I am looking for someone to study Japanese with, someone very serious about improving his/hers Japanese.
I have been learning the language for a while now, my focus has always been on input, I used to always only cared about understanding what I hear and read, however no matter how many hours I put into anki it's not enough so I want to start talking the language too. So anybody wants to try some skype chatting ?

My speaking skills are not that good yet, but I'm a quick learner and so will you be if you partner with me

You should list your time zone and around what time you might be looking to skype. It might not be decided yet and is probably flexible but might help someone who is around your time zone to make it convenient.

I'm on holidays right now so my time is flexible. I do have stuff to do but I can set them a side for some Japanese.

Okay, I'll ask the obvious question: is there a reason you're not looking for a native Japanese exchange partner? They're pretty easy to find on SharedTalk.com and similar sites. And they'll definitely be more useful in the long run (native access/speech patterns, ability to point out mistakes, etc., etc.).

I tried, but my Japanese is not good enough to talk with a native so all we did was talk in English the whole time.

You're better off talking with a native speaker.

Otherwise, you'll get used to your partner's mistake and
end up creating Japanese conversations that no native speaker
would ever make.

You have to be pushy and keep speaking Japanese.
Don't fall back on English.

Lastly, why not do http://www.lang-8.com?
Japanese speakers will correct your blog entries.
Writing is also a form of output.

Just write in the same way you'd speak and it'll help you
with your conversation skills. The stiffer more formal Japanese
writing style won't really be that useful to you in the beginning.
So don't worry about it so much.

loverkanji Wrote:I tried, but my Japanese is not good enough to talk with a native so all we did was talk in English the whole time.

Two things can help with this:

(1) Find a partner at your level of ability. E.g., someone who barely speaks English. (Yep, they're out there!) This forces both of you to try and communicate in one another's language, and pushes your ability forward. If you try and exchange with someone with moderate to excellent English ability, you'll end up defaulting to English.
(2) Agree with your language partner ahead of time that you'll spend x minutes exclusively communicating in Japanese, and x minutes exclusively communicating in English. Again, it's a forcing factor that prevents you from collapsing to the most comfortable option.

I agree with chamcham - don't practice with another non-native student.

EDIT: Lang-8 is great too. Just make sure to practice talking to yourself as well, and telling stories about your experiences to yourself without writing them down.

that's the thing, I don't know how to say things to not sound like gibrish.

loverkanji Wrote:that's the thing, I don't know how to say things to not sound like gibrish.

Have you tried lang-8? I did it for a while before I had enough confidence to begin speaking with natives. It took me a couple of months to get to the point where I could construct even simple sentences, and then several weeks of practice before I could put together anything resembling simple narratives about my experiences (where I grew up, went to school, etc.). And it's still VERY much a work in progress.

Personally, I'd put together things on lang-8, get corrections, and then practice saying these things to yourself out loud afterward. Do that until you feel you can say more than gibberish , and then get a live partner when you feel you can hold at least a simple conversation for 5 to 10 minutes. That approach has worked well for me.

lang-8 looks like a good place to start, I'll probably try that for a few months

I think you need a native speaker, but I don't think they have to have the same ability as you. However, you need to set up a certain amount of structure right from the start. And I recommend looking where you live first, rather than online. Online relationships are too loose and break too easily. Moreover, we are engineered to learn languages with other humans, with all our senses.

To give you some background, I had several language partners over the last 3-4 years and I eventually found the right one. We met once or twice a week, every week for about 2.5 years. Her English was fairly fluent to start with, but I was just beginning. The result is that I'm now fairly comfortable in Japanese, even among conversations with other natives. I even went to Japan and stayed with her family for a few days.

One hour each is a good starting point. You help for an hour, then you receive help for an hour. Otherwise, you and only you are responsible for your learning hour. Plan what you want to do, what you want to talk about, bring questions, etc. Focus on the things you can't do on your own, such as talking and interacting in the language. To prepare a story to tell, I recommend Self-Talk (which I explain here http://tiny.cc/mac57).

If you end up switching to English, you have only yourself to blame. In an exchange, it's your responsibility to make the most of it. People naturally want to help share and spread their language, so the more effort you demonstrate, the harder the other will work to help you. This effort also makes the other (and this is particularly true of the Japanese) feel like they are playing an active and important role in your learning, so they are more likely to remain loyal and assiduous.