kiriyama Wrote:Wow, no offence everyone but I think the room is in need of serious introvert sensitivity training. I highly recommend the article "Caring for Your Introvert" from The Atlantic. It addresses many of the major misconceptions non-introverts have about introverts and it's a quick and enjoyable read. I highly recommend it for both introverts and non-introverts alike.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arch...vert/2696/

Anyways, as a fellow introvert, I really like the ideas IceCream came up with. IceCream: I say just try them out, see what works, and report back. I think you're a few months ahead of me in your studies so I'm not in a position to give too much advice but I will be very interested to hear how these strategies work out and what resources you find.

Thanks Kiriyama!!! That's exactly it...

hahah that's a great article. I especially like "Hell is other people at breakfast time". That's probably my new slogan

also, "How can I let the introvert in my life know that I support him and respect his choice? First, recognize that it's not a choice. It's not a lifestyle. It's an orientation.

Second, when you see an introvert lost in thought, don't say "What's the matter?" or "Are you all right?"

Third, don't say anything else, either. "
perfect!!

ok, i'll let you know how it goes...

@puddingcat: thanks for the book recommendations!!! It looks good! But, hmmm, if it's JLPT3 ish, probably the workbook i have already is roughly the same. I'll see if i can find a copy and have a look whats inside 1st...

Quote:I was staying at a friends house and needed to wake up at the same time as them. I meant to say 起こしてください　「おこしてください」 (please wake me up) but instead I said 犯してください 「おかしてください」　(please rape me).

For some reason I even ended up mixing up 美味しい and 気持ちい... embarrassing at a restaurant.

液体 and 体液 also present a hazard.

Also, shouldn't it be easier for introverts to talk to Japanese people? I feel overwhelmed by extroverted Westerners but feel much more at ease around Japanese friends.

If you want something higher I think this book is JLPT N2

http://www.amazon.com/Living-Japanese-Di...214&sr=8-1

I think it's very good so if you have any questions you can ask me I can't answer any questions about Total Japanese though because I gave those books away.

Yo, this month I'm doing 3 years of Japanese. And I'm still not able to speak comfortably. I think is that around January/2010 I almost completely lost interest in Japanese. I've being doing something in Japanese once a week.

But this whole year, my Japanese evolved while sleeping inside me.

I'm feeling an immense urge to speak. I so want to test my skills. I know I can do it.
I so want to try it.
じゃ、日本語を話したい人たち、何がすればいい？

dizmox Wrote:Also, shouldn't it be easier for introverts to talk to Japanese people? I feel overwhelmed by extroverted Westerners but feel much more at ease around Japanese friends.

Some of the most loquacious people I've ever met have been Japanese. One of my 関西 friends I often talk with on Skype fires away IM messages faster than you can speak. An entire one-way conversation is had by her before I even reopen the app to reply!

Is anyone an introvert on the Internet? I'm far from outgoing, but I don't struggle to hit the 'Invite for a voice chat' button on Shared Talk. You don't need to be the Fonz to practise speaking Japanese in the year 2011, so why are people so insistent on making excuses? I meant to reply sooner, but somebody hit the button on me and I just got 90 minutes of practice in. Highly recommended.

Javizy Wrote:Is anyone an introvert on the Internet? I'm far from outgoing, but I don't struggle to hit the 'Invite for a voice chat' button on Shared Talk. You don't need to be the Fonz to practise speaking Japanese in the year 2011, so why are people so insistent on making excuses? I meant to reply sooner, but somebody hit the button on me and I just got 90 minutes of practice in. Highly recommended.

Yes, I rarely ever do voice chats on SharedTalk, always IM.

Javizy Wrote:Is anyone an introvert on the Internet? I'm far from outgoing, but I don't struggle to hit the 'Invite for a voice chat' button on Shared Talk. You don't need to be the Fonz to practise speaking Japanese in the year 2011, so why are people so insistent on making excuses? I meant to reply sooner, but somebody hit the button on me and I just got 90 minutes of practice in. Highly recommended.

I can't imagine ever going on Skype or shared talk to practise speaking to a stranger. It sounds like my worst nightmare. I wouldn't IM people I didn't know either...

pudding cat Wrote:I can't imagine ever going on Skype or shared talk to practise speaking to a stranger. It's sounds like my worst nightmare. I wouldn't IM people I didn't know either...

Based on what though? I thought the same thing once, but after visiting a Japanese shop with 18-months study under my belt and knowing I couldn't say a word to the clerk, I had a bit of a wake-up call. I was pretty nervous the first few times talking to my first Skype friend, but it soon became a lot of fun and motivated me to study more. I was pretty crap, but guess what happened after a bit of practice? I really regretted not starting sooner.

Online language exchange is different to just talking to people in a normal situation. You don't need to impress anyone, you don't need much in common for it to work, and it's easy to escape when things go wrong. And as somebody mentioned, Japanese tend to be some of the easiest people to talk to if you're not the most confident type.

Maybe it's not as easy as I made out in my previous post, but if you want results then you need to put in a bit of effort, and if that means getting through a few nervy conversations before you feel comfortable, then I think doing that will help more than moaning about how crap your speaking skills are. Your confidence will begin to grow loads when you start to notice progress.

pudding cat Wrote:

Javizy Wrote:Is anyone an introvert on the Internet? I'm far from outgoing, but I don't struggle to hit the 'Invite for a voice chat' button on Shared Talk. You don't need to be the Fonz to practise speaking Japanese in the year 2011, so why are people so insistent on making excuses? I meant to reply sooner, but somebody hit the button on me and I just got 90 minutes of practice in. Highly recommended.

I can't imagine ever going on Skype or shared talk to practise speaking to a stranger. It sounds like my worst nightmare. I wouldn't IM people I didn't know either...

Even if it was someone from a penpal search site? :S

Javizy Wrote:

pudding cat Wrote:I can't imagine ever going on Skype or shared talk to practise speaking to a stranger. It's sounds like my worst nightmare. I wouldn't IM people I didn't know either...

Based on what though? I thought the same thing once, but after visiting a Japanese shop with 18-months study under my belt and knowing I couldn't say a word to the clerk, I had a bit of a wake-up call. I was pretty nervous the first few times talking to my first Skype friend, but it soon became a lot of fun and motivated me to study more. I was pretty crap, but guess what happened after a bit of practice? I really regretted not starting sooner.

My decision is based on knowing what I'm like. I don't like idle conversation with people I don't know. I don't really talk a lot to people I don't know well. That applies both in English and Japanese.

Javizy Wrote:Online language exchange is different to just talking to people in a normal situation. You don't need to impress anyone, you don't need much in common for it to work, and it's easy to escape when things go wrong. And as somebody mentioned, Japanese tend to be some of the easiest people to talk to if you're not the most confident type.

Maybe it's not as easy as I made out in my previous post, but if you want results then you need to put in a bit of effort, and if that means getting through a few nervy conversations before you feel comfortable, then I think doing that will help more than moaning about how crap your speaking skills are. Your confidence will begin to grow loads when you start to notice progress.

You might not have directed that entire post at me but you quoted me at the top so I'll reply to this bit too. It seems a bit off topic really seeing as you only asked if people were introverts on the internet as well as in real life. Being an introvert isn't making an excuse to not speak to people online. It's just the way some people are.

I didn't say I had problems speaking Japanese. I'm not perfect but I'm not lacking in confidence either. I'm fine with speaking to my friends, shop assistants, taxi drivers etc. Speaking to strangers though for random conversation is just not my cup of tea.

pudding cat Wrote:Speaking to strangers though for random conversation is just not my cup of tea.

It's because you don't include enough alcohol in your diet.

jettyke Wrote:

pudding cat Wrote:Speaking to strangers though for random conversation is just not my cup of tea.

It's because you don't include enough alcohol in your diet.

It doesn't go with my tea, that's why

jettyke Wrote:

pudding cat Wrote:Speaking to strangers though for random conversation is just not my cup of tea.

It's because you don't include enough alcohol in your diet.

The rare occasions on which I do speak with strangers on Shared Talk generally involve some alcohol consumption

It doesn't go with my tea, that's why :p <--what we from the North would say about

this would be " It's not my horn of vodka"



jk


now how silly is that?

pudding cat Wrote:If you want something higher I think this book is JLPT N2

http://www.amazon.com/Living-Japanese-Di...214&sr=8-1

I think it's very good so if you have any questions you can ask me I can't answer any questions about Total Japanese though because I gave those books away.

that looks awesome!!!!!

i guess it doesn't have excersises or anything right? all the same, i could probably learn from it. I love human documentaries, so definately gonna get that! Thanks!!

i was looking at something similar the other day, have you seen this? http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/catalog/...16832.html
it doesn't have a dvd with it, but still, it looks good too...

@everyone else... yeah, i speak to friends on skype sometimes, and i used shared talk once. i like speaking to friends, and that's nice, and i do understand that real practise is important, etcetc.

But... can we just pretend i didn't mention it's for speaking at all, and go with the resources? Because, i really really think that some structured materials will do me a lot more good than speaking randomly in poor japanese right now. Most of you have used these kinds of materials at some point, but i haven't, so... maybe that's the difference? Anyway, i think that that would give me more confidence.

Especially, i'd like to get to the level in speaking where i can talk about interesting things. I just think that's gonna take a bit more work than just speaking. Because, already i can string together sentences that are understandable but grammatically incorrect... slowly. If i have the sentence patterns, grammar, etc, then surely i'll both be quicker, and more accurate? I'm not sure what's so strange about that idea...?

dizmox Wrote:

pudding cat Wrote:

Javizy Wrote:Is anyone an introvert on the Internet? I'm far from outgoing, but I don't struggle to hit the 'Invite for a voice chat' button on Shared Talk. You don't need to be the Fonz to practise speaking Japanese in the year 2011, so why are people so insistent on making excuses? I meant to reply sooner, but somebody hit the button on me and I just got 90 minutes of practice in. Highly recommended.

I can't imagine ever going on Skype or shared talk to practise speaking to a stranger. It sounds like my worst nightmare. I wouldn't IM people I didn't know either...

Even if it was someone from a penpal search site? :S

I've never been on a pen-pal search site, is it like a match-making kind of thing?

pudding cat Wrote:

jettyke Wrote:

pudding cat Wrote:Speaking to strangers though for random conversation is just not my cup of tea.

It's because you don't include enough alcohol in your diet.

It doesn't go with my tea, that's why

Yes it does. Shochu cha-wari is great.

Introversion is not genetic, it is a personality trait and can be gotten over.
I used to be somewhat introverted until I got a part time job that required me to talk for 6 hours continuously to strangers every day.

Also, yes alcohol works

Ephedrine works even better but it's illegal in Japan and restricted elsewhere (I discovered this by taking daytime allergy medicine while working at a konbini and talking customers' ears off all day). Probably not a good idea to abuse amphetamines though.

Jarvik7 Wrote:

pudding cat Wrote:

jettyke Wrote:It's because you don't include enough alcohol in your diet.

It doesn't go with my tea, that's why

Yes it does. Shochu cha-wari is great.

Introversion is not genetic, it is a personality trait and can be gotten over.
I used to be somewhat introverted until I got a part time job that required me to talk for 6 hours continuously to strangers every day.

What's wrong with being introverted? I'm not secretly hoping I can get over it so I can speak to random people on skype. I'm fine as I am

Personally, many of my goals in life require a sociable personality, so it's something I'm working towards, with moderate success.
At any rate, I've never used Shared Talk to practise my Japanese, I use it to chat up young Japanese women, so voice chat means nothing to me.

Just for the record, introversion =/= shyness. Shyness you can get over, introversion... Not so much.

blackbrich Wrote:Just for the record, introversion =/= shyness. Shyness you can get over, introversion... Not so much.

Eh, I'm not so sure. I've switched personality types before. I was introverted when I was a kid, then extroverted for most of high school, then introverted again in college.

And since then I've been in Japan, where it's harder to gauge myself.

pudding cat Wrote:What's wrong with being introverted? I'm not secretly hoping I can get over it so I can speak to random people on skype. I'm fine as I am

Yes. If you ask me today's society is too extravert oriented. Ancient societies knew the value of introverts and integrated them with craft or chamanism, because people needed to rely on one another. Nowadays we continue to rely on one another, but the individualism culture has ingrained the illusion that introverts are worthless. I mean, I've been turned down jobs because I put forward my introvert qualities (like easy focus, good listening, reducing tensions in group...), it's really annoying.
I'm not shy, but am an introvert all the same-- it's about how you process data. Introverts can be actors (though very few are). I've done selling jobs, sometimes better than extraverts, but still, when you try to explain in interview how social skills aren't everything, people think you're crazy. :/

IceCream Wrote:

pudding cat Wrote:If you want something higher I think this book is JLPT N2

http://www.amazon.com/Living-Japanese-Di...214&sr=8-1

I think it's very good so if you have any questions you can ask me I can't answer any questions about Total Japanese though because I gave those books away.

that looks awesome!!!!!

i guess it doesn't have excersises or anything right? all the same, i could probably learn from it. I love human documentaries, so definately gonna get that! Thanks!!

Each chapter goes like this
1) English introduction giving background to the topic.
2) Transcript of interview
3) Vocabulary and notes on interview in English
4) Suggested topics for dicussion based on interview

IceCream Wrote:i was looking at something similar the other day, have you seen this? http://www.whiterabbitpress.com/catalog/...16832.html
it doesn't have a dvd with it, but still, it looks good too...

I haven't seen that book before.

The point of the posts wasn't "you should be an extrovert", it was that speaking improves speaking and you might want to force yourself a bit to get the practice. No book or CD set or anki deck is going to get you all the way there. Just look at how hard Japanese people study eikaiwa but not doing eikaiwa.

Then again, if you aren't terribly interested in speaking with people why care about your speaking level?