Rina
Member
From: Kyoto
Registered: 2008-11-24
Posts: 557
Website
My writing skills (grammar, kanji, etc) are very, very good, even though I'm at a basic level.
When I'm on the class breaks and talk to the sensei however, my knowlegde does not come out, I just say things like "chotto", "ee", "sou desu ne", ...(sorry, no ime in this computer), when I try to make up a whole sentence I have to think first in my language and most of the times I cannot remember what grammar to use, and even forget particles now and then 
, but as I said, my writing and listening skills are very good (at least for my level).
I practice talking to myself, but that's not enought, though I'll try to do that more often. I also have been listening a lot more japanese daily (sound files of JLPT 3 and 4, cd's from Genki and an integrated approach to intermediate japanese, etc etc...), and my listening skills are improving I believe.
Do you have any tips? There's no way to have japanese friends because there are no japanese here.
If you know any threads regarding this let me know.
I intend to study genki 2 and minna no nihongos on the summer vacations and on december do the JLPT4, or 3 if I can finish in time and still are able to study for it.
There is no other way to acquire conversational skills than listening to natural speech for prolonged periods of time. Speaking it yourself is far less important, especially in the early phases. You may not pick up a native-like pronunciation just listening, but correct and natural sounding speech is possible.
Don't worry about grammar. Nobody thinks of it when we speak. Correct grammar comes naturally after a while. Of course, knowing the rules by heart helps speed up the process immensely, since it allows you to better analyse the things you hear.
As for thinking in a foreign language, this is not something that comes easy to everyone. Auditory thinkers make it look easier than it is. You need to be able to freely express yourself in your target language in order to get natural thought, unless you happen to be able to remember sounds really well.
Last edited by unauthorized (2010 May 06, 3:41 pm)
Thora
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2007-02-23
Posts: 1691
unauthorized wrote:
There is no other way to acquire conversational skills than listening to natural speech for prolonged periods of time. Speaking it yourself is far less important, especially in the early phases.
Really? No other way at all? So is speaking less important or not needed at all then?
[edit: To be more clear - I tend to think advice is more credible and helpful when it tries to justify a preference, as opposed to just asserting The Absolute Only Way. :-) Folks have been successfully using various techniques to improve speaking skills for ages, and continue to discuss their relative merits.]
As for thinking in a foreign language, this is not something that comes easy to everyone. Auditory thinkers make it look easier than it is. You need to be able to freely express yourself in your target language in order to get natural thought, unless you happen to be able to remember sounds really well.
I'd like to better understand what you mean here. [I looked up 'auditory thinking' ...there seems to a be wide range of explanations and implications.] Are you saying the required order is listening, speaking, then thought? With the exception of auditory thinkers who are better able to think in L2 before learning to speak? Are many mute people incapable of 'natural thought'? How are you sure we think in language?
On a more practical note, if someone decides they're not an auditory thinker, what effect would this have on their speech learning strategy? Is listening no longer the most effective route? Would the emphasis shift to learning speech through action, function and feedback? Something else?
Last edited by Thora (2010 May 06, 10:27 pm)
Nuriko
Member
From: CA
Registered: 2008-01-07
Posts: 603
Another thought -- lang-8 has helped me, and is continuing to help me a lot with my conversational skills. Every Monday I have a Japanese conversation class in which our teacher gives us a conversational topic to prepare for for next week. Over the weekend before the class, I write about the topic on lang-8 to prepare for it, receive the corrections and get a basic overview of how I might be able to say it during the class. Obviously, I don't memorize word for word, or that would defeat the purpose of growing through conversation. But for last week's class, I didn't post the lang-8 entry beforehand and just did it completely freestyle, and it worked out well. Whatever questions the teacher tried to surprise me with, I could respond very comfortably. Using lang-8 and listening to Japanese in every available moment has helped me to get to this point.
Nuriko
Member
From: CA
Registered: 2008-01-07
Posts: 603
brianobush wrote:
Nuriko wrote:
...Much of what I say in conversation is what I recall hearing over and over on my iPod, or variations of it.
What do/did you listen to? I am trying to amp up my listening time and wondering what to listen to. Seems that if I listen to complicated works, my mind just goes into passive ignore mode.
My playlist has anything I come across that I'm interested in and is enjoyable enough to listen to over and over again, and contains mostly speech (as opposed to fighting or any other action scenes). I use a recorder called Wiretap (http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/wiretap/) to record any sound that's playing on the computer, so I do this when I'm watching a video I want audio from and can't get a direct mp3 download (off Niconico, for example).
So, what's on my playlist is a combination of audio extracted from movies, dramas, interviews, interesting news segments, mukashi banashi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks6N6eDd … ature=grec), documentaries, etc from youtube or niconico, and mp3s I find on Livejournal communities (drama cds, seiyuu interviews), and of course, music and podcasts (most of which are posted here: http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?p … 41#p103241).
A lot of audio extracted from the following channel is also on my ipod: http://www.youtube.com/user/jetdaisuke
