I have been seriously studing Japanese for over a year now. Finished RTK, Minna no nihongo I, and working currently on KO2001 (book 1). I have been studying Japanese for years now and only in the past year have I started to progress.

The problem is how do I start speaking more. My wife speaks Japanese to me (and the kids) and I reply usually with simplistic sentences. My comprehension is fine, but production is lacking and I can't seem to produce more complicated grammar. My vocabulary has been expanding at a nice rate, so I feel that this may not be my stumbling block.

Ideas?

Try closed delete grammar production. I've been trying this lately to strengthen my understanding of grammar. Like you my vocab is good but my grammar production is pretty weak.

Here is an example of a card I made.

Front:

When the telephone rang, the baby burst out crying.

電話のベルが鳴っ[...]、赤ん坊が泣き出した。

Back:

電話のベルが鳴ったとたん、赤ん坊が泣き出した。


〜たとたん（に）
〜たら、すぐに...ということが起こった。

1. Used when something unexpected has happened immediately after something else had happened or was done.
2. Used when the speaker has realized something immediately after something else had happened or was done.

Umm, well I got a question? How much do you read? In my experience I have started to get quite a bit better at grammar since starting to read more frequently and more academic geared materials, just bombard yourself with the grammar, and you will get it. If you don't, then perhaps come back here and we can ask you if you ever hit your head when you were a kid.

Your wife speaks Japanese and you've studied for years. How can you speak simplistic sentences? Just speak to your wife. A LOT. As in, speak just Japanese with her for several hours a day.

Conversation will be the least of your problems after just a short while, trust me.

Tobberoth Wrote:Your wife speaks Japanese and you've studied for years. How can you speak simplistic sentences? Just speak to your wife. A LOT. As in, speak just Japanese with her for several hours a day.

Conversation will be the least of your problems after just a short while, trust me.

This is going to surprise you, but some people have a hard time speaking when they have nothing to say. I talk to my language partner for about 15 minutes a day and I -still- have trouble coming up with things to say. (And of course, half the time she's on the spot for conversation!)

One solution may be 'speak more!' but that doesn't mean it'll work for him. He's asking for others.

Womacks23 Wrote:Try closed delete grammar production. I've been trying this lately to strengthen my understanding of grammar. Like you my vocab is good but my grammar production is pretty weak.

Here is an example of a card I made.

Front:

When the telephone rang, the baby burst out crying.

電話のベルが鳴っ[...]、赤ん坊が泣き出した。

Back:

電話のベルが鳴ったとたん、赤ん坊が泣き出した。


〜たとたん（に）
〜たら、すぐに...ということが起こった。

1. Used when something unexpected has happened immediately after something else had happened or was done.
2. Used when the speaker has realized something immediately after something else had happened or was done.

Obviously, your card has an English sentence on front which helps limit the answer. For those that like to just have a Japanese question, I'm not sure if clozing the entire portion of the grammar is good as it means you have to memorize the sentence to pick the correct among many correct choices. Like the above question　鳴って (not as likely) 鳴ったら(likely) choices can be picked.

What I do to work around that is cloze off the conjugation portion. So, I still have to think about the sentence, but the answer is limited to a smaller set if not one choice.

Q: 電話のベルが鳴[...]とたん、赤ん坊が泣き出した。
A: 電話のベルが鳴ったとたん、赤ん坊が泣き出した。

Although I don't like it now, you can include an English trigger in the clozed part.

Q: 電話のベルが鳴[...then immediately after]、赤ん坊が泣き出した。
A: 電話のベルが鳴ったとたん、赤ん坊が泣き出した。

To OP: I found when I started subs2srs, it helped my conversation. When mimicing shows, I started to involuntarily add connectors that just will not happen using grammar decks.

To avoid the potential tedium of domestic language partnering, maybe write down a few things a week that you often say to your wife, and ask her how you might say it in Japanese, and practice it that way in little intimate practice sessions? ;p With an emphasis on increasing the challenge...

wccrawford Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:Your wife speaks Japanese and you've studied for years. How can you speak simplistic sentences? Just speak to your wife. A LOT. As in, speak just Japanese with her for several hours a day.

Conversation will be the least of your problems after just a short while, trust me.

This is going to surprise you, but some people have a hard time speaking when they have nothing to say. I talk to my language partner for about 15 minutes a day and I -still- have trouble coming up with things to say. (And of course, half the time she's on the spot for conversation!)

One solution may be 'speak more!' but that doesn't mean it'll work for him. He's asking for others.

Well if you don't know how to talk, why would you even need to learn to speak the language beyond simple sentences?

It's just a question of conversational skill, and it's only trained by conversing. If your problem is that you don't have anything to say, that's an issue with you and has nothing to do with Japanese.

Tobberoth Wrote:Well if you don't know how to talk, why would you even need to learn to speak the language beyond simple sentences?

It's just a question of conversational skill, and it's only trained by conversing. If your problem is that you don't have anything to say, that's an issue with you and has nothing to do with Japanese.

Talking and talking pointlessly are completely different things. I can speak English just fine, but I still have a hard time talking when I have nothing to say. It's a personality trait, and one that I happen to like in myself and others.

wccrawford Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:Well if you don't know how to talk, why would you even need to learn to speak the language beyond simple sentences?

It's just a question of conversational skill, and it's only trained by conversing. If your problem is that you don't have anything to say, that's an issue with you and has nothing to do with Japanese.

Talking and talking pointlessly are completely different things. I can speak English just fine, but I still have a hard time talking when I have nothing to say. It's a personality trait, and one that I happen to like in myself and others.

That's too bad. It's like a guy who wants to learn how to play a piano, but why play the piano when you can't play something so good you want to hear it? Maybe you can just read some notes and lea... no. If you want to learn how to play piano well, you're going to have to play it bad first.

It's his wife. There's no way there's nothing to talk about, it's completely different from a language parter who you talk to for no real reason beyond learning a language.

Tobberoth, perhaps you are being a little harsh?
His wife may also be less than talkative. People communicate is different ways. Perhaps actions they take play a larger part in their communication than speaking does. There are lots of explanations for why talking more to his wife is not a practical solution.

Concerning the original question, I would read and listen as much as possible; what ever you enjoy more.

I would also like to mention that most people go through a silent period, where they can understand things, but not produce them. Just continue to study seriously and speaking will eventually come naturally. I think this falls under the Input Hypothesis, but I know of anecdotal evidence (from Japanese speakers of English) that supports this as well.

abydos Wrote:Just continue to study seriously and speaking will eventually come naturally.

Completely untrue. In order to become good at production, you need to produce. That doesn't mean cloze completion etc, it means spontaneous on the spot conversation. If individual book/flashcard study was good enough, then Japanese people would be a lot better at English than they are.

One of my private students actually constantly surprises me with how well she can produce English when I get her to translate phrase by phrase writing into a notepad, but is completely unable to have any conversation (I teach her in Japanese for the time being).

Serious study will give you more to practice when you do production, but it won't improve production itself. My advice (from when I was an intermediate learner) is to pick a grammar point and use it as much as you can for a day or two in conversation, even if it means being really annoying with your significant other. My girlfriend at the time played along with it though when I used the 〜ば〜ほど grammar point (for example) every three seconds.

In short, understanding != using.

Tobberoth Wrote:That's too bad. It's like a guy who wants to learn how to play a piano, but why play the piano when you can't play something so good you want to hear it? Maybe you can just read some notes and lea... no. If you want to learn how to play piano well, you're going to have to play it bad first.

It's his wife. There's no way there's nothing to talk about, it's completely different from a language parter who you talk to for no real reason beyond learning a language.

People who play piano just to hear piano music are artists. People who talk just to hear themselves talk are ass****s.

As for it being his wife, he's already said he has trouble with longer sentences and tends to answer simply. He's asking how to fix that. "Just do it" is -not- a valid answer. It's not helpful in any way. He already knows that he needs to talk more and is asking for suggestions on how to make it happen.

I assume you've been speaking Japanese with your wife for years and not just new to speaking?

How is your listening?

dizmox Wrote:I assume you've been speaking Japanese with your wife for years and not just new to speaking?

How is your listening?

My listening is such that I understand most of what she is saying to me and the kids. So, yes, I have been speaking for years, but hit a plateau sometime back that I have not progressed from. Unfortunately, her English is excellent and thus we (actually, I) revert to English when it becomes challenging.

I think my take away from this thread thus far are:
- stop reverting to english
- focus on a few grammar structures and use them in everyday conversation. repeat.
- practice more, so that spontaneous nature of conversation becomes less daunting.
- add sub2srs (from nuke's comment)

Yonosa Wrote:Umm, well I got a question? How much do you read? In my experience I have started to get quite a bit better at grammar since starting to read more frequently and more academic geared materials, just bombard yourself with the grammar, and you will get it. If you don't, then perhaps come back here and we can ask you if you ever hit your head when you were a kid.

The only materials that I read currently are my sentence deck, a graded reader that I am working through and 漢検3 for the Nintendo DS.

Step 1: Stop reverting (and get her to stop too). If you don't challenge yourself then you don't grow. The times I learned the most are when I was thrust into a new unfamiliar situation where English wasn't an option. Rather than fearing failure and thus avoiding it, you should embrace it. Nothing helps memory like embarrassment.

brianobush Wrote:

Yonosa Wrote:Umm, well I got a question? How much do you read? In my experience I have started to get quite a bit better at grammar since starting to read more frequently and more academic geared materials, just bombard yourself with the grammar, and you will get it. If you don't, then perhaps come back here and we can ask you if you ever hit your head when you were a kid.

The only materials that I read currently are my sentence deck, a graded reader that I am working through and 漢検3 for the Nintendo DS.

Honestly this is definitely the reason imo, you have to read some conversation type stuff, how about a visit to stickam.jp, it is a video talk site, but people will often chat using text. Umm, just read it as they talk, srs if you want, but I just read it. But read more than just that, read maybe some novels where there is a lot of conversation, but actually any novel in the first person is really great since they can effectively teach you how japanese people think in japanese. It will get you head going in that direction and before you know it, you'll be freakin it like　村上春樹ちゃん（有名な作家、傑作は、えっと１９８Qなんかと言う本が書いたんだ。）

Yonosa Wrote:１９８Q

１Q８４って呼ぶ。発音は「いち・きゅう・はち・よん」だよ。意味解るかい？

Umm, could care less what it's called, although it is spammed on the Japanese news entirely too much, I pay close to no attention. I don't much care for novels, and save for srsing conversation items, read nearly only nonfiction books. I haven't read a novel in English for some 7 years. But anyways, reading a few in japanese will help with speaking from my experience, although I just jumped around in some, srsed here and there, but have yet to finish a whole book because of utter boredom.

Yonosa Wrote:Umm, could care less what it's called, although it is spammed on the Japanese news entirely too much, I pay close to

I'm confused.. you do care what it's called?

Jarvik7 Wrote:

Yonosa Wrote:Umm, could care less what it's called, although it is spammed on the Japanese news entirely too much, I pay close to

I'm confused.. you do care what it's called?

Well, he obviously cares enough to remember the letters and numbers involved, if not the actual order they come in. In that respect, he could care less. He could have just called it Magical Scrambled Egg Adventure and expected everyone to know what he meant.

On the flip side, even if he had said that he couldn't care less, that could mean that he cares about what it's called a great deal, and couldn't even imagine a world where he doesn't. It's a frustratingly vague construction if you really sit down and think about it.

Semi-related: The only time I really got annoyed with the whole 1Q84 obsession was when I saw a manga adaption of Orwell's 1984 on prominent display, accompanied by a note informing people that "this is the story that inspired the hit best-seller 1Q84, so please read this too!"

I mean, there's just so many things wrong with that picture.

I could give a rat's ass. Wait, I mean...

I haven't read it, but wasn't it somewhat inspired by 1984? ...seeing as the title is a 'pun' on the name and all...

I agree 110% with Tobberoth. You gotta fail a lot, and I mean a LOT.
But by doing so (talking with her), you'll improve so much more than by doing production cards or whatever in Anki. I love my SRS and all that, but that's NEVER going to replace a fluent Japanese person talking to you and helping you out when you're drowining...