Practicing Conversational Japanese

This post was inspired in large part by Tae Kim’s excellent article on the subject. I strongly recommend you read that page when you can. So the gist of the page is that if you want to get good at conversational Japanese, you have to practice speaking Japanese with people. Listening is one part of that skill, but you also have to be able to construct (correct) sentences in your mind quickly, and also respond quickly to other people’s questions. This is a lot harder than you might think if you’re not used to doing it.

So, taking Mr. Kim’s advice, I opened up an account on Language Exchanges and used my existing Skype user, which I almost never use. I decided right away I wanted to talk with other men more, rather than Japanese women, since I want to actually speak Japanese like a man, not a woman. I am tired of learning Japanese from my wife and her housewife friends. Also I wanted to talk with men at least my age (30′s) or older just to have a more mature conversation.

The hardest part is definitely first meeting. I was nervous when I got in touch with a couple people online. As a matter of etiquette, I disabled video on Skype, so we could focus on talking rather than seeing each other, which could be awkward and embarrassing. Once I said ‘hi’ it was easy to work into a conversation. After all, those people are eager to talk too, so once we broke the ice, it was easy to practice language on one another. It helps to have some topics worth discussing too. In one situation, I was talking with someone for the second time, and I found I had run out of things to talk about, causing an awkward silence. Next time, I plan to be better prepared.

I’ve talked with two people from Saitama Prefecture, (like a certain blog reader I know ), and another person from Kyoto. In each case, I found that I learned something new, and feel a little less nervous conversing with Japanese people. I know I have an accent, and I make mistakes, but those people were nice and reminded me that I wouldn’t improve if I didn’t take a chance and keep trying. Also, one nice older gentleman helped explain to me how Japanese accents work (箸 and 橋 have different “tones” for example), which proved very useful. More on that in a later post.

Interestingly, in each conversation, we’ve never really tried to have a set format. We just start talking, moving back and forth between English and Japanese. In some cases, I found people eager to try their English, but once they exhausted their English, they switched back to Japanese which allowed me to converse for a while. I have some experience talking in Japanese with my wife and her friends and family, so I spent a lot of time chatting in Japanese, but also I tried ease such people into English conversation if possible.

From my experiences in Japan and Asia in general, I sometimes get people who want to practice their English on me, and I found that it’s better to be easy-going and flexible and let them practice. Most can’t actually speak English much (just like many foreigners can’t speak much Japanese), so they quickly run out and you can converse afterward in Japanese.

There are two problems I have had so far with practicing conversation:

• Time: It consumes about 45 minutes to an hour, which is often time I don’t have in the evening. However, it is an investment in a good, practical and fun skill, so it’s worth devoting some time to it anyway.
• Time-zone. People in Japan are usually 9 hours behind me, so when I am home during the evening, most people are in the middle of work. I occasionally find people online if I get on Skype early in the morning, but this is often not feasible.
• Topics, or lack of them. I think some people are just better at conversation than others, but try to be prepared in case you hit a dead-end.

Anyway, it’s a good skill to practice, even occasionally. Like anything, if you invest time into it, you’ll definitely see improvement, and it’s nice to meet new people and develop social skills in general.