I am reading through some posts and I get the impression that some of you already speak Japanese well. The way some can have insight in correcting mistakes and grammar rules is impressive. Also, the use of pronouns (from another thread) and the experiance some of you have in knowing when certain words are used leads me to believe that some of you already speak it.

Then I think about the purpose of this site. This site is a place where people can learn Kanji based on the method of Heisig.

Does that mean that some of you speak Japanese but have not learned Kanji? Or, you do you know both but like hanging around here helping people? (which is much appreciated, BTW)

Wisher

I know a bit of grammar, and can read a bit on kahn-ji. But I cannot speak it. I tried. It sounds weird. 日本語。。。しゃべるス。。。少し。。。う。。。どこ。。。に。。。来るますズ。。。か

I speak basic Japanese more or less fluently. How well you speak Japanese has no real connection to your knowledge of kanji. I could read fairly well before I came to this site, but my goal was to learn how to WRITE kanji and there's no better way to do it. There's also the whole deal that when you learn Japanese traditionally, kanji isn't a big focus. Sure, you learn to recognize them somewhat, learn what words you can build with them and how they are pronounced... but you don't learn what parts they are made up from. You don't learn the logic needed to write them and stop confusing them with one another. Before I found this site, I kept mixing 待つ and 持つ up, I had never learned about the two radicals, I just knew there were two and matsu used one, motsu used the other. This site made my kanji knowledge completely stable.

I speak Japanese fluidly, but my vocabulary is far too small to be considered fluent.

While I don't speak Japanese yet (well, not beyond 'hello, how are you?') I can answer part of that: Some people hang out here because this is about the best Japanese-Language-Learning forum around. (If there's a better English one, I haven't found it.)

I speak it at a very low level. I work at the Kauai airport and was hired because of my little knowledge. I am constantly asking Japanese tourists to re-phrase their questions. I can read Japanese much better than speaking it. If you come to Kauai and go to the shops at the airport, the shop signs were written by me
4つ買うと、5つ目は無料になります
１つ買うと、２つ目は半額になります

I never speakt it, but sometimes I'm in chatrooms where I'm noticed as a taciturn person, i.e., not foreigner.

I speak at a fairly high level. I normally have conversations in Japanese for 2+ hours per day, except on Friday where it's more like 12-15 hours (yay parties). My level is such that I no longer get anything out of conversation (I don't learn anything), it's just application.

I did RTK fairly late in my JP study, after having completed the equivalent of 5 years of university Japanese (including a 1yr homestay exchange study).

@ wisher

I know kanji and can read fairly well but my experience with spoken Japanese is still half-baked. A lot of us graduated from RTK a long time ago. I guess the main reason to stick around is to trade and debate learning methods and suggestions for improvement. I have found out about some of the best resources available from the people here which are often too obscure to find out about on your own.

Very few, if anbody here, is completely fluent in every aspect of Japanese yet.

Not everyone starts out with RTK. I'd been studying for five years before I picked it up... which I did mostly because I couldn't really write anything off the top of my head other than super simple kanji and the kanji in my address (which is typically all I ever have to write out by hand anyway ) But the boost, even when you already have some Japanese under your belt, is still really awesome.

I've had a lot of people call me fluent... at least in the sense that I can converse about most things with little trouble and do pretty much anything I need to do as far as "life in Japan" is concerned. I still get frustrated at my lack of vocabulary, but mostly in specialized fields (politics, business, etc). But as Dragg said, many of us have finished and stick around for the community aspect of the site.

Jarvik7 Wrote:My level is such that I no longer get anything out of conversation (I don't learn anything), it's just application.

Kudos to you.

I'd describe myself as intermediate in spoken Japanese. I've never lived in Japan, but based on how easily I converse with Japanese friends/students I could probably survive there well on just Japanese.

You get a real learning boost with the kanji, and it really increases the pace at which you acquire new vocabulary, especially past the beginner stage.

Why still here? I'm still working my way through RTK3 (yeah, flowers) and apart from that it's a great forum to hang out in.

@Dragg;

A good test of fluency level is the CA state court-interpreter examination. We should go take it 2 years from now, if that level is reachable. I'm in SJ, CA btw.

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/programs/cou...alinfo.htm

"Certified Court Interpreters

The certification examination consists of written and oral components. In the written portion, candidates are tested on their knowledge of both English and the target language in the areas of vocabulary, reading comprehension, and grammar. If they pass the written component, they go on to the oral component, which tests their skills in simultaneous and consecutive interpreting and sight translation. Sight translation differs from written translation, in that sight translation is the oral translation of a written document."

Hmm I can communicate in Japanese about a range of not too uncommon subject, but in broken grammar and with a limited vocab. If you heard me speak you might mistake me for fluent, because I speak pretty fast and confidently, using what i know even if it's not correct (if I don't know the correct word, i use a word which I know which is closest), but in reality my japanese is shockingly poor.

I can understand most things though, despite not being able to produce the same thing.

Writing and reading sucks, I can just about manage reading Japanese emails.

日本語、全然しゃべれないよ！全然わかんない！　（I can't speak any Japanese! I can't understand it at all!)

At least that's what I tell Japanese people when I first meet them and start talking to them in Japanese. It's more interesting for conversation.

I tried arguing with two people tonight (in Japanese) that I don't speak Japanese, but that I speak Chinese.

Your questions are a bit vague. Many of us speak Japanese, but like Dragg said, not many speak completely fluently. Many of us can read a lot of kanji, but that doesn't mean we can leisurely (without a dictionary) pick up a book and read 95% of the stuff inside.

I like sticking around to occassionaly give my opinion, but mostly to read the opinion of others. There are some people here who are pretty smart and I like to read their opinion. Everybody learns differently, but I love to read the opinions of those who have had great success. (I claim this is so I can learn by their success, but I wonder if it's so I can live vicariously through it instead...Let's hope not!)

kazelee Wrote:日本語。。。しゃべるス。。。少し。。。う。。。どこ。。。に。。。来るますズ。。。か

A little tip: ellipses in Japanese aren't formed that way. They use "・・・・". Remember, just because 。 look like a period doesn't mean it acts entirely like a period.

I'm intermediate, and I can read most of the kanji, but I just like this forum.

I work in a Japanese company and speak Japanese all day everyday. I procrastinate by browsing this site. I like to help, find discussions interesting, and occassionally important developments come up, like Anki.

I started RTK 1 long ago and found it very effective, despite knowing quite a lot of Japanese already. I still learn new kanji every now and then by using the principles in RTK. I think RTK and this site are valuable to any Japanese learner.

wrightak wins!

I don't want to compete but I would like newcomers to know that this forum has a wide variety of people in it.

I've been a member of this forum since I couldn't speak Japanese, but I can now converse at an intermediate level. Conversation is not my strong suit. I am much better at reading and writing. It surprises my professors sometimes because they interact with me in one way in person, and completely differently over e-mail. In person I do short one or two sentence responses, but over email I'm able to understand and put across much more. As well, I just tend to understand things better when they're written.

I can't really blame them for judging my ability based on spoken Japanese. How many bumbling English speakers can read and write just fine? It's usually the other way round. Many of the other exchange students here in Japan can converse a lot better than I can, but get lost more frequently than I do when it comes to reading comprehension. Thems the breaks. I'll eventually be fluent in both. I'm not going to worry about it too much because I learned most of my English as a child from books far above my grade level. There's no reason it shouldn't be much the same for me in Japanese so I'm trying to read as much Japanese as I can.

My official rule now is that all my reading for enjoyment should be done in Japanese. For English stuff I usually do it through audiobooks that I listen to at times that are inappropriate for reading written material like driving or walking to school.

Right now I'm reading 星の王子さま, and after that I have The Hobbit and the first Harry Potter book.

Ooh, is this the "I get to brag about my abilities" thread?

Nobody knows everything about Japanese; not even natives. This is a great place to get help when you need it and discuss study methods.

I had JLPT2 before I even heard of this site (yes, it's actually possible to learn Japanese without SRS and Heisig!). I've been in Japan for about 1.5 years, and my fluency has increased dramatically (and from massive amounts of verbal output people, output). My Japanese of course isn't perfect, but I have been mistaken for a native Japanese speaker on the telephone (for at least the first couple minutes!).

Level 1 should well, well within grasp this summer, and I know that it would have been a much pricklier road if I had not started using Heisig.

For beginners, it is really a huge leap of faith to start working on Heisig while keeping away from any other type of formal study; you cannot see any direct benefits and at times it seems pointless. But if you already have a decent proficency in the langauge, you can recognize immediately how Heisig will benefit you in the short term and in the long, especially when you're trying to work your way into knowing all the readings for the Jouyou kanji and above.

i can hold basic conversation fairly well but my grammar isn't so good... too much studying iKnow hehe...my vocab is getting pretty big though... iKnow's downside is that it doesn't break out of basic grammar points very often... i hope to do a lot of reading after i finish 10,000 words to help smooth my grammar over...

I've spent the last year and change trying to re-learn all of the Japanese I forgot from grad school. (6 semesters' worth.) Taking 2 years off is not something I really recommend. My weak point is spoken, my strong point is written. Listening is kind okay, although reading is stronger for me. I'd say my "level" is somewhere in the wide wilderness between JLPT 3 and 2, somewhere around lower intermediate, I guess. I finished RTK in March-April, but I keep coming back here for info, tips, etc. while I'm not busy collecting Japanese grammar books.

My Japanese is apparently good enough to read and understand porn advertisement I found in my mailbox... Seriously, what's up with that?
At least there are some non-Heisig Kanji in there to learn.

I learned Japanese at high school, but never got very far with it. A group of us at work started RTK a couple of years ago, and that started me getting into learning Japanese again.

My main difficulty is that I don't get any opportunity to practice conversation. I can read s...l...o...w...l...y with the aid of good dictionaries and I can more or less right (although I make mistakes), but speaking and listening are my weak points for lack of practice.