If you're not already I'd recommend reading manga and watching Japanese TV. Since they used a lot of the casual speech that you're likely to hear in daily life.

That way, you'll get a good for what kind of grammar may be useful for daily conversation.

Television is definitely not the same as real life. But in terms of conversation, it's close enough. I think if you watch enough shows and read enough manga, Khatzumoto might be right.

You'll just start to speak like the characters in manga and TV.

In reference to the "silent period", I think it is okay to keep funnelling in the comprehensible input and let the output happen when it's ready to happen.  That being said, there is also the principle of "practicing A does not improve B".  There will come the time at the ending of the silent period when you start moving into simple output...it should feel pretty natural, but the first few utterances, essays, etc. will be pretty basic, I think.

I like shadowing.  It is input (the listening part), and it is practicing "output" per se, but you're really just mimicing, and following a native speaker.  You're not "creating" anything that might be incorrect.

My Japanese education is so messed up by learning to speak so fast, in narrow topic areas, and leaving so many things untouched, that now it's hard to assess my own status in context of the silent period.  I think what I'm feeling is that, if I'm in the familiar context, then I'm no longer silent, but any other context, then I'm still at the point where I need to take in more input, without forcing myself to create anything.

I learned spanish in my home growing up, primarily because my parents listened to spanish music, occasionally watched spanish television, and older relatives spoke to us in spanish. my parents spoke to us in both, but because they spoke english like native-speakers, we ALWAYS responded in english since it was easier.

so, the only times we practiced speaking spanish was at get-togethers with extended family, and even then only when we were answering or asking questions of grandparents or aunts/uncles. not a lot of time speaking spanish in that sense. 1-2 days a month.

I received a lot of input of spanish, but didn't do much practicing of it. As a result, I understand spanish extremely well, but without a lot of constant speaking practice, probably operate at about 50% spoken fluency. Yet, understanding so much, I can easily have most conversations I want to engage in when the opportunity arises. And for the last 10 years, I've had even less reason to practice speaking.

So, concentrating on input WILL help you be able to speak when the time comes, even with very little spoken practice. When you first find yourself needing to, the words may not come and your brain will be reversing direction--it could take a couple of days to make that transition. But once your brain changes gears, you'll be surprised how much will flow out quite naturally.

So I have few doubts about Khatsu's experience, since I've seen it myself once already with another language.

mentat_kgs wrote:

Until today I never, I repeat, NEVER, had an oral conversation with someone in english. But I heard my voice recorded and it sounds better than my friend's who took "conversation" classes or have been out of the country.

I'll chat with you on skype if you want :-)

I think too many people here are worried about outputing too soon(If you are a just starting Japanese then this doesn't apply). I think almost everyone would agree it's more important to input things than output them, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't output at all. If you want to speak quicker and more fluently, you should practice speaking. It's really like anything else in life I think. If you want to learn to build cars, you 1st read a book or ask someone how to build a car(input) 2nd when you've got enough input you try to build a car. The first time you try, you usually make mistakes, but eventually you learn. Just inputing, is like reading 100 books on fixing cars and then assuming you will be as good as a professional mechanic. I think Samsara's advice is good. It's not a bad idea to try to output hard things over and over until you get them right(just make sure someone is correcting you).
   I live in Japan and my girlfriend is Japanese, so I have a lot of chances to output. When we started dating I sent her an e-mail everyday and it took forever to write(and read her replies). After a few months the mails that too me 1 hour to write took me 5 min to write. Nobody wants to sound weird or make mistakes in Japanese, but speaking slowly or taking forever to write something, is a mistake in itself, in my mind.

I have been studying Japanese off and on (with some admittedly very long "off" periods) for about 10 years, with the last year or so being very intense (usually at least 3+ hours a day.  Until recently, I learned almost solely through input.  To this day, I can hardly speak any Japanese beyond very simple sentences unless I really strain myself.  My listening comprehension is fairly poor too.  But my reading is pretty good and writing is ok.

I believe output training is very important, particularly in learning Japanese for a native Westerner, because the sentence order and words are often so different from what we are used to.  Spanish is much more similar to English in terms of many overlapping word origins and syntax structure so it is a lot easier to learn through input-only.  I studied Spanish for about a year, and although I never became fluent, I was able to write simple essays in it even after only six months.  Japanese takes way more effort to wrap your head around it.

I would highly recommend doing everything you can to get Japanese into your mind in an active, functioning way.  I suggest practicing output with a Japanese native who can correct you, lots of production cards, and "shadowing" native Japanese spoken dialogue by trying to repeat it as soon as you hear it (this is especially good with audio books where you can read along out loud with a print copy).

Yo, I got it all right, except for the space that should be blank, where I did put a　very confused に just to fit in. Btw, I hate katakana too.

These situations is where lots of input pays off very well. Maybe you should worry more about the quality of your input. Read more carefuly.

What I worry about production are words that I know such as 妄想.
I could remember the 想, but not the 妄.
But I had only 2 sentences with use 妄, so maybe I'm just lacking input.

I think that output should be practiced, and that the importance of output is undermined by the input system. 

Output is probably the best way to put things previously learned into permanent memory, and into active use for the future. This is why everyone is afraid of making mistakes and permanently learning things the wrong way. 

So the best way to practice output is to do it slowly and precisely.  Before entering a discussion, make a list of the topics you want to talk about, the grammar structures you want to practice, and vocabulary you wish to try out.  I've found that one-on-one phone conversations are the best way to utilize this method, and keep control of the conversation.  Also on the phone you can keep a list of vocabulary and grammar points in case you flounder.

If you have a fairly large vocabulary and are able to find a patient phone partner, assuming you speak to them ~5hrs per week, you can expect to become conversational within about 3 months.

Also with output practice you have the ability to asses yourself and find your weak areas (what you can and can't say), making it easy to pinpoint them and work on them.

I think that blowing off output entirely is a terrible idea.

IMO, you should always put particles in. Sure, in spoken japanese, it's okey to omit most particles even if it's grammatically incorrect, but there's really nothing good to be had from getting used to that. When you're good enough at japanese, it will come naturally.

QuackingShoe wrote:

It isn't grammatically incorrect to omit certain particles, particularly に in time statements. That aside, I prefer to take my cue from native Japanese writers.

Depends on what kind of time statement. For example, if you were writing an essay in japanese, 夏休み間ガールフレンド出来ました wouldn't be grammatically correct.

夏休みの間、ガールフレンドが出来ました is probably as far as you can take it in written Japanese. Simply skipping the に isn't an option.

Depending on your level, you can always make use of phorums and websites intended originally for Japanese native speakers, just as some non-English native speakers use this site, write comments at Youtube, blogs and a lot of other websites or chats .

I believe input is more important than output, but you want to be managing your input in a way that is kind of like output.

For example, when you read sentences:

- Don't skim them, really feel the meaning of the word. Same again when you are using your SRS.
- If you are using TTS, then try shadowing the voice and really feel the meaning in your words.
- If you are learning a new word, try making a different sentence using the word after you complete the card. The same applies with some new grammar.
- Try saying the sentence, but use your own wording, as if you are really communicating it's meaning to someone. You could read it, then look away and do this. As part of this you could change the sentence from polite to casual or vice versa to help break away from parroting the sentence.
- After you read or listen to the sentence, continue speaking. Perhaps add more meaning or some other argument. Or respond to the sentence as if someone said it to you. Don't force yourself to, try and respond naturally, but doubly great if you use the target language (stuff you want to learn) again.

I started doing this stuff when I noticed that new words I was learning would not come out easily when I spoke. I use a different one depending on the sentence and if I need some extra practice to get it speakable. Try them out and see what works for you.

Also

SPEAK TO YOURSELF IN JAPANESE! Typically I have two parts to my, the English part and the Japanese part. In the morning I do my English related stuff, such as surf any websites I like, review my RTK1 deck. Then I switch to Japanese study and will keep using Japanese until I have to use English again. Here is an example "conversation".

お腹すいたね。何食べようかなあ。昨日ピザだったけ。なんか健康的がいい。作ろうか？とりあえずスーパーに行こう。etc.

Serious stuff is also good. Doing this I have become faster and faster and faster. I can now speak at pretty much native speed if I am in familiar territory. The way I speak, in particular the conjunctive language flows very naturally. I often get complimented on how natural my Japanese sounds. I think this is largely due to speaking to myself (and also being a nazi about separating English and Japanese in my mind). This also really helps with pron, as your brain has power to spare to enunce clearly rather than working at 100% capacity building your sentences.

I hope this stuff helps.