversations moved better instead of being very stop-and-go.

* Learn to rephrase things. If you can't explain something in a complicated one-liner, then don't. Use simpler grammar, describe the thing you don't know the word for and ask what it is in Japanese.

* Improve your vocabulary. Do the core6k if you can stand it. Once you have basic grammar down, then the thing that will hold you back the most is vocabulary. You won't know what people are saying and you won't have the words to use. The more words you know then the more options to rephrase things you have as well. I would prioritize this over learning grammar, IMO.

* Don't be afraid to say "I don't know/understand."

* Not really a tip, but don't setup checklists or plan stuff for a conversation. Unless its a lesson and you are teaching your partner English or something, checklists are a good way to drive up the anxiety. It's fine if you want to note down a few things you want to say (ie: conversation openers), maybe even practice them, but conversations aren't scripted, and you'll probably just drive your nerves up even more if the conversation unexpectedly runs off course of what you had planned out.

So those are my tips. I know first hand how rough it can be talking to people in general as I too fought with strong social anxiety when I was younger. I did a lot to overcome it but the thing that really helped was going to Japan. I had many of the same problems you talk about, about being embarrassed or worried about speaking Japanese to people. But you just have to do it if you want to get better, and it gets easier as you go on. Keep at it!

Speak Japanese out loud to yourself everyday as often as you can throughout the course of the day. This is an exercise in becoming use to and familiar with your own voice speaking Japanese.

Develop the habit of speaking Japanese out loud to yourself and maybe you'll feel more likely to engage others in a conversation when you've become comfortable speaking the language out loud on your own.

It might sound silly, but give it a whirl. It's free, too, so you won't have anything to lose.

First of all, you don't need to have any conversations at all to have any level imaginable of Japanese comprehension or writing ability. I passed the N2 and expect to pass the N1, and have never had a face-to-face conversation and only a couple of awkward Skype conversations with Japanese pen-pals who's English was as bad as my Japanese was then.

Of course you need to have conversations to develop speaking ability, and of course using all aspects of the language reinforces other aspects so you'd probably advance -faster- if you converse, write, read, and listen. Being a better learning method doesn't make it a -requirement-; I'd love to have conversations with Japanese people ... but only if they were interesting conversations about interesting topics. I just can't drag myself through 'learning' conversations about mundane things. I'd rather just go read a light novel or watch some anime. But there's the thing - I -can- read light novels and watch raw anime without having had those conversations. I still want to improve my Japanese because there's still things I can't understand and have to either miss out on or take the time to look up... but I didn't need conversations to enjoy Japanese, and I don't feel there's anything false about my Japanese knowledge - it's just that speaking is naturally my weakest skill.

However, many people really want to be conversant in general or specifically think that communicating with people from another culture directly is the most interesting thing about a foreign language. If for whatever reason you want to be conversant, talk about how you'd like to find a skype conversation partner in a lang-8 entry and you might get offers; or you can go to other language exchange web sites and easily find someone to practice with (I don't remember the sites I've found people through and don't have one to recommend, but googling around on 'language exchange' should turn up something.)

Don't worry, I passed N1 and I only really started focusing on speaking fairly recently.

There's a really great video about this, though it's in Japanese:

The same person also made an English version, it seems:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=92S8QWY_X5I

Here are some things which helped me:

If you are better at writing than speaking you might want to try http://www.chatpad.jp first. It's like a text-only Chatroulette, without all the X-rated stuff.
It has the time pressure of speaking, without actually speaking. If your like me, the thought of going on a site like that might be frightening, but I eventually got over it and gave the site a try. In a way, it's about as low stakes a conversation as you can have. You'll likely never talk to that person again. I said aloud every line after typing it for practice. I knew someone who took a job as a tour guide for the summer & said that she had to talk to so many strangers that, after a while, she was never nervous about speaking with strangers again.
That is sort of like what Chatpad helped me do.

Practice using simple words to rephrase words you don't know e.g. Shark = "The big, fish-like animal which was in Jaws". Do you know the party game called Taboo? It's sort of like that. If fact, if there was a Japanese version of Taboo, I bet it would be great for language learners!
If you need practice, try putting your finger on a random word in a dictionary (or else any book) and try describing that word in Japanese, using only the words you know.

Try practicing some phrases for when you get stuck. Being nervous because you just went blank, or can't find a way to express something can leave your conversation partner wondering if they're making you uncomfortable. Practice explaining that you want to say something but can't find the words right now.

Good luck! Hopefully this helps!

Seems one must remove the 'www' from that chatpad link for it to work.

Thanks for the link btw. I learned a new word within seconds of clicking it: 股開きそう

haley_usa Wrote:This is good, it's progress. But I'm afraid of the unknown related to speaking one-on-one with a Japanese person rather than fellow English speakers. I don't know how to find a good partner, how to take turns switching between English and Japanese, what to do if you can't understand your partner, what do I do if I can't describe what I want to say, and how to decide what to even talk about. (Basically, I keep worrying and imagining some worse-case scenarios and am probably blowing things out of proportion.)

Has anyone been in the same boat as me for dealing with embarrassment/fear? I am looking for some advice, tools (like websites for meeting people), or strategies (like a lesson plan or checklist) on having a productive English-Japanese conversation. Or maybe someone can recommend group chats if they exist? I just need re-assurance, I guess. Sorry for rambling. I don't know anyone else who speaks Japanese that I can ask.

Please try to look at this from a realistic perspective. Ask yourself: what can possibly happen if the worst-case-scenario ends up being true? There may be some short-term embarrasment. The person may possibly not want to talk with you again. Is there something more I am missing?

These possibilities are pretty much meaningless as far as the big picture is concerned. Some Japanese person is upset with you? There's over a 100 million more to talk with. If you are afraid of letting people down in this world and failing you will not succeed in anything. However I can guarantee that over-time, you will impress just as many people if you just keep going at it. One person you will never have to meet again is a drop in the ocean.

The embarrasment "issue" is hardly an issue at all. Feelings come and go. What you will end up regretting later in life is not that you embarrassed yourself by trying your hardest and failing - but that you didn't even try in the first place! Please try to give these feelings the significance they deserve - so, hardly any.

Back when I was younger, I played a video game with many Japanese players. I couldn't speak Japanese at all at the time, and in reality my English skills were probably at the level of your Japanese skills today. I befriended a Japanese person who helped me through the obstacles in the game. However, one day he told me he never wanted to have anything to do with me again. I was quite upset. You know when a Japanese person tells you something of such caliber you have really screwed something up. I know now what I did wrong and I need to live with the consequences. But simply by going out there, I made many more friends, some being Japanese, and also managed to learn something from my mistake. If I was afraid of going out there, I wouldn't have upset this Japanese person for sure - but I also wouldn't have made many friends and do some impressive things. While unfortunate that I let him down, it's not like he and I have to ever meet again, nor that neither of us was deeply scarred by this incident. We were upset at the time, but it was not the end of the world.

Please keep in mind the temporary nature of failing at something. It is a vital tool to grow, and almost impossible to avoid if you want to succeed.

First world problem:''I have social anxiety and stuck in my
head I'm gonna learn a language I have no real need to use
whatsoever at any point in my life. Most likely I'm gonna live
and die in the US.Help me, my hobby took over me''

Just joking. You chose to learn japanese as a hobby just treat
it like what it is. Have fun being the hobbist that you are. Don't put any
pressure in yourself.

First thing, which I don't think anyone has actually mentioned yet: the JLPT doesn't require any speaking skills on any of the tests, though you do need enough understanding to know which of a group of words fits a sentence (multiple choice tests are nice...); basically, if you want to study for the JLPT, then find some word lists and grammar resources to prepare for the specific test beforehand.

However, as many have already mentioned, if you just want to improve your Japanese for reading or listening, then focus on vocab and grammar while doing extensive reading and/or listening. This will improve those abilities, though it may not work so well for preparing for the JLPT (I can read news articles, manga, and VNs, but I did terribly on the N2 practice questions, which is why I won't be taking the test this year).

If you want to work on conversation, I'd recommend finding a good forum about something you're interested in. If you can find such a board (and work yourself in), then you'll have the benefits of communicating with multiple people without the unneeded stress of live conversation. Multiple pen-pals would be good as well, so which ever you can find. After getting comfortable with that, you might try finding live conversation partners.
Of course, I barely talk to strangers in the real world and have few friends I contact regularly, so take that as you will.

I don't really recommend chat or IRC, but that's more of a personal thing, if you can use chats easily in English, then you should be fine.

While we don't have the benefit of native Japanese speakers correcting us constantly, the 日本語中級会話 thread could be helpful (and could greatly use some participation). I know for a fact that the thread isn't full of great Japanese, because my posts are there (if you need encouragement to just post something, look at my posts; no one has killed me for my poor Japanese... yet), but the more places you post, the easier it gets to try elsewhere (it works for me, at least).

[Zgarbas]

Last year, I spoke Japanese out loud for the first time. I mean, I had shadowed at home and our teacher made us repeat things in class every now and then, but I had never *talked* in the many years I'd been learning the language. For the record, that time involved having a native Japanese teacher for a semester, with whom I had only exchanged like one line (and that one was along the lines of "I'm sick; can I go home?"). I already had the N2, and was feeling confident in being able to take the N1 later that year. We had this Japanese person come to my college and since I had the highest level all the other colleagues were pretty much expecting me to do the talking so that we won't get scolded by our teacher afterwards. So I had to.
And it was awful.
The grammar was horrendous. I couldn't find the words. I would stumble on verb conjugations (having to actually pause and spell out words like 食・べ・ら・れ・る. I couldn't remember the set phrases. I wanted to say 申し訳ございません but the words sounded so unfamiliar on my tongue that it would come out like もうasodhasodhsぜん。My self-confidence was shattered. Like, completely. I later found out that in 2 months time I was to have an interview in japanese. Welp, time to learn how to speak.
I signed up for some online Japanese lessons on a site that I really recommend (http://www.japonin.com) and attended abut 40 classes in 2 months. At first it was painful. The content was alright so I just focused on talking and expressing myself in Japanese. I got gradually better. I was still pretty poor at the interview because it was face-to-face and I was really anxious but it was obvious that it was a nerves thing more than an inability to speak. Later I worked as an interpreter and did a pretty decent job, speaking wise. Once I got to Japan I just started speaking, and it's all good. I make *a lot* of basic mistakes, but no one really cares. I have friends in Japanese. I take classes in Japanese. It's all good.

I still have bad Japanese weeks, when even basic phrases are hard to come by (hell, I still have poor *English* weeks, and I still get depressed over my English level when objectively speaking I really have no reason to do so). The anxiety of it hasn't gone away. The fact that I have terrible social anxiety translates in my language skills a lot. I doubt that will change anytime soon. The other day I was at a mostly-foreigner party and when I looked to my left I suddenly saw a Japanese person and I got flustered and could barely blurt out a はじめまして。It happens. I get flustered if I have to talk to a British person these days because I'm afraid they'll judge my English, tbh. And I could never do 会話 or skype or IRL talks with people just for the sake of practicing my language skills for the same reasons you can't. That being said, you have to practice *somehow*. Just don't worry about it and sign up somewhere. I could force myself to talk during the lessons because the fact that I paid for it gave me the push that "I paid to be able to talk; it's ok if I take up class time", so maybe that could be a good place to start?

@Zgarbas Oh wow, if you get nervous speaking English around native speakers, and your English is so good that the first time I read a post by you I thought you were a native speaker until I saw that your location was, at the time, Romania, then maybe there's no hope for me overcoming my nervousness completely when speaking Japanese...I'm getting better, but I still have a while to go. I was hoping after getting lots of experience talking that I would stop getting nervous, but maybe that's not how it works.

Thank you everyone. I didn't expect to get so much advice, so I feel much better. There are too many people to reply to individually, so I will write a general reply to everyone and choose some quotes.

yogert909 Wrote:Can I ask what your main reason for learning Japanese is? The reason that I ask is that it sounds like you may never have the need to speak with Japanese people. It seems like you have a belief that speaking Japanese will improve your Japanese. While speaking should improve your SPOKEN Japanese, there are probably better things you can do to improve your reading and listening comprehension.

I do believe speaking Japanese will improve my overall Japanese.

My language skill breakdown:
Input (Understanding materials by other people) = Reading, listening
Output (You knowing how to sort out vocab/grammar and your words being understood by other people) = Writing, speaking
(Reading and writing are a pair, listening and speaking are a pair.)

I want to be able to speak and type in Japanese quickly like in English. I just can't be happy only being good at reading and writing while having worse-than-a-child's level of speaking. Basically, I want to type and speak well in Japanese because I enjoy talking to people online (even if it takes a lot of effort). ^^; I want to love /all/ of the Japanese language equally (speaking, reading, writing, and listening). I personally feel like a phony if I can't do one of the 4 things I listed above.

As for my personal reason for learning Japanese, I'm not quite sure. I want to understand the blogs of my favorite Japanese artists, and upload my own art to Pixiv with the description written in Japanese. I want to someday pass level N1 on the JLPT. I'm bored out of my mind by otome games and don't enjoy watching anime anymore, but I do like reading manga. My best friend is also learning Japanese (she refuses to type or speak in Japanese, though). I love, love, love singing along with Japanese songs and learning the song lyrics/translations (I do it for around an hour a day). Are these reasons good enough? They're kind of all over the place, and don't have a super clear goal, though. I admire j-vloggers and fancy the idea of making my own channel some day. *laugh*

vix86 Wrote:That is still social anxiety and I think you need to look at how you conquered your social anxiety in the past and apply it to your current situation. Honestly, I think you already doing that with the Google+ group. Putting yourself in uncomfortable situations and overcoming them is the key to beating the anxiety and it will get better. It's all about small steps.

It sounds stupid, but I didn't realize me feeling extremely nervous speaking Japanese but slowly getting used to it was the same as the good old exposure cure for social anxiety. All of your points were so, so helpful and eye-opening. Thank you.

Bokusenou Wrote:If you are better at writing than speaking you might want to try http://www.chatpad.jp first. It's like a text-only Chatroulette, without all the X-rated stuff.

(Yeah, chatpad.jp worked without the www. part.) I attempted ChatPad tonight. Surprisingly, I talked to the same guy for 50 minutes. My hands were shaking at first, but I surprised myself by being able to be understood. I only had to ask for clarification once. I will definitely keep using that site. (He ended up becoming creepy halfway through, but it made me laugh pretty hard.) I will take the advice of describing words I don't know how to say or using simple Japanese.

Betelgeuzah Wrote:These possibilities are pretty much meaningless as far as the big picture is concerned. Some Japanese person is upset with you? There's over a 100 million more to talk with. If you are afraid of letting people down in this world and failing you will not succeed in anything. However I can guarantee that over-time, you will impress just as many people if you just keep going at it. One person you will never have to meet again is a drop in the ocean.

You are right. That lessens the pressure. For your personal story, I can definitely remember messing up friendships when I was younger because I didn't realize I was hurting people. You live and you learn from your mistakes, I guess. Bittersweet memories.

sholum Wrote:While we don't have the benefit of native Japanese speakers correcting us constantly, the 日本語中級会話 thread could be helpful (and could greatly use some participation).

Thanks for the link, I didn't notice this thread.

Zgarbas Wrote:I signed up for some online Japanese lessons on a site that I really recommend (http://www.japonin.com) and attended abut 40 classes in 2 months.

I actually use Japonin's Teacher Blog ( http://www.japonin.com/free-learning-too...-blog.html ) to practice reading/listening. How long do the lessons last? I've been tossing the idea around in my head about getting a tutor for a while just to get used to speaking to a Japanese person. Can you please describe how a typical Japonin session works?

@Haley-usa
Glad it helped! I forgot to mention that I skip to the next person on Chatpad if the current person I'm chatting with is creepy, but it looks like you got something out of it anyway. With my first Chatpad chats I was so nervous I didn't type anything and just waited for them to switch to another person, but it felt great when I finally tried typing!

@Haley

I've been in your shoes. I passed N2, and couldn't hold a conversation with 2 hands and a bucket. It was bad. Really bad. But we've all gotta start at 0 sometime. Nowhere to go but up.

I hauled my butt over to Japan and studied at Yamasa for 3 months. I got pretty good fast, because I HAD TO. There's nothing like being in over your head to get that "OMG I gotta figure out how to make people understand me!" kind of pressure going. That helped me develop a lot of great personal coping strategies at first, especially when I'd run into unknown vocab, or vocab I couldn't say, because I didn't know what it was. (I got really good at describing!)

But going to Japan is expensive. Especially for the length of time I'm talking about.

That's why I definitely and emphatically second japonin.com. It's a lot more affordable than flying over there, and you still get really good instruction. It's not going to be the same as a 24/7 immersion environment, where you have to speak Japanese to survive. But it's a good way to get confidence going.

The lessons at japonin.com last 50 minutes. Sometimes they run a little long, but never over one hour. There are usually 2-4 students in class at a time, so you aren't "on the spot" all the time. Also, the teachers are REALLY NICE. I can't emphasize this enough. THEY'RE REALLY NICE PEOPLE. They're not going to give you a hard time, no matter how awful you think your Japanese is. And they have a lot of different levels and types of classes to accommodate up to N1 level. They also have conversation classes, which are also pretty useful.

The way classes work is that you grab your mic/headset, plug it into your computer, then log into the website. When the class is ready, you'll click on a link, and a Java app will install and open on your computer. It's a group voice chat app, and the teachers can control what you see on a virtual blackboard (a powerpoint kind of presentation that they can also whiteboard over.) The teachers will run a webcam during the lesson. You can view it if you want, or not.

You click a button with a mic icon on it to talk, then click it again to mute your mic. (It's easier on everyone else that way. Don't leave your mic on!) There's also a text chat box. At the end of the lesson, the teacher will send you a PDF of the lesson notes, and you can save the text messages to an RTF file.

In a class, people really do come from all over the world. I've seen people from the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, the UK, China/Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, (and Romania!) and of course Japan. The cool part is that we can all communicate in Japanese. XD

Oh, finally-- buy lessons in Yen. Or at least check the pricing and do the math. They don't always update the USD prices as fast as the JPY is losing value to the dollar. You can save a few bucks that way.

I generally sign up for lessons a few months before each JLPT, because they have special JLPT prep courses, but they're all, "Drop in when you can" kind of classes. You can miss a week, a month, or a year, and still not get lost... which is a good thing, but isn't always ideal. It's nice to follow a class doing a progression to the end, but you can either have that or a method that works with your schedule.

[Zgarbas]

Quote:I actually use Japonin's Teacher Blog ( http://www.japonin.com/free-learning-too...-blog.html ) to practice reading/listening. How long do the lessons last? I've been tossing the idea around in my head about getting a tutor for a while just to get used to speaking to a Japanese person. Can you please describe how a typical Japonin session works?

I noticed that rich_f already gave you a comprehensive description (I actually signed up after he talked about them here; Thank you again, rich_f! they were a lifesaver!)
I would add that the experience also depends on the time-frame. The ~2-3PM GMT lessons usually have 4-5 people whereas with the 5AM GMT ones you are often alone with the professor (which is *amazing*, by the way). I like japonin since they are really the cheapest ones around. Usually the professor will have a few conversation topics/grammar points that they will discuss and the students take terms talking. The professor will point to students to make sure that you are all getting a bit of speaking time, but your initiative and level make a difference (in my first lesson I only spoke out when the teacher had me reading lines, but in later lessons I participated more actively). Obviously, if you stay up for the less popular timeslots you will be doing more talking. And yes, all the teachers I had were really nice <3, though there was one with whom I didn't get along very well (not that she did anything wrong, I just didn't particularly enjoy her classes). I'd recommend getting the $9 3-lesson plan just to see how they're like; I was really reluctant to try anything that involved me talking into a microphone, but you get accustomed to it surprisingly quickly =).

I also took 10 private lessons and they were of great help (you tell the teacher what you want to talk about and she prepares persoalized material; I had Momoyo-sensei, and we practiced keigo and talked about classical literature. It was lovely, but the price was a bit too steep to turn it into a regular thing).

My Japanese course in Japan didn't make that much of a difference for me, actually. Overall, my Japonin lessons were way more helpful since they were just what I needed at the time. Also, since you can take your time with them you don't get that typical classroom pressure.

Quote:@Zgarbas Oh wow, if you get nervous speaking English around native speakers, and your English is so good that the first time I read a post by you I thought you were a native speaker until I saw that your location was, at the time, Romania, then maybe there's no hope for me overcoming my nervousness completely when speaking Japanese...I'm getting better, but I still have a while to go. I was hoping after getting lots of experience talking that I would stop getting nervous, but maybe that's not how it works.

Haha, it's not necessarily a language skill thing ^^'. I have pretty bad anxiety, and lately English has been a difficult topic. I'd never had problems with English before, but then I found myself leaving my country for the first time and I have to talk English on a daily basis and, well, it can be weird. I didn't realise how many words I mispronounce, and my accent is out of control, and I chastise myself over the smallest things. I noticed that many people who had objectively poorer English (thick accents, poor grammar skills, etc) would get their meanings across easily whereas I would constantly confuse people with my accent, fast-paced talking speed, and superfluously erudite or British vocabulary, so I had to dumb it down, which has given me a bit of a "why did I study this language for 20 years" mid-academia-life crisis. I'm just always worried that Brits would judge me for having such a poor accent and using US English now(which is completely irrational since the Brits themselves loosen their accent and move towards US English after a while so they get it) or that people would judge me when I mispronounce words, which is also irrational since everybody does since English is nonsensical. Basically, being irrationally afraid of such things doesn't go away with skills, is what I was trying to point out, but with working on being less irrationally afraid =).

haley_usa Wrote:Short version: Girl who overcame social anxiety wants to /speak/ Japanese now but overwhelmed. [Warning: Over-dramatic.]

Woah, hey Haley! Funny finding you here, I'm actually Zach from that Google + group, and I recently had a similar experience.

Basically, until like yesterday, I had never spoken Japanese out loud really except in the translation group, and doing output on lang-8 and I've been studying hardcore for a year. Anyways, yesterday I finally decided to just suck it up and get on Sharedtalk. Yes, I was scared shitless, so I didn't invite anyone. Eventually someone invited me to a skype group, which turned out to be like a 10 or 11 person group. I was totally taken aback, and I had no idea how I was supposed to handle this, so I just started with おはよう. Anyways, eventually I realized something: No one cares if you mess up. Like seriously, if people in the chat care SOOOO much if you mess up, you can just leave and never speak to them again. They probably won't even remember you.

Long story short, I ended up staying in the chat for 2 hours and got pretty comfortable, especially after an English guy joined and I didn't feel like the only foreigner. I got to learn a lot about different people and their experiences, and they were all really cool and willing to help when I had a question about the Japanese language.

I know how social anxiety stuff can be, I was diagnosed with aspergers early as a child, and the best therapy was my parents forcing me to participate in activities and interact with other kids. I'd say it worked great, as I ended up becoming pretty social, and most people wouldn't even know I had Aspergers in the first place. I am currently taking this approach to my Japanese and I'd say it's totally working.

Just remember that you have nothing to lose but everything to gain. There is literally no bad outcome to practicing speaking with Japanese people.