Level up your Japanese speaking and listening ability

Skritter teaches you to read and write, an extremely important ability that will both boost your understanding of the language and of course greatly improve writing and reading proficiency. However that just isn’t enough to automatically improve your conversational Japanese speaking ability or listening ability. Besides daily practice and sticking to it, there are a few tips you can use to quickly boost your Japanese.

This is related to another post “Study smart, not hard“– if you want more tips and motivation, please check it out!

Japanese Subtitles and Shadowing

Subtitles are a powerful way to gain both listening and speaking ability, where you might be at a level where something is understandable if read, but not have the best listening comprehension. If your listening comprehension isn’t up to par with your reading ability, you might not catch some things said the first time around if relying on your ears alone. Using subtitles as a tool is a great bridge when you have a much higher reading ability than listening or speaking.

Subtitles can be used in a couple of different ways, however the key is to not rely on them and instead use them as an aid. This means it’s really recommended to not watch something with subtitles on, especially if in another language other than Japanese. When you read subtitles along with watching, it forces the brain to use that area to decipher text, and distracts from the flow of listening– not to mention it takes away from some of the subtleties in whatever you are watching, (like facial expressions). You also don’t want to develop “flashcard syndrome”, where comprehension is at it’s best when aided by text, but once removed is lacking.

One way to use subtitles as a tool is by treating them as a transcript, reading them either before or after watching a movie or show, as if it were a play script or a book. Again, the important part here is not using the subtitles as subtitles while you are watching the video. This forces you to only use your ears to pick out information, which you can refer to in the subtitles and check if you are correct. If your listening comprehension is not great, it would probably be best to read the subtitles before watching any of the video, which allows you to get the context of the show, and what things people will be saying before hand. Or if you can tolerate the repetitiveness, to watch the video first without subtitles, then read them as a script, then watch the video again without subtitles, (and rinse and repeat). This can be really helpful, because when someone says something you will likely recall having read it, and it’s not so much of a mystery. This way you’re using your ears for the information, but are also aided by having some context before hand. If your listening comprehension is fairly good, it would probably be best to read the subtitles only after having watched the video– you’ll get a feel for what you understood, and what parts were not so understood.

“Shadowing” is a very powerful method to both sound more natural and increase speaking ability. Shadowing can be done with absolutely no prior knowledge of a language, and is similar to what babies do when attempting to make sounds of a language. To shadow, all you need to do is watch something and blindly repeat whatever anyone is saying, trying to copy them exactly. It’s perfectly fine if you don’t pronounce everything correctly, this will greatly improve your speaking ability and speed. For those who haven’t studied a language yet, shadowing can be a great head start on the language becoming more natural sounding to your ears, and getting your mouth used to making the sounds. With subtitles added to the equation, you can later check to see what is said, and attempt to shadow with a bit more knowledge of what is actually being spoken– it’s a bit like parroting. With languages like Japanese that have a difference in the way males and females typically speak, it’s important to choose people to shadow who you would strive to end up sounding a bit like, opposed to if you are a male for instance, but pick the most feminine sounding speaker to shadow, (unless that is what you are going for)!

Another, possibly most powerful method of using subtitles, is to use a program called “subs2srs“. Subs2srs is designed for use with Anki– it takes a subtitle file, associated video file, and will automatically generate a new Anki deck by using the timestamps from the subtitles. It takes a screenshot from the video which lines up with the subtitle, automatically extracts the audio for the spoken line, and then prompts you with just the image and the audio from the video. Once revealing the answer it will show you the Japanese subtitle text. The result is a deck with each spoken line broken apart, the ability to listen to it without the aid of text, and then test if you understood it by verifying the subtitle text. This greatly improves listening ability, and you can use it to shadow and improve speaking ability, and automates the entire subtitle learning process. It is important to gain a listening flow, and so if after learning a deck completely, is of course recommended to watch the show naturally without subtitles, (and feel awesome that you understand everything)!

If you have a study partner or a Japanese native that will put up with it, using subtitles can be great to practice speaking. (There is a time and place for practicing natural conversations of course, and using scripts as practice is a stress free way to help aid your ability). Each person can be assigned a specific part in the subtitle, and here you would be shadowing each part and assume the role. It’s no secret that a lot of people who have mastered English as another language have used movies and shows to help them along the way.

Shower / Car Conversations

As crazy as it may sound, having conversations with yourself in the shower or car is extremely effective. For starters people are creatures of habit, like the expression goes: Old habits die hard. When you develop a habit of practicing conversation when in the shower, it’s a very different setting than what you are usually in throughout your day (unless you spend your entire day in the shower), and so you will find yourself naturally doing this without thinking about it once you hop in the shower. You can also do this in the car when you’re by yourself, or any situation where you find you have some downtime without being actively judged by those surrounding you. (I suppose you could also just pretend you are on the phone if you are out in public). Try asking yourself questions that you might find yourself asking someone, and then assume the role of the question answerer, and answer your own question. You’ll probably find that for whatever reason, this comes pretty easily when in the shower or on a drive, and it helps your mind get in the habit of thinking in Japanese. The brain is actually quite lazy and prefers the path of least resistance like water, so when you develop a habit of thinking in Japanese, and it’s more common for that situation to exist than otherwise, (like always thinking in Japanese when in the shower), the brain will want to take that short-cut and go to the easiest path.

Language learning social networks

Using a language learning social network, like “Lang-8“, is an infinitely great way to boost your speaking ability. For instance, I wouldn’t be able to write in English if I weren’t able to speak it, and that goes for any language. If you don’t know how to write something correctly in kanji, you can of course stick to kana. The idea on Lang-8 is, you write something in the language you are learning, and native speakers of that language will either correct your mistakes, or even better, give you another way to phrase what you are trying to say to better match the nuance of what you meant or to sound more native. A lot of the time what others write is in their native language in addition to the language they’re learning, which gives the chance to learn by reading something a native wrote, and at the same time sharing a good deed by correcting theirs. People seem to be super friendly on Lang-8, and it’s fun to read what others write about. Make sure you actually read and correct others work though– not only is common courtesy but they will likely return the favor! A lot of Lang-8 users are interested in video chats on Skype if you’re looking to practice real time conversation.

It’s true that written and spoken Japanese can be different , however a lot of (typically younger) Japanese people write in 口語 (こうご）, which means it’s written in a spoken style, opposed to a written style.

Fillers, Expressions, and Aizuchi （相づち）

This can be used as a first step really, even if you don’t have a lot of Japanese under your belt yet.  By knowing some “fillers”, common expressions, and how to use aizuchi, you will sound a lot more natural and be easier to talk to– not using fillers in Japanese can seem a bit stiff or harsh.

Fillers are words that may not have much meaning or used to connect thoughts, like “umm”, “uh”,  “y,know”, “so”, “well”, “hmm”, etc. It’s important to learn them so that you don’t use an English filler sound, like “umm”, or “erm’, which of course will not sound very natural. Other forms of fillers are more like connectors, for example “by the way” or “for example”. (Hah). There are a large amount of these in Japanese, but here are some of them:

Most of the above are a form of aizuchi （相づち）–  The dictionary lists the definition of aizuchi as: “frequent interjections (hai, un, sou desu ne, etc.), uttered by the listener to indicate comprehension but not necessarily agreement”. This is also used in English as well, but not nearly as often as it’s used in Japanese. One of the quickest ways to alienate someone is by not using aizuchi, where it might appear as if you’re not paying attention to what they are saying, you don’t care, or you don’t understand. Ironically if you use it the wrong way or too much, it could also be alienating. The origin of the term comes from blacksmiths back as far as the Edo period, where the master blacksmith would strike his mallet during sword making, and the disciple after in turn, (like an appropriate response).

Aizuchi should be used in these situations:

1. When you accept new information
2. When you are surprised at or skeptical about new information
3. When you agree with the speaker
4. When you disagree with the speaker
5. When you are praised (give a humble reaction)

Here is a short video clip that teaches how to use some common casual aizuchi:

Reading out loud, a lot.

This tip is a short one, but needs to be said! Read out loud, all the time, every day, as much as you can– but at the appropriate difficulty level. If lots of things are too difficult to read at your Japanese level, you could start off by memorizing stories, breaking apart the words and grammar sentence by sentence, word by word, starting from the very beginning, and then re-read them everyday until you’re absolutely sick of them, then advance farther along in the story. It’s very helpful in the beginning stages to reread material over and over again until you understand it, which usually comes with the unfortunate ability to blindly recite it. Once you’re fairly proficient you may not want to read over the same thing again since it can be a bit tedious, and instead pick something that isn’t too difficult to read and progress through it.

There are a lot of fairy tales which aren’t too hard, (though may have some expressions in them that aren’t typically used outside of writing) over at: http://hukumusume.com/douwa. If you go to the world stories area (世界の昔話）, you can find stories you’re likely already familiar with, which can be helpful for context so you aren’t completely lost if it’s difficult to read or comprehend.

If you don’t have a popup dictionary allowing you to hover over words on the web giving you the definition, you should give it a go and install one. I personally think that Rikaisama for Firefox is the best bet, but there are other versions like Rikaichan and Rikaikun (for Chrome) as well.

That’s all for now– I hope these tips are helpful!