Aijin Wrote:

Asriel Wrote:It always surprises me when you have people who are so far behind in their speaking skills. If you're doing self-study outside the country, I guess it makes sense...but I took classes at University, and most of us could speak a lot better than we could read.

I've found that, as you said, it really depends upon the environment that the student has to work with. In university classes the majority of the students are getting more speaking practice than reading/writing practice, due to all the class assignments and drills, and the fact that most aren't studying much outside of the classroom environment. Students who are doing it through self-study, however, often don't have the resources to get much speaking practice in. There aren't tons students at your own level to talk to, using the same vocabulary and grammar, like you'd get from a classroom. To get speaking practice they have to force themselves to either speak to themselves in monologues, or go out there and find Japanese friends who will indulge their studying.

Reading, on the other hand, is a very self-contained resource, not requiring any outside sources. You can just sit down, relax, and read. It's also more forgiving in that you can reread sentences, look up words, and not have any of the stress, anxiety, or embarrassment people experience trying to speak in foreign languages to natives.

Additionally, many learners of Japanese have fairly introverted personalities, in my experience, and reading is more appealing than the socializing required of speaking to them.

My situation is, there aren't really much japanese people here. But I have been doing research with the help of my friend. We have found a few places that one can get speaking practice. I recently joined a japanese association at my university.I went there while they where doing presentations on teaching english in japan. They do have a program for speaking, where you can sign up for a speaking buddy if you are interested in. Plus I found out that there is a place in downtown and at another university(Toronto, as I live in canada,ontario. Not too far, around a 30-50min bus/subway ride down there). So I do have resources that I found just recently. I just have to exercise them, since now is the time to move.

chochajin Wrote:I see
I was just wondering because I've often seen people (students of Japanese etc.) that could read books that were way beyond my level, but when it was about simple daily conversation they were suddenly lost.
Even during the JLPT last Sunday people who took the same level as me (N2) couldn't even understand what the examiner said or answer accordingly.
I think quite a lot of people overestimate their skills and are shocked once they come to Japan.
I think it's a good idea to use all of your "resources" back home to study that as much as possible.

This is almost specifically why I asked about the original poster's J-CAT score. My own score the other day was something like 225 which confirms my impression from past papers that I'm somewhere around N2 myself, but I'm really terrible at speaking. Even though I work in a Japanese prefectural office, all of my day is spent in English, and then my wife insists on using it at home too.

(In defence of my J-CAT score, I hadn't realised that it was quite such a serious test - I was expecting some five minute thing and so I wasn't quite prepared for it, especially the listening questions where I'd understand everything clearly, but then forget all of the details before finding out the question. Y'know, the sort of trick question JLPT-style ones - 'Did you go to soccer practice today?' 'Yeah, I go to soccer practice every Friday. I went two days ago, too. I don't think I'll go tomorrow. Actually, I will go tomorrow, but not on Saturday next week, unless Friday happens to fall on the third Sunday of the month next year.' 'Question: what day was it yesterday?")

Aijin Wrote:Additionally, many learners of Japanese have fairly introverted personalities, in my experience, and reading is more appealing than the socializing required of speaking to them.

Why am I not surprised?

I study didactics, and one of my teacher warned me against self-study, saying I won't be building communicative abilities, and therefore I won't be learning Japanese, but a Japanese that exists only in my head :wacko:.
Of course I replied in a 2 or 3 of days I can study as much as intensive class students in a week (between 16 and 20 hours), and that therefore I'll end up having more comprehension than them, so the production will increase expotionaly when I'll get to it (because you need the hours, remember foreign language classes in high school).
She replied what's the point of learning a language if you can't speak it, but in a "start by mastering the most difficult" perspective, I think starting and insisting on reading and writting matters is better on the long run if you aim at fluency. Khatz did it, Zorlee did it, that's what we try to do around here.
And that's how I learned most of my English, so I already believe in the method.

jcdietz03 Wrote:What I still cannot find and am looking for is （まだ探している物は） the method by which you can make 100 new cards per day in a reasonable amount of time. Which tools do you use?

I'm not ta1212 so i don't know how he does it, but I'll explain how I do it. I believe he was talking about vocab cards by the way. The fastest way I know of rapidly making vocab cards is to type them into your browser (here for example) and then use rikaichan's 's' command to save the word, kana and definition to a text file for import into anki.

ta12121 Wrote:My situation is, there aren't really much japanese people here..

but but..You have access to the internet - having people near you in irrelevant.

http://www.sharedtalk.com

There are currently 10+ native Japanese waiting to chat; will be more on later.

ta12121 Wrote:I still have trouble with speaking but I know it has nothing to do with my understanding/listening skills.

This makes me wonder. If you've seen/heard thousands (probably millions) of phrases which connect an い-adjective to a noun, how did you end up producing 面白いの話? If you read 面白いの話 somewhere, would you just "comprehend" it and not question the の? Does it maybe have wider implications?

@"面白いの話"

That's what sparked me off that he needed to get started practicing some output...

Javizy Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:I still have trouble with speaking but I know it has nothing to do with my understanding/listening skills.

This makes me wonder. If you've seen/heard thousands (probably millions) of phrases which connect an い-adjective to a noun, how did you end up producing 面白いの話? If you read 面白いの話 somewhere, would you just "comprehend" it and not question the の? Does it maybe have wider implications?

"面白いの話だ" is what I heard from a japanese source to be exact. In the beginning phases I tried breaking down every little thing. But I ended up getting more confused and a bit frustrated. So instead I kept adding context to things like: それは、これは、あれは,etc.[の、に、を、は] I didn't try breaking these down initially. But I searched up the grammar rules for them and once I kept reading them in context. It just starting making sense.

Asriel Wrote:@"面白いの話"

That's what sparked me off that he needed to get started practicing some output...

I'm finally getting to it. It's about time

Javizy Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:I still have trouble with speaking but I know it has nothing to do with my understanding/listening skills.

This makes me wonder. If you've seen/heard thousands (probably millions) of phrases which connect an い-adjective to a noun, how did you end up producing 面白いの話? If you read 面白いの話 somewhere, would you just "comprehend" it and not question the の? Does it maybe have wider implications?

Along these same lines, ta12121 has had ~20 years of English input but still consistently makes grammar mistakes and awkward sentences. I've always wondered how he plans to go about learning to output Japanese since I don't think "immersion" alone will get the job done in this case.

Ta12121, I don't want to sound like I'm attacking you or something but I think it will be useful for you to approach the situation realistically in order to figure out how to really learn what you want to learn.

chair Wrote:

Javizy Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:I still have trouble with speaking but I know it has nothing to do with my understanding/listening skills.

This makes me wonder. If you've seen/heard thousands (probably millions) of phrases which connect an い-adjective to a noun, how did you end up producing 面白いの話? If you read 面白いの話 somewhere, would you just "comprehend" it and not question the の? Does it maybe have wider implications?

Along these same lines, ta12121 has had ~20 years of English input but still consistently makes grammar mistakes and awkward sentences. I've always wondered how he plans to go about learning to output Japanese since I don't think "immersion" alone will get the job done in this case.

Ta12121, I don't want to sound like I'm attacking you or something but I think it will be useful for you to approach the situation realistically in order to figure out how to really learn what you want to learn.

For english, it isn't a matter of the immersion. It's just the grammar mainly. I know this from past experiences. Even one of my english teachers in High School said: "You should work on your grammar, but other than that your fine". It really comes down to tweaking the way one writes(me) and crafts it towards grammar rules.

Basically the order I plan to follow for japanese is this. One:understand what's being said, second: copy from what you hear and read, lastly: refer to grammar to see if everything works out well. The order can be switched in different ways but it comes down to what works for the individual.

Since I'm learning japanese. I can see in full sight how annoying and bad my english can be at times. It makes me think carefully about how I should proceed to improve japanese and english. Although for english it really comes down to re-tweaking and learning some more to fix everything. Other than that, it isn't much of a problem(in my opinion).

ta12121's English seems fine to me. If you ask me, their Japanese could use some work

If I can understand the Japanese he wrote, there's something wrong. I can't understand Japanese written by Japanese people, but I have no trouble with writings of learners - they use only the most common words and patterns.

jcdietz03 Wrote:ta12121's English seems fine to me. If you ask me, their Japanese could use some work

If I can understand the Japanese he wrote, there's something wrong. I can't understand Japanese written by Japanese people, but I have no trouble with writings of learners - they use only the most common words and patterns.

I was talking to someone on twitter in japanese. And she used an idiom phrase I didn't know, it took me a while to figure it out but it wasn't hard(how to reply to it). But that showed me I need a balance to improve my reading/understanding skills of written japanese. But speaking is vital as well.

One important thing has come out of japanese so far, languages and grammar can be annoying. I'm glad I'm a native speaker. But my grammar does need work. (Once my exams are over next week, I'll be looking up english grammar).

For output practice, when you do sentence reps, read the sentences out loud at your normal speaking pace if you don't do that already. Also, try shadowing, White Rabbit Press has a decent book for it, is starts at basic and goes up to intermediate, if you really are having trouble with output I would suggest this. Since your understand is pretty high, you can breeze through the easy stuff in the beginning and spend more time doing to more complicated/longer dialogs. That should definitely help, it will take some time to see results, but you will keep your mouth/voice in practice by saying many different things in Japanese.

ta12121 Wrote:

jcdietz03 Wrote:ta12121's English seems fine to me. If you ask me, their Japanese could use some work

If I can understand the Japanese he wrote, there's something wrong. I can't understand Japanese written by Japanese people, but I have no trouble with writings of learners - they use only the most common words and patterns.

I was talking to someone on twitter in japanese. And she used an idiom phrase I didn't know, it took me a while to figure it out but it wasn't hard(how to reply to it). But that showed me I need a balance to improve my reading/understanding skills of written japanese. But speaking is vital as well.

One important thing has come out of japanese so far, languages and grammar can be annoying. I'm glad I'm a native speaker. But my grammar does need work. (Once my exams are over next week, I'll be looking up english grammar).

Strange, but my English level has also gone down after I started learning Japanese.
I'm not a native speaker, but I've been studying English for about 12 years so I'm pretty close to a native speaker. We have an advanced student's book and I make pretty much errors with my grammar if to compare it with my other school years.

My English was at it's best when I read like 10 books in English during a 6 -month-period or so and I analysed the language and grammar too while reading, but I've stopped doing that a long time ago...

It's all because of japanese...and now that I think of it I stopped reading those Murakami and Mishima's novels in japanese around the time when I started learning japanese.

Curse that!

Going to be not on this forum for 2 weeks due to getting a deep cut at my left index finger(got stitches). This happened at my bio lab practical exam. Got exempted due to injury. Pretty crazy day, while i'm typing this(with my right hand) at this time(left index finger is injured so I gotta take everything slowly.

Ouch, man, that sucks. The same thing almost happened to me a couple of months ago, when I was stupidly trying to pry apart two of pieces of frozen chicken with a steak knife. I was lucky enough to not need stitches, but that's probably one of the more inconvenient places for an injury. You're not left handed, are you? That would be even worse, haha.

ta12121 Wrote:"面白いの話だ" is what I heard from a japanese source to be exact.

You heard it? Is it possible you heard wrong? 面白いお話です or something along those lines would make a little more sense to me, but not in the context you used it (referring to your own 話).

Asriel Wrote:It always surprises me when you have people who are so far behind in their speaking skills. If you're doing self-study outside the country, I guess it makes sense...but I took classes at University, and most of us could speak a lot better than we could read.

Maybe you're looking at this the wrong way. I can read english that i wouldn't be able to produce myself. Why is it natural that speaking skills far surpass reading skills? Maybe the question should be: why are people who take classes at University so bad at reading?

I think it also depends a lot of motivation. If you're doing a Japanese degree, speaking is likely high on your priority list. I, otoh, was essentially forced to learn japanese by my occupation. I had zero interest in japan or japanese beforehand. For over a year i had no great desire to be able to talk to japanese people, i just wanted to be able to read so i could do my job well. Then, naturally enough, i got sucked in due to how awesome japanese is as a language lol. Now i'm embarrassed by my extremely poor speaking abilities, and lop sided language knowledge in general (i can read technical stuff better than your average manga for kids). When you self study it's very easy to unbalance your learning in ways that aren't really possible if you take decent classes.

Mcjon01 Wrote:Ouch, man, that sucks. The same thing almost happened to me a couple of months ago, when I was stupidly trying to pry apart two of pieces of frozen chicken with a steak knife. I was lucky enough to not need stitches, but that's probably one of the more inconvenient places for an injury. You're not left handed, are you? That would be even worse, haha.

Right-handed but it's annoying since almost every activity requires both hands(got exempted today for my practical exam)

zigmonty Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:"面白いの話だ" is what I heard from a japanese source to be exact.

You heard it? Is it possible you heard wrong? 面白いお話です or something along those lines would make a little more sense to me, but not in the context you used it (referring to your own 話).

Yea I heard it wrong=虫のいい話だ

I must have misplaced what I was talking about because that was way off lol

Update: I just got some output practice with a Japanese friend of mine. And I was definitely lacking in the output department. But the reading/understanding wasn't the problem. She said she found it interesting how I can understand and read well but still have trouble with output. She pointed out that, if you really can understand and read, it shouldn't take you too long to get a grasp on speaking japanese. She also mentioned that, if I keep continuing(which I am). Reaching proficiency shouldn't be a problem in speaking japanese.

P.S. I got my account password for that japanese test(online one). I'm going to take it tomorrow and post the results that day.

For the output practice part, I'd highly recommend Italki.com It's like facebook for people learning languages, and there are plenty of people there happy to help you practice your japanese if you will help them practice their english. I used it a fair bit when I first moved to Japan, but now I have so many Japanese friends that it just seems silly to webcam with strangers for conversation practice...

I would bet that if/when you actually do come to Japan, you won't really have a problem with learning to speak well fairly quickly. At first you'll probably be terrible, and it will be very frustrating to understand so much and yet only be able to produce so little. That was my experience, and my Japanese is probably at a much lower level than yours.

I came to Japan about four months ago. I had taken two years of Japanese in high school in an intensive course - by the time I finished high school my japanese was pretty good (This was about 8 or 9 years ago). After high school though, I basically stopped studying at all outside of fairly continuous watching of Anime, Drama, etc. So when I came to Japan I had a pretty good ear and a decent small vocabulary everyday conversation. However, I was bitterly frustrated by my unable to hold even an extremely basic conversation.

For the first month or two I choked on my words and things just wouldn't come out of my mouth the way I wanted them to. A few months in though, something just clicked. I became able to produce output at the pace of a regular conversation provided the topics were quite simple. I still wouldn't say much of my Japanese, but I regularly have hour long or more conversations only in Japanese. Going beyond typical small talk I have to use terribly broken Japanese or my Iphone dictionary a lot, but I can communicate. I have had conversations about things like: what makes a good bottle of tequila, cultural differences between Japanese and Canadian christmas, and the nature of modern global disparity in technological and economic resources. Of course I am not even close to being able to express myself as I can in English, but I have had these conversations...

Currently, the thing I am frustrated by most is my inability to read. I love to read, and am surrounded daily by heaps of things I want to read, but can't. I remembered about 100 Kanji by the time I got to Japan, and since then I have been pouring all my effort into finishing Heisig 1 in the hopes that it will catalyze my ability to study in japanese once finished. I am about 1000 kanji in right now and it helps a lot, but it has become harder and harder to find time to study when I am so busy living...

So, given my own experiences I think that you will be more than fine once you get to Japan. Speaking practice now will definitely ease the pain of the initial transition though...

ta12121 Wrote:Update: I just got some output practice with a Japanese friend of mine. And I was definitely lacking in the output department. But the reading/understanding wasn't the problem. She said she found it interesting how I can understand and read well but still have trouble with output. She pointed out that, if you really can understand and read, it shouldn't take you too long to get a grasp on speaking japanese. She also mentioned that, if I keep continuing(which I am). Reaching proficiency shouldn't be a problem in speaking japanese.

P.S. I got my account password for that japanese test(online one). I'm going to take it tomorrow and post the results that day.

I was a little the same until recently, about 4 - 5 months ago now I started living with a Japanese girl and my speaking has gone through the roof now. So, it definitely catches up really fast.

Also, did you wind up doing that test?

mezbup Wrote:Also, did you wind up doing that test?

I haven't seen any JLPT results from him, but if you're talking about J-CAT, yes he did, and he did awesome:

ta12121's scores from the J-CAT thread Wrote:Section Score
Listening 79
Vocabulary 87
Grammar 62
Reading 65
Total 293