I can read and understand a lot of written and spoken Japanese however I can barely speak myself. I realize that your production is often lower than your comprehension but it's stressful so I am thinking, should I actively look for ways to improve my speaking or can I just keep reading and listening and wait until my brain figure things out on its own?. I need some advice here.

Your brain will never figure it out on your own. If you want to be able to speak, you need to practice speaking.

As soon as you have the need to start speaking a lot, you'll start getting better at it. If you don't have people to speak to, why the rush? If you do have people to speak to, speak to them to the best of your ability, and in your study time focus on improving your comprehension via reading and listening so that you can completely comprehend what people are saying to you.

When I learned English (started reading at age 7, consistently being surrounded by English 8-12 hours a day until now with no big pauses), I spent almost all of my time reading, with barely any hearing or speaking. I started actively writing a year or so later (I notice you say production, but then you focus on speaking, so I'm getting mixed signals from that). Despite being the best in my school at English from start to finish, acing competitions and being better at it than even some of my teachers, I started speaking to natives and international users at age 15, i.e. 8 years after starting the language itself. I was initially awkward, but with the obscene amount of proficiency I already had, it only took a few hourlong sessions to get over that. Before that, I only had a few dozen hours of listening to real English, i.e. outside of the classroom environment, which was all accidental exposure, so my overall vocal ability was weak.

So, if you're only concerned about speaking, don't worry and just expose yourself to as much of the language as possible, speaking will be easy to get into once you have a good foundation and put yourself in a situation where you need to speak to natives. If you aren't writing at all however, I have no clue, since constantly playing online games had me writing all the time - you could try that, a setting where the flawlessness of writing isn't as important as simply getting the message through in a timely manner.

@Fadeway 8 years?. I'm f****d.

My point was that you can spend a big amount of time not touching vocal and not even feel that your language skills are inferior without it, and then, if your written ability is sound, you can easily make the transition. It's good to be able to produce written text, but the speaking itself can be delayed - effort that can be spent improving speaking isn't wasted in reading and writing instead, unless you feel very, very comfortable with those, and at that point it's easy to make the jump. I'm not saying to not touch vocal for 8 years, just that you can stop worrying about it until you feel that your written ability is good enough and allows you to read any kind of unfamiliar text with next to native level.

Really, as long as you improve, it doesn't matter what it is. Decrease reading and improve speaking, or master reading and then have an easy time with vocal, both are viable paths. And 5-8 years are about as much as you'd expect it to take if you want to fully master a language, sure you can pass the exams at, say, 3 years, but for real ability you need a load of use.

I agree with Fadeway - spontaneous speaking is the hardest skill in second language. You need to develop ability to use, within an instant, structures + vocabulary of your SL. This includes ability to express your emotions and thoughts in conditions that are far from the comfort of the classroom. I'm not there yet but when I'm, my drills will be based on writing (which is the way I got there with English).

Tzadeck Wrote:Your brain will never figure it out on your own. If you want to be able to speak, you need to practice speaking.

I should caution that you need to be exposed to enough input before you try speaking. I speak Japanese at least a few hours every day (out of necessity). While I am able to make myself understood, my expressions are entirely unnatural and my grammar is a train wreck.

I'm often stuck in situations in which I can't recall the correct grammatical structure or the appropriate words to use, and I fumble around searching for the right words to say. I assume the reason for this is that I've received insufficient input, and thus appropriate phrases don't come to mind when I need them. Therefore, it is important to receive enough exposure to common grammatical patterns and native materials so that appropriate expressions are naturally triggered when you need to use them in conversation.

turvy Wrote:I realize that your production is often lower than your comprehension

Production will always be inferior to your comprehension. Keeping the two close together is a long term endeavour and the earlier you start, the better.

turvy Wrote:or can I just keep reading and listening and wait until my brain figure things out on its own?

No. It may seem counter-intuitive, but speaking has a much bigger effect on comprehension than the other way around.

I suggest two things.

First, from now on, read everything outloud.

Second, switch gears and start expressing yourself in Japanese, outloud, talk about what you read, etc. Here is a self-talk exercise I posted on another site and that received a lot of positive feedback: http://tiny.cc/mac57

Try this for a few days/weeks and I'm sure you'll see a significant improvement.

vileru Wrote:I should caution that you need to be exposed to enough input before you try speaking. I speak Japanese at least a few hours every day (out of necessity). While I am able to make myself understood, my expressions are entirely unnatural and my grammar is a train wreck.

I'm often stuck in situations in which I can't recall the correct grammatical structure or the appropriate words to use, and I fumble around searching for the right words to say. I assume the reason for this is that I've received insufficient input, and thus appropriate phrases don't come to mind when I need them. Therefore, it is important to receive enough exposure to common grammatical patterns and native materials so that appropriate expressions are naturally triggered when you need to use them in conversation.

I disagree with this, but it's only based on personal experience so it's not like I have any real evidence.

In my experience people who had never formally studied grammar and have never had their grammar actively corrected continue to make big grammar mistakes very far into the learning process even with lots of input. I have a friend who has passed N2, so he's fairly good at comprehension, but he still says things like 新しいの本 when he's talking, even though I wouldn't make that mistake even when I was around N4 level. Why? I took classes, unlike my friend, and when I did I had my teachers actively correct me when I made basic grammatical mistakes. Thinking about and understanding grammar will help you use correct grammar much faster than lots of input.

I think using the proper expressions at the proper times, however, is helped by input. However, it's also helped by understanding the expressions well when you first learn them.

Also, I believe that when you are searching for a word and you can't find it, it's because you don't have practice recalling the word. That is, you brain needs to make a path to recall the information during the production phase of a conversation, and the successful recall rate gets better the more you successfully use that word in conversation. Lots of input improves your ability to recall a word in active situations very very slowly; practicing output and sometimes being able to successfully recall a word improves your ability to recall that word much more quickly. (As far as I know science about memory agrees with me on this point, so I encourage you to look it up--I should really get back to work so I'm not going to, haha. If you find that the science points the other way, let me know, but I'd be surprised.)

I agree with Tzadeck here.

AlexandreC Wrote:I agree with Tzadeck here.

Me too. Especially with this one:

Tzadeck Wrote:Thinking about and understanding grammar will help you use correct grammar much faster than lots of input.

I remember that just recently either I said or written (ie. it was production):
私の日本語が下手です。 (My Japanese is bad.)

Somehow, I was not comfortable with this and soon I realised why - the grammar that I studied has that you should say:
私は日本語が下手です。

After I made the note, the next time I used the correct version and I'm less likely to repeat this mistake. I don't think that any amount of input would be as efficient.

EDIT:
On a second thought 私の *may* still be correct and the difference would be in meaning of those phrases. Either way, I've been sensitised to this grammar point and surly will pay attention to it in the future.

@Tzadeck

I should've more carefully explained my situation in my post. Often, I can't recall the correct grammatical structure or appropriate words to use because I haven't even seen or heard the correct grammatical structure or appropriate words that go along with what I want to express.

I definitely do not want to take the position that, given enough input, production will just magically occur. However, it is essential to have at least minimal exposure to the grammatical patterns and wording that accompany whatever you hope to express because, even if someone is available to correct you, there's no way to correct an expression that is simply unnatural in the language. At best, someone could bring up some alternative expressions. But, honestly, even the most patient person probably wouldn't even go that far.

On a separate note, you can't allows count on there being someone to correct you. In my case, even people who are willing to correct me don't correct each and every mistake I commit (perhaps it's just me, but is it hard for anyone else to find Japanese who don't hesitate to offer corrections?). This is especially relevant in situations where it's difficult to find even a single person to correct your mistakes (seriously, has anyone here asked a cashier or a landlord to correct their Japanese?). Therefore, learners should consider corrections as supplemental, and not a replacement for careful self-monitoring.