!!, I read plenty of nonfiction!
Haha but actually I haven't read more than a few books in the past year, and on my defense, I live with my japanese girlfriend, and my chinese roommate. I'm pretty immersed over here so cut me a little break! ...also...I am no literary expert nor seek to be, and most of the other folks here aren't either. But the past few days I have spent way too much time on these forums. I'll be back in a week or so, I'm thinking to take the JLPT 2 in July so I really have to gauge if I am ready for it. Good luck increasing your speaking man.

By the way by July when the test is I will have only studied a year and 1 month. So I'm doing work over here son. Maybe Jlpt 1 this December too, If I feel particularly bold.

Last edited by Yonosa (2010 May 03, 4:47 am)

Guess I can focus on the JLPT1.

I agree that you should just speak. You need real practice conjugating, throwing together constructions, and turning as much passive vocab as you can into active vocab. This involves lots of pausing, frustratingly not being able to remember things, and relying on your partner for help, but it only gets easier and more fluent.

As long as you're learning and getting exposure, you'll be surprised at what you can produce if you really give it a go. I'm talking going for a 2-3+ hour conversation, not just short snippets of dialogue. The more you speak the more you learn, and not just from yourself but from your partner too. There's just too much language out there to prepare for, so you really need to get out there and do it.

Don't forget that it's not just about grammar and vocabulary - you've got to get your personality across! Find out what speaking style, gobi, etc work for you, and practice "translating" your humour while it doesn't matter how さむい you are. This is really important for confidence, which I think is at least 50% of speaking.

One thing that might help away from speaking, though, is shadowing. I found that it helped my general speaking flow, as well as pitch accent and intonation. Sounding good is another way to boost confidence. It's surprising how well you remember what you say as well.

wccrawford wrote:

People who play piano just to hear piano music are artists.  People who talk just to hear themselves talk are ass****s.

As for it being his wife, he's already said he has trouble with longer sentences and tends to answer simply.  He's asking how to fix that.  "Just do it" is -not- a valid answer.  It's not helpful in any way.  He already knows that he needs to talk more and is asking for suggestions on how to make it happen.

People who talk to become better at it are smart, not a-holes.

If he can only answer simply, he needs to practice his speaking more. "Just do it" is not only a valid answer, it's the ONLY valid answer. He's asking how to make it happen, and to just do it is how you make it happen. There is honestly no other way. People can try to think of their interesting new ideas for how to magically go from being able to talk only in single words to having full conversations without actually conversing, but it's not helpful since it won't work. There are no shortcuts. All you can do is talk so much that it becomes second nature. You start simple and it automatically becomes more advanced. First week, single words. Next week, simple sentences. Suddenly, you're fluently expressing your thoughts without any issues at all, and you're wondering how it happened. It happened because you used an ability so much that you got better at it. It's honestly quite as simple as that.

Last edited by Tobberoth (2010 May 03, 10:05 am)