This thread doesn't really have any deeper purpose, just wanted to share something. I'm nowhere near being fluent, in terms of textbooks/vocab/grammar I'm somewhere between N2 and N1, based on past tests at least. I can hold pretty decent everyday conversations. It's also pretty easy to have 1-on-1 (or small group) conversations since the other person obviously knows that Japanese isn't your native language so they often switch to easier words/grammar.

When a larger group of Japanese people are talking among themselves though it's much more difficult for me. However, even though there are many words I don't know I still get the general sense / meaning what they're talking about and can join the conversation. However, sometimes, when I got out drinking with a Japanese group I absolutely understand close to *ZERO*. Seriously, it was an hour long conversation yesterday and I had really no idea what's it even about. Got me pretty frustrated/demotivated.

Anyone wanna share their experience where they barely understood anything?

That's pretty normal. When natives talk among themselves it tends to be much harder to understand than if they're talking to you.

Sure, and it's totally fine as long as I can at least understand what they're talking about, that's usually the case. Sometimes the grammar/vocab is simply missing or I can't quite catch what they're saying. Later I can look up the words or ask someone, etc. Still I feel like I'm making progress and if I study more I'll soon be able to get it.

However, what frustrated me is that even though I've put in quite a lot of time in studying, and even though I am planning to pass JLPT N1 in half a year or so, there are situations when I honestly don't understand *anything*! I can't even tell what I need to work on since I feel like I'm soo far away from being able to understand. As if it's a language I have never studied before. And it's not only a few sentences I didn't get, but a whole conversation.

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I too experience this from time to time. It's only natural, tho it bugs me too. The longer I study Japanese the less frequent it becomes.

I had an epiphany one day as to why this phenomenon occurs when I was talking In English with one of my kiwi friends. As we were talking I was thinking there's no way a Japanese person would have any idea what we're talking about right now! Reason being we were just talking shit like cultural memes and lines from movies and stuff that happened 10 years ago and about stuff that was popular a few years back. All this kind of crap. Not only that but we speak almost exclusively in slang and every second thing we say is some sort of joke/pun. Makes for hilarious conversations but I think half of what were talking about not even other natives would have been able to follow our conversation. It was that realization that brought me to the conclusion that it's not that you don't understand what they are talking about because of the language but because of the SITUATIONS they are talking about.

I remember one time a year ago this happened and one of them asked me... Do you know what something-something(forgot the name)-chan is? I'm like... No? He's like ah well it's so and so's blanket from childhood that she still has and that's what we're talking about. Hahah.

Sometimes... Just ask! You'll find the answer may surprise you sometimes.

Also I remember a time when I could follow/join in the conversation but another native couldn't. Again this came down to not our japanese ability but the fact that we were talking about a scandal that went down between friends of ours but this person had no idea who these people were so naturally they had no clue what we were talking about even tho she was a native speaker.

So, all in all it's impossible to understand 100% of Japanese 100% of the time because that would require you to know everyone and everything.

I know what you mean and that's definitely true but it didn't apply in my case. Sure, the people I went out with knew each other but they are not close friends or something like that. There are no inside jokes or common experiences between them. It wasn't any dialect either.

I'm really not sure how to best study for these kind of situations. Maybe I need more listening input, but then, I can follow a lot of TV programs or everyday conversations just fine and it wouldn't really help since it's just very different. Of course I don't wanna disturb the conversation and keep asking "What's this? What's this?", etc.

@Mezbup
haha so true. When I talk to friends, the conversations we have are all random,humorous,random stories,situations,inside-jokes,etc. Even my other friends don't know what we are talking about and they are natives. So it really is subjective and you really can't understand everything that comes your way but if one can understand what's being explained (for an unknown word or situation). That shows real fluency.

Don't worry it's completely normal. I kind of assumed that after I'd got past N1 level I'd be able to understand everything pretty well most of the time. However, it's still very much a case of there being times when I completely understand and times when I'm pretty much lost. It just seems to be the ratio of these two that is slowly changing.

Don't believe anyone who has only been studying Japanese a couple years and says they understand 99% of what they hear. That probably means they are just putting themselves in the same situations, talking to the same people, watching the same t.v. shows etc. over and over again.

As other people have said there are a lot of factors like accents, in jokes, obscure cultural references etc. that could be the cause. I especially find it difficult to follow these sort of conversations when I'm somewhere noisy like a bar. In your native language you can usually fill in the gaps if you miss something, but it's a lot harder to do this in another language.

I'm at about the same place. It is frustraiting but しょうがない :$

If your listening is at least passable, when you're thrown off by a conversation between native speakers, it should sound like:

Native: You know what, A B'd C when D is E!
Another native: That's sooooo F!

and you're like "So, that A person did something called B to the C thingy or something like that. And it's unusual to do so if D is in the sate of E, um, did he say E? Or was it E'? And according to the other native speaker, it's a quintessential quality for someone who is F, which apparently A is. Ok. I don't have a single clue what they're talking about!"

Of course, you don't consciously think like this. What I mean is that, if your listening is at an ok level, you can almost always intuitively follow the "flow of the language," sort of, but might have absolutely no idea what's going on. If your case is like this, I think mezbup hit the right nail on the head. It's inevitable to experience this to an extent regardless of whether you're a native speaker or not. If you're at this level, you should be able to naturally pick up words, phrases, grammar and whatnot as you use the language.

But if you hear something like

Native: gmakoirjenagiupjnnaiwerhnejfpawusjaijnaoiiym!
Another native: nisawfnreijfapfjierneingai!

and you don't even know how many words there are in the sentences, it's just your listening (ability to catch phonemes, tones, pitches etc.), grammar, vocabulary and everything are all too poor to understand the conversation. If it's always like this when native speakers lose you, and if you can really get a high score in standardized tests as you claim, maybe you might want to reconsider your learning methods because something is fundamentally wrong.

And if you experience both, probably you don't need to worry too much. I think it's normal for a learner.

Note: I said "everything" is poor if you always hear gibberish because grammar and vocabulary are closely related to your listening ability. There are many grammar rules which involve sounds. For example, there are allophones that have grammatical functions. Also, a spoken word has its "meaning" and "sound," and if you only know one of the two aspects, you don't know the word yet. You don't say you know word A when you don't know what it means. The same goes for its sound because it's equally important. So if you think your listening is weak, as far as spoken language goes, you suck at everything.

Hell, I get Magamo's first example with English when listening to young kids -- absolutely no idea what they are talking about and it's all, presumably, in English.

I'm in nearly the same situation. I passed N2 in December. 1 on 1 conversations are usually okay, if not as smooth and fast as I'd like.

But in larger groups where I'm the only foreigner, I often get completely lost. Unless somebody takes a moment to summarize things and bring me up to speed, it's like Magamo's first sample conversation where all the key points are missing.

Part of it is not having enough vocabulary yet, but I think that for me at least, it's also that I haven't yet fully internalized even the words that I do know. I noticed that I need to have conversation in Japanese be louder than English. Or rather, I'm so familiar with English that even when I can't hear half of it I can fill in the blanks by lip reading and guesswork. I can't do that in Japanese (yet?) so anyplace where the ambient volume is loud tends to be very difficult for me.

I don't have any advice to get over this; I'm wondering how to do it myself. It's so demotivating. After one of these nights with friends I'll come home feeling completely discouraged, like all the work I've done is useless and no matter how much more I study it won't ever get any better. My self esteem will be shattered; days or even weeks after a night like this, I'll find myself having trouble with situations that I could have dealt with before because I'm suddenly questioning and double-guessing myself instead of just doing it. Logically I know the best way to deal is to keep studying and practicing, but going out when I consider myself a failure at Japanese is the last thing I want to do. I'm not an outgoing person regardless of language and this kind of situation is like an introvert's worst nightmare.

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