We've been together for over a year. This weekend will be a milestone lesson for me, then I'll take a few weeks off, and so will she. For context, we are quite close, and we're both women. She has worked for my schedule so many times and frequently gives me more time than what I booked, so I want to show my appreciation.

I want to gift a present, but I'm not sure what is appropriate. She lives in Spain. Is an Amazon gift card to the Spanish store an appropriate present? If so, how much? Is 100 euros reasonable? I'm not European, so I don't want to cause any awkwardness or send an inappropriate present

Hello

I use a textbook + anki for learning as well as a weekly italki lesson with a tutor. I am improving but I was thinking about practicing my writing too.

I use langcorrect.com for Japanese and it's quite active! I frequently get a few corrections within hours of posting.

I tried it for Korean and I don't think anyone is using it for Korean there. I still haven't gotten any corrections yet :(

So what do you guys use to practice writing?

Hello :D I am a native Arabic speaker. I am a graduate student in computer science. I like programming, exercising, crocheting, and language learning (currently learning Korean through Japanese =D ). I LOVE manga, kpop, and jpop! I read horror, comedy, romance, ototmeisekai, rofan, slice of life, and occasionally seinen too (I love Golden Kamuy). I'm looking to improve my spoken Japanese

私の母語はアラビア語です。情報工学の博士課程の学生で、研究の結果を英語でまとめて投稿してきたので、英語には自信があります！

筋トレが好きなので、ジムには周に３回通っています。そして、よく漫画を読んだり、編み物や料理をしたりします。音楽は、kpopやjpopが好きです。好きなgenreはラブコメ、ホラー、そして乙女異世界。時々、青年漫画も読みます（最近、ゴールデンウイークに夢中です！）。

目標は日本語の会話能力を伸ばすことです。今年は少しでも自然に話せるようになると決めました！
ぜひよろしくお願いします

I've been learning Japanese for 10 years because I like Japanese media. I've never taken the JLPT, but my tutor thinks I'm around N2+. I can read manga/novels, watch anime, and listen to podcasts. My strongest area is definitely reading BY FAR. I've never been to Japan (one of my life goals is to go there for a vacation, though!) and my country doesn't have that many Japanese people, so I basically don't speak Japanese to anybody around me. Despite learning for 10 years, I have never practiced speaking until last year, when I finally decided I wanted to learn how to speak too.

Anyway, I started speaking last year and as of now, I feel like I'm much more natural. Of course, with much more to go, but the improvement has been substantial. I remember the frustration and self-doubt I felt along the way. So I decided to write the "steps" and "drills" we've been doing to improve spoken Japanese for anyone struggling with that.

This is my guide towards spoken fluency for those who are NOT complete beginners in Japanese.

1: Just speak

First, you must speak no matter how bad you sound. Speak aloud to yourself, hire tutors, and try a few until you find one you like. Speak!!

In the first few classes I took, everything was bad. Literally nothing was going my way. I couldn't remember simple grammar, words, or phrases. My mind kept trying to translate from English to Japanese if that makes sense? Basically, if the tutor asked me お名前は何ですか? My mind will go "What is your name?" (translating the question) "My name is XXX" (answering in English in my mind) "私の名前はXXX" (translating my answer, often unnatural and riddled with incorrect words).

However, this stage is VERY important to build confidence. You MUST speak no matter how bad and awful the words out of your mouth sound.

Tools and drills that could help in this stage:

• reading anything aloud
• speaking to yourself
• speaking with a tutor
• shadowing

Remember, the goal is NOT to speak perfectly. The goal is to SPEAK so that your mouth gets used to the Japanese sound.

2: transition to word unit

After the first few weeks of constantly talking to build confidence and to get your jaw comfortable with the sound, it's time to transition to thinking in "words".

What does this mean? In the first stage, you might have noticed that you couldn't remember simple words you know so well like school, student, work, walk, go, ..etc. So in this stage, it's time to build YOUR word catalog

DO. NOT. USE. ANKI!!!!

I am an anki addict, so I know it might be tempting. But trust me, you KNOW these words. The problem isn't that you don't know them, it's that when you try to speak, they don't come quickly (or at all) to your brain.

The good news? I noticed that by recalling a word a few times while speaking (lately, recalling once is enough too!), it becomes readily available in my brain

In this stage, talk a lot about things you care about. Talk about yourself, your community, your hobbies, your work, your goals, media you like, the news, the weather, describe your country ...etc. Every time you get stuck, try to remember the word. You can use jisho to look it up or let the tutor help you but don't do it more than a few times for the same word. The goal is to force your brain to remember the word immediately.

You know you've mastered this stage when you can remember the words you consider important in your brain immediately, but you still translate because of the grammar. Basically, you still take time thinking of the correct conjugation, particle, and word connectors. For example, your brain will be like "I wanted to talk about the猫 I 見る on the way to the 図書館" so it becomes "図書館に??、猫で見ました". Notice the incorrect grammar and the missing pieces. You can recall many words, but you still struggle connecting them EVEN THOUGH YOU KNOW THE GRAMMAR!!

3: transition to simple clauses/sentences (3 words or less)

In this stage, you start practicing a clause. instead of 好き、practice が 好き. Practice common conjugations like て、たい、ます. Practice adjective + noun. In the previous stage, you think of independent words in their base form. Now, think of conjugated words and small units like　にいます.

If you're reading aloud, try to break the sentence into units of particle + conjugated word / adj + noun. For example, 今日は - 新しい本 - を買いました。When you're speaking with the tutor, try to say easy sentences without translating in your head. If you must stop to think, say a conjugated word (and not dictionary forms) before you stop in the same way as reading aloud. Try to reach a point where you DO NOT translate simple sentence grammar in your head. DO NOT THINK IN "okay I want to say buy in the past" but think "買うー＞買いました" and with time, 買いました will pop immediately.

GRAMMAR MISTAKES ARE OKAY! UNNATURAL PHRASING IS OKAY! INCORRECT WORD IS OKAY! Just keep talking in units bigger than single words.

You're ready for the next stage if you can make simple sentences (3 words) more smoothly.

4: connect simple sentences

Now you're ready to connect the simple clauses and sentences you practiced!!

By the end of the last stage, a conversation with you might look like this (space means you stopped talking for a second):

今日は　新しい本を買いました。この本の　作家が　XXXXです。私は大ファンです。だから　買いました。朝から　読んでいます。

Now, try to connect simple sentences together with ので、から、ったら、and so on. I know, you know these constructs. I know you understand them perfectly when you hear them! But now, it's time for YOU to use them. Once again, don't worry about naturalness, directness, or even correctness. Just talk!! Think like this (space means you stopped for a second):

私はこの作家の 大ファンなので、 今日は彼の新しい本を 買いました。 読めたいのに、 仕事のせいで まだ読みません.

Honestly, by this point, you're already very well understood. So well done :D

5: Use common phrases and compound grammar

Now it's time to level up! Practice saying common phrases that you can add at the beginning and end of your sentences. Read them aloud or do shadow reading or any SPEAKING drills (NO ANKI!!) so that they come naturally when you speak. Tell your tutors about which group you want to use so they can remind you to use them. Examples include:

• ending phrases like と思います、と感じます
• compound grammar constructs like 、～ってしまう、～ようと、～し始めました、ようになります、いけなければいけないので、予定です、　たことがあります
• adverbs and extra words like だんだん、本当に、特に、正直、まさにそうです、たしかに、真剣に

pick a few and practice using them in your speech. Adding these words and phrases improves your speech dramatically

6: Level up! improve your synonym game!

Now you probably talked about the weather or your hobbies a million times. It's time to say the same things but using different grammar and vocabulary.

My tutor suggested this drill, and it's extremely fun. Not only does it test comprehension, but it also helps you create a mind map of words in your brain.

If you're like me and used anki to learn 5~6K words before going to the immersion route, then you probably know lots of words, but you've never thought about their JAPANESE synonyms.

Example drills:

• read an article/manga or watch a movie/anime or listen to a podcast/song, then summarize it to someone/yourself. This tests your ability to comprehend and summarize in your own language/level
• take a sentence in front of you, then say it again differently while preserving the same meaning and without losing any information. This forces you to find a match for every part of the sentence.
• look up words in jisho or from anki, look for other words with a similar meaning that you know

When you find or say synonyms or similar grammar structures, try to understand the nuanced difference between them.

For example, these words all have a common meaning: ある、受ける、申し込む、入部、入会、but they're used in different contexts. Make mistakes! Use them incorrectly over and over until you remember what goes with what.

7: towards natural Japanese

By this point, you've been talking a lot. You, better than anyone, have a good idea about what you need to work on. Perhaps your counter game is weak (guilty as charged), particles? Maybe a specific grammar point? From time to time, do speaking drills involving your weak points

In addition, your synonym game is now stronger, and your speech is flavorful. Your sentences are complex, and you use various words to talk

You're absolutely understood, and beautifully too! Truly, this stage is completely optional and is arguably the longest.

It's time to work on natural word choices and phrasing, indirect speech, and idioms

At this point, you might notice that it's no longer a speaking problem but a language one.

Basically, it's not that you know it but you're not using it like the previous stages, no. You genuinely didn't know this word/phrase/idiom before. Same for natural phrasing: you didn't even know these two words are used together to convey this meaning!

For this stage, you must read and listen more. And to content higher than whatever you're using right now. If you read manga with furigana, start reading seinen/josei manga. Already doing that? Great, read novels. Are you not listening enough? Start listening! Listen to podcasts, audiobooks, ...etc.

Your Japanese should be high enough now that listening to a new word once or twice is enough for it to stick. In addition, now that you think not in word unit but in phrase unit, you can identify interesting collocations and combinations. You speak a lot, so if you notice a new natural phrase, make note of it and use it the next time. Once again, taking notes DOES NOT MEAN using anki!! It's so easy to fall into the trap of using tools when what you truly need is challenging content you enjoy + the chance to repeat said content in your own language to someone.

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So yeah, that has been my experience with improving my spoken Japanese. I'm still in the last stage and probably will be stuck there until my death haha XD

I remember when I first started my speaking journey, I was truly unsure about how to go about this. Hearing people say "just speak!" wasn't helpful. At the same time, watching people do crazy drills and techniques was overwhelming. Turns out to speak better, you MUST speak. But you can do it in an intentional way so that you improve more and more over time. Tracking the progress is much harder as many of us will think in a binary "spoke perfectly" vs "spoke incorrectly" instead of looking at the progression in-between. So I hope this post can help you mentally track what it means (in my opinion) to improve speaking and what to look for in yourself, your tutors, the drills you're willing to do and so on