gabrielbegin Wrote: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...

Thanks for sharing your experience. Your story definitely tells me that I will get better at output, but it will take time. For reading in my opinion is probably the easiest ability to gain(but the longest and takes a long dedication). My listening has gone up due to me doing srs cards a lot(via anki) and listening to various media in japanese. In terms of output I've found that when I really grasp a sentence. I can understand how the vocab is used/what the sentence means. I can output it+the stuff I've heard so much times over and over are already etched into my mind now. But none the less, I think all I have to do is keep going, keep doing the same things I'm done and actively try to practice output with some Japanese friends of mine or make some more and keep practicing. Reading is one of those things that just keeps going up if you keep at it but you will forget as well, it's only natural there's kanji I know well and sometimes I'm like "hey wait I know that one,eh....oh yea it's THAT reading".

mezbup Wrote:

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?

So it only took you a couple of months to get your speaking skills up and running? How did it happen exactly? Did it come out naturally due to the reading and listening you've done so far?

Asriel Wrote: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

What are the scores out of? 100?

I think so, http://www.j-cat.org/en/page/interpret

The thread he posted his results on was http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=6742

I'd say I echo the sentiments about the output. It's probably because a lot of us study by ourselves a lot and as such reading and writing are a lot easier. Put me at a keyboard and I can converse in Japanese for hours without much issue (albeit sometimes my friends forget I'm still learning and will talk to me as if I know exactly what they're saying and I'm left scratching my head occasionally) but put me infront of a Japanese person and It's as if all my grammar falls out my ears or something. So embarrassing at times, especially as i know exactly what i want to say it just doesn't form when I open my mouth. Hopefully I'll get the chance to practice more over this christmas break, I'm going to study my ass off so when I return from England for next semester (going home for a few weeks in between) I can try and use as little english as possible while I'm here. Problem being all the exchange students all speak English with each other and you kinda get sucked into that too.

I actually wanted to ask you about you production deck.

Do you use the same words/cards for production as you vocab deck?

Or what cards do you add to your production deck?