I'm going through RTK, 1,300 so far. And I'm also taking japanese classes so I'm also going through genki + reading sentences in anki. But now I want to focus almost all my energy into speaking/listening. What are the best ways to go about this? I have people that I can talk to frequently that know Japanese, but I usually run out of things to say and I need to learn more conversational topics (ie, not useless random material just for the sake of adding "something" to your anki decks). I am a beginner so I need your advice.

My thoughts so far is to pick a subject and make a little skit up of possible questions/answers people might give and practice outloud. I also would like to know if there are resources that voice/write basic conversations that I could mimic.

Hmmm. The thing about listening is that it get's easier overtime. I can't say that you';ll be able to understand lots of things in the beginning stages. But like yea i suggest you start adding phrases that will be useful to you when speaking. But what happens is that, ppl tend to add sentences from things they want to watch. Such as anime,dramas,etc to understand them better. But what i usual do is add sentences that i found useful for that specific context. And kept listening to japanese after doing all my anki srs reps. And it without effort improved my understanding. It kinda happened when i didn't realize it. So that's my advice on listening.

Also there are phrase books out their for basic converations, but for me i just picked all of these things up due to immersion from watching japanese dramas,etc even anime. But yea some things aren't always best to say, and then only way to learn it is to make mistakes and be correct. With immersion it should come naturally when to say when.

The only good way to become good at speaking for real is to speak for real. The problem, of course, is finding people and situations where you can speak Japanese like that.

What Tobberoth said. However, it's actually pretty easy to find people to talk to. I used mylanguageexchange.com - you don't have to pay if you're willing to wait for someone to contact you (I had several people contact me within a week or two), but for a couple bucks you can contact anyone. Find someone with a profile that interests you, and whose English is about your Japanese level (so that you won't always switch to English to understand each other). You may have to work with the time difference.

I've been talking with my language partner almost every week for a year now, and we never run out of things to say. We talk about the weather, the news, our pets, what we like to eat, and often we talk about things that are different about our cultures. One of the cool things we do (which my partner suggested) is that she speaks in English and I speak in Japanese, so we both practice production, although we often switch back and forth.

I know it's scary, but just give it a try - you may have to try a few people before you find one you click with, but it really is fun. I was awful when I started (and her English was already really good) so it was a little embarrassing for me at first, but it is definitely worth it to keep with it!

There's also a web site where you can talk with random people you never have to talk to again - I would think that's less fun but if you're shy maybe it's your thing. It's linked elsewhere - maybe try a search for 'conversation' on the forums.

Edit: I think it's sharedtalk.com - here's a discussion of different places to find conversation partners: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=4143

i already mentioned that people i frequently talk with speak very good japanese, meeting people isn't the problem here. my issue was on how to study (by myself, then using it on my friends later on. basically, focusing on one topic and talking about it. how do you go about preparing for a certain conversational subject?

for instance, i can talk about food and stuff and going to places, but i dont know how to ask about their favorite music and who sings it, and stuff like that. should i just look up definitions for artist, singing, etc and prepare some sample questions/possible ways to answer or am i going about this the wrong way?

Sorry I didn't understand the question the first time. I would caution to be careful of learning from learners - their Japanese may be better than yours, but they may have bad habits that you don't know about that could make their way of speaking unnatural compared to a native Japanese speaker.

My gut feel is that you'd be going about it the wrong way if you just start looking things up in a dictionary and preparing canned dialogue. The real world isn't like Genki's vocab lists and made-up dialogues. You'll want to be prepared for a variety of situations and be able to let the conversation flow instead of sticking to some sort of plan. For that, you need to know some basic grammar and the vocabulary related to what you are interested in.

My advice would be to get ahold of some media written for a Japanese audience and start reading. Then, if you don't understand something, look up the words you encounter there. That will help you build the vocabulary you need to talk about whatever interests you. For instance, in music, there's probably a Japanese version of Rolling Stone, or find somebody who blogs about the bands they like. You could even start with Wikipedia articles about bands you already know - Japanese or otherwise. And whatever your interests are, there is probably a manga of it. Go, shodo, astronauts, you name it.

For listening, check out some of the podcast recommendations in other threads. A favorite is Marimoeo since each of their episodes has a theme, but it's a pretty difficult place to start listening practice. Newscasts can be easier as far as being able to hear what they say, but the vocabulary may be more difficult. Some of them have transcripts that can help.

Does that help?

Maybe you should try watching Japanese TV drama.
They often contain the types of situation you're looking for.

Many of the new dramas now come with japanese subtitles.
So you can print out the japanese subtitles and study them on your own.
The best part is that the subtitles are exactly what the characters are saying.

Also, why not just asking your friends "how do I say <this> ?".
I do that with my language exchange partner all the time.

In order to speak like a Japanese person, you have to listen to
Japanese people speak. That's the only way you're going to sound
like a native speaker.

Even if you learn all the grammar rules in a book that you read on your
own, there's no guarantee that Japanese people will use that same rule
in the same way you do.

That's why I like drama so much. You will see how flexible some grammar rules are
and get better at knowing what the differences are.

In terms of grammar books, I would recommend "Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication" (sometimes you'll see it abbreviated as JSPEC on this website).

It's aimed at conversation patterns for effective communication. It's a good start, but obviously there is a lot more to learn. You're gonna have to go out there and read/watch/listen to native media like blogs, books, magazines, TV, podcasts, etc.

There are a few discussion threads about JSPEC on this website and
even a google spreadsheet containing all the grammar and patterns.

Just search for it.

All in all. My suggestions are:

1)Drama (for learning Japanese conversation on your own time when you are not near any native Japanese speakers)

2)Asking specific questions to your friends that speak Japanese.

3)Buy "Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication".

4) I would say a personal language partner is VERY nice to have. I've learned so many things I would have never found out on my own because of my language partners.

There's no such thing as studying for a topic. If you know the words and the structures needed, the only problem is actually saying it. Speaking is the same skill whether you do it about space or about economy, the only thing changing is the words used.

If you want to talk about news, read news. If you want to talk about nuclear fission, read academic papers or wikipedia about it.

I second Tobberoth.

Human conversation is so unpredictable. Being totally prepared for any conversation is pretty much impossible.

The best you can do is read/watch/listen to things related to the topic you're interested in.
Seems like you need to learn about basic Japanese sentence patterns.

JSPEC would be a good book for that IMHO.

@chamcham
That's good suggestions. I'm definitely going to follow that for speaking.And Language partners are a definite need if you want to build solid speaking.

Writing about a topic also helps. I wrote two speeches last year. One was a political issue, Palestine/israel, the other was on langauges and word borrowing, Gairaigo. After writing them I found that I was better able to understand lots of common words like "linguistics" expressions like "borrowed words" "usage" "occupation" "colonize" etc.

So writing about it too does help get you somewhere. Ofcourse I was lucky enough to have my vocab checked by teachers etc. I was very pedantic about word usages and which words were appropriate. Luckily there were no 'wrong' words I used. But had they been wrong I would have been told so by my teachers.

So just make sure that you have someone correct/look over your essay. And of course reading up about it helps since you hear common constructions and words people use in any given area. So while writing my speeches for example, I'd google around, for blog sites and posts in Japanese to see how people wrote when it came to talking about certain issues.

You could also try writing a blog in Japanese.
Just write whatever you can and post it.

Whenever you have time, bring a copy of your posts to your
Japanese language partners and have them correct it. Then
go back and edit your posts.

Replying to other people's blogs is another good idea.
Many japanese celebrities have their own blogs (some are about their daily life
and others are more work-related).

chamcham Wrote:Whenever you have time, bring a copy of your posts to your
Japanese language partners and have them correct it. Then
go back and edit your posts.

I've found that writing, then having people show me the errors, has helped my production (speaking included). It sticks a lot harder than when people correct my speaking (which is rare, not due to my level, but due to none of my Japanese friends ever pointing out my many errors out of politeness I guess).

Anyway, you also don't necessarily have to have a language exchange partner as you can use http://www.lang-8.com to get corrections. And using that site, you can simply ask (in English, if you must) to have phrases you want to be able to say translated.

ZuMash Wrote:But now I want to focus almost all my energy into speaking/listening. What are the best ways to go about this?

Learn more Japanese.

You seem to be looking for some kind of shortcut. Like somehow if you just study a list of things quickly you'll be able to have an interesting conversation. I don't think it works that way. You'll need to improve your Japanese abilities as a whole and that takes time. Be patient. Your aren't going to have very interesting conversations for a long time but when you do, that will be thanks to a solid foundation of knowledge not because you know how to ask a few standard questions.

If you want to upして your listening, try reading LEGIT Japanese sentences outloud while focusing on understanding the sentence. A good way to do this is by inflecting the words like you would be when reading an English novel. It may not seem like much and may even be embarrassing at first, but I feel like I get a really deep memory-imprint when I do this. Also, it helps prevent me from reading sentences like a zombie, as I tend to stop processing the actual information I am reading when I read in my head. I noticed in my Japanese class when I did this, I was able to understand a ton more of what my teacher was saying. Also as a plus, I was able to not end all my questions with "I am sorry I suck at Japanese and cannot understand anything the first time."