Hi, longtime (and very heavy) user of the forum here, but I've only just registered.

A fair description of myself: Basically I'm at that nice intermediate-advanced stage -- I've completed the 常用漢字 + an extra few hundred more, and I can read all these characters without much problem. I'm acquainted with most Japanese grammatical constructs, my vocabulary is large enough (I can survive through non-technical texts, and fiction that aren't too floral) and, while somewhat difficult, I can listen and understand conversational speech (unless it's going at about 500 syllables per second with subclauses stacked within subclauses).

My problem: I still can't speak. Well, I can, and very grammatically at that, but doing so so takes me 20 minutes of conscious sentence piecing inside my head -- i.e. any questions that go beyond the "What's your name?" level destroys me -- and by then the asker would have disappeared.

So now I'm looking for some intensive drills to really kick me up a few notches. I've done a quick glance through some materials, and here are my concerns:

1. "Beginning Japanese" -- Seems awesome, and it is, but it introduces very few grammatical constructs.
2. "Japanese: The Spoken Language". Looks great, but it's a bit slow, and sadly, I don't have any text to compare my answers against.
3. "Conversational Japanese for Beginners" -- An early 19th century book (now in the public domain) which seems fantastic to begin with, but the endless romaji is tiresome, and some words are completely out-of-date in terms of usage. (e.g. A house is always "うち".)

I'm sad that there's no FSI for Japanese (Well, there is the text on the FSI site, but there's no audio accompanying it.)

Basically, I'm just looking for some meaty drills (what's best if it's aimed at the intermediate-level group) that doesn't start at so basic a level, which aims to level you up fast with wave after wave after wave after wave of drills. I don't mind paying a handsome sum if I have to, but the drill program must be worth the money (in your opinion). Any help and direction would be much appreciated.

P/S: If I dump the spreadsheet data for "Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication" into Anki, then make a bunch of production cards (i.e. reverse, from English to Japanese) and continuously drill them, would this be a sufficient exercise to help me with speech? Or would it only help me with my writing?

Just coming from personal experience, I think that the best way to boost up your speaking is to find people to speak with.

Drills do you pretty good, but I've found that to learn you speak it's very helpful to have some sort of feedback. I've heard JSL is pretty good if you have a good teacher -- which comes back down to needing someone there to help you.

Adding production cards to Anki -- I feel like it might help you remember things, but I've never seen any actual process in terms of it helping my speaking more than recognition cards. YMMV, and it may be excellent, but hasn't worked too well for me.

I think what you need is some sort of teacher or partner. I wonder if you can't find a 日会話. A teacher who knows how to teach students would probably be better than a random Johnny, but sometimes you just gotta get what you can get.

if you have to think for 20 minutes of thinking... then you haven't listened to enough japanese. (are those 20 minutes to conjugate the verb? or think about if the particle is correct??? i don't get it...)

just do AJATT listen to Japanese as much as possible/ do something in japanese you like without the subs etc. then you'lll get used to japanese more and you won't to "think" to tihnk in japanese...

ryuukohito Wrote:My problem: I still can't speak. Well, I can, and very grammatically at that, but doing so so takes me 20 minutes of conscious sentence piecing inside my head -- i.e. any questions that go beyond the "What's your name?" level destroys me -- and by then the asker would have disappeared.

What you're describing sounds like a general production problem. If that's the case, then in addition to drills and conversation practice, writing on a journal like Lang-8 may help.

This won't be the same for everyone, but I personally find writing Japanese to be far more difficult than conversing in it. If I'm speaking, I can bluff and circumlocute around terms I don't know until I get an 'aha' response from whoever I'm speaking to. (Incidentally, I recently realized that I'd developed the bad habit of speaking too rapidly in order to compensate for this, and I'm hoping that writing practice will help me undo this by making me express ideas more succinctly and elegantly.)

But writing is all one-shot, gotta get it right, and I find it considerably more of a rigorous and demanding exercise than conversation.

Asriel Wrote:Just coming from personal experience, I think that the best way to boost up your speaking is to find people to speak with.

Drills do you pretty good, but I've found that to learn you speak it's very helpful to have some sort of feedback. I've heard JSL is pretty good if you have a good teacher -- which comes back down to needing someone there to help you.

Would love to, but there are few Japanese where I live, and a nearby institute which my friend goes to caters only to beginner and intermediate (as in, JLPT takers, level 3-2) students. Plus there's the work thing: I'm a bit bogged down, and can't find a solid 2-3 hours to devote to going and coming from back a place other than my office. (For study, I usually sneak in 5-10 minutes for every 1 or 2 hours of work, which interestingly still gets the reviews done and occasionally bags me 1 new kanji or so.)

howtwosavealif3 Wrote:if you have to think for 20 minutes of thinking... then you haven't listened to enough japanese. (are those 20 minutes to conjugate the verb? or think about if the particle is correct??? i don't get it...)

just do AJATT listen to Japanese as much as possible/ do something in japanese you like without the subs etc. then you'lll get used to japanese more and you won't to "think" to tihnk in japanese...

Do realize that I was exaggerating for comic effect. Regardless, the delay comes from both conjugation (and not the basic past-tenses, I mean like trying to fit in させる with くれるs or passives/potentials, etc) and particle arrangements; responses are just not automatic enough for me at this point.

I'm very familiar with AJATT; in fact, it was probably the main reason why I started studying Japanese years ago. I read Japanese a lot, but I don't listen much because I feel so lost, as if I were drowning, when I have no visual text to accompany me.

I need also note that at a certain point, going purely AJATT will fail you. Constant input will help wonders with comprehension (even without listening practice I can understand lots, thanks to my reading), but I don't believe that one can speak fluently without practice. Sentence mining alone, unlike what AJATT advocates, won't give you the ability to speak, I believe.

(And I have some personal issues with AJATT these days; Khatzumoto was awesome at first (I was there when he first started), but these days he comes off trying too hard to be a slang-banging guy, and his site's way too commercial -- donation pots everywhere, book sales, paid online sessions, etc -- rather than motivating others to learn Japanese, he seems to be out to make quick bucks. I have no problem against making money, but the "I'm only here to help you" philosophy honestly doesn't work well against such a jarring backdrop.)

Either way, thanks for the suggestions, guys. Any more tips/leads would be much appreciated.