How to get better at Japanese.

I've been taking Japanese for a year and half now at my school and its pretty easy for me to like right the sentences down on paper but when it comes to talking I'm so sloww. It takes me like two minutes to even think of the sentence. I practice a lot on talking it with my sister and mom, but theres so little I can say. :( Can anyone help me with this predicament?

The only way to ever get better at anything is to practice. I assume you don't live in Japan?... Are there any native Japanese speakers at your school that you can befriend or do a language exchange with?

Hi there! I've been learning Japanese for about the same amount of time, though I think I'm some what comfortable with words. A good way you might be able to get comfortable with speaking is by watching Anime, but in Japanese! when ever I watch Anime, I try to watch it in Japanese with English subs so I can try and pick out words I know. Anime translated into English also sound a lot cheesier than the Japanese version. So when/if you watch Japanese Anime try to pay attention to the speed they talk, and just how they speak particularly.

Good Luck!

Hey! You don't need to worry. I take it you don't live in Japan, right? I'm in a pickle too, but I know how to have a conversation, but not about politics or law. Nothing too hard. I only lived in japan for my first five years alive, so i didn't learn a lot. But the thing that changed me was i would go to school during my summer breaks for one month in Akita, Japan while i had my summer holidays. The hadn't finished school yet, so i went. Maybe go to a camp or something. What really helped me recently was a Denshi Jishou or an Electronic Dictionary that translate Japanese to English and back. Very easy to use. Mine can actually recognize kanji characters with a stylus on a pad. I have the SHARP Papyrus PW-LT300. Quite pricy though. Mine cost 30,000 yen. But awesome. There's also the Rosetta Stone series software for learning languages. I haven't used it yet but i'm about to get it. Very positive feedback.

I have the same problem- when it comes to listening, reading and even writing I'm fine, but when I try to talk it's like my brain freezes under the pressure of trying to figure out what it is I want to say in English and have it come out in Japanese at the same time. When speaking English I usually dive in immediately and finish thinking as I go, so the delay of having to think first and then speak seems to take forever and can be really frustrating at times.

I also run into problems because in my haste to start talking I get caught up in the impulse to directly translate my English thought into Japanese instead of just figuring out how to use Japanese to express what I want to say. I think it's better to focus on using what you CAN say in Japanese rather than wasting time thinking about to how translate a specific phrase (and possibly not come up with the answer).

So my best advice (besides sheer practice) is when you want to say something ask yourself what grammar rules, sentence patterns, vocabulary words, etc... do you know that could be useful. For example, if you wanted to ask something like "Would you happen to know where such and such is..." rather than wondering how to turn that specific phrase into Japanese consider 1- what sentence pattern do you know for asking directions and 2- what rules can you use to make the question polite.

Other people probably have better advice, but that's what's helped me so far...

I live in Japan and am having difficulty speaking Japanese. Everyone wants to practice their English with me.

Kiyo, I know that feeling...

Hey there, just practice a lot! I'm studying Nihonggo/Japanese too but when I'm going to say something, I almost freeze. Well, believe me, the best way to speak Japanese very well is to stay in Japan for a while. :)

to help with speaking, i suggest what that person said up there earlier is to either have a electronic dictionary or a plain old pocket one. The plain pocket one is what i used till i bought myself a electronic dictionary. The book dictionary proved to be annoying when i was on my exchange program, so i bought this casio xd-gp9700 for 490 dollars, but theres cheaper ones out there for english speakers, this one i highly recommend if you have the money and you can understand at least a little bit of japanese and kanji in order to use it. if not i recommend the cannon series, those are far more english friendly.

alright getting to the point, this is only a suggestion because this is what i done and it proved effective in allowing me to actually speak straight out japanese to my host family and have pleasant conversations. That would be to learn all the sentence structures and phrases, and how to conjugate verbs. Once you have that down and accumulate more, you can eventually learn more and more words to fill in to say what you want to in Japanese. I bought quite a few japanese text books for this purpose, i recommend Japanese for Everyone it has a lot of structures in it. Theres also many grammer books out there, so find what you like. also for pronunciation, you can watch japanese anime dramas and tv shows online and just mimic what their saying, to practice a little on that, use english subs then eventually ween of it.

practice though, try the friends system through here, maybe you can find a language partner that is willing to help you in exchange for help with english to them. Maybe use talk features on msn or skype. What i have done with my pen pals is tell them to respond and type and talk in english and ill respond in japanese. So we both get something out of it.

i dont think an electronic dictionary will help with speaking.

japanese is very simple to speak phonetically, there are 5 basic vowel sounds and that's it.

i would suggest getting a penpal or japanese friend and doing language exchange (verbal not written). if not possible then whenever you read something in japanese, pronounce it as well.

you will learn quickly this way, i believe.

Okay, here goes.

I had taken 1 year of Japanese in College. When finished with college two years later, I spent 3 months in Tokyo.

Upon arriving in Tokyo, I discovered the same problem you have. While being able to manage okay with reading, but when it came to spitting out sentences, my brain turned to molasses.

Here's what I did, and I was conversational (though not all that great) by the end of my trip.

I memorized over two thousand words in a month. Everything I read in English, I learned the Japanese equivalent. I memorized words until I knew them like the back of my hand.

With the knowledge of this many words, I could pick them out of conversations and TV shows very easily. It took no effort.

With the ability to easily pick out these words, the rest of the sentence structure became quite apparent. I could actually hear all the parts of any spoken sentence.

Once this happened, my ability to form sentences shot up. After watching hours of TV and listening to conversation after conversation - and actually understanding the words spoken - I was able to ingest the words on a complete level, and I learned them very quickly.

So, short form, I recommend memorizing as many words as possible - they are the building blocks of a language. Once you have them memorized, spend a few hours a day listening to japanese conversations (you can find them online), and watching Japanese tv shows on youtube. You will be surprised how fast you progress.

I see a lot of people suggest Anime, when it comes to learning Japanese. Not too many teachers suggest it, nor do I. (also, there is more to Japanese entertainment than Anime..)

Listening is not likely to help you with speaking.
Immersion is pretty much the only thing that will help. You need to make Japanese friends, in real life. If this is impossible, then you need to voice-chat with on-line pen-pals, and be very dedicated.

You need that challenge of being thrown into real, quick conversation. After you begin to become comfortable.. you will notice evident change in the fluency of your speaking skills.

This is a widely accepted principle of second language acquisition. Babies can't talk, but for about a year or so they listen to everything around them. They then start by saying one word at a time, gradually building on their vocabulary and grammar as they are exposed to more varied sound patterns.

Learning a second language follows a similar pattern, and this is even more noticible when you're talking about an uncontroled environment (i.e. outside the classroom). Watching anime, dramas, movies, etc. is good for building vocabulary and verifying sentence structure and intonation. It also is a good way of learning about culture. I don't know any instructor who would say that watching anime is bad for language acquisition. I myself like to watch j-dramas and have learned a lot of new vocabulary this way. That being said, to really get more comfortable with speaking you need to practice by listening to native speakers and build up to participating in conversations.

I would suggest making a circle of Japanese friends if at all possible. Most Universities have an international student group, so go and try to make friends. I was able to make friends with a group of Japanese students back home after studying for 3 years. For the first 4 or 5 months, I mostly listened whenever we all got together and didn't understand a huge amount of what they were saying. Then I slowly progressed, first being able to follow the thread of conversation, then becoming able to participate in the conversation more and more. But first when I tried to communicate I made lots of mistakes and felt frustruated with myself. That's a part of the process you have to be comfortable with. But if you put enough time and patience into it, it will pay off. My Japanese teacher and classmates noticed the difference and asked me what I was doing to improve.

One more thing. Studying vocabulary and grammar is a good thing of course, but knowing more vocabulary than someone else will not necessarily lead to you being perceived as more fluent. One of my friends has passed the JLPT at level 1. I only have passed level 2. She by far knows more vocabulary than I do but people here (we live in Japan) tell us that I speak better Japanese because, they say, my conversation style, pronunciation and intonation are more "natural" (I think this is kind of rude for people to say in front of her, but there's an aspect of Japanese culture for you). Don't overlook the importance of practicing speaking with native speakers. Make some friends!!! My friends get the vast majority of the credit for my ability to speak Japanese to the level I do. Plus they're really awesome people.

Good luck!

It's really listening and immersion and just getting over the fear of screwing up. Cuz let me tell you, you will screw up.

The best is to just talk and listen, learn as many words as you can in the process, but there's a lot of words in Japan that have the same or very similiar meanings, but one is vastly used over the other. Not to mention the sheer amount of stock phrases that they use.

But jump in and join the conversation and just remember this nugget of wisdom they told me "We'll take your bad japanese over our non-existant english"
It's true. And as you get better, they'll correct you and help you out. I have yet to meet a Japanese person in all my years of going over there that wouldn't take the time to help me out due to my Japanese. They are usually even nicer and even more patient/helpful than normal when they hear you speaking Japanese.

always remember, it's funny to screw up. keep a light hearted approach to learning japanese and watch how funny international communication can be. everyone trying to communicate even complicated ideas to eachother sometimes yields very fun situations.

i'll throw in one other little nugget of advice which may seem stupid to some; try drinking with japanese people and speak japanese to them. this seems ridiculous but a LOT of people "level up" in their japanese ability when they're a little tipsy. try it out sometime with some friends!

Winterwolf is right on. Almost everyone I know speaks Japanese better with a few drinks in them. Totally recommended.