31 docs tagged with "speaking"

A 30-day Japanese pronunciation plan: 10–15 minutes a day on vowels, mora, geminate, pitch, and sentences, with start and end recordings to hear your gains.

Asking for directions in Japanese: the すみません、〜はどこですか questions you say, the まっすぐ・右・信号 answers you decode, and how to confirm what you heard.

Japanese business phrases explained: when to use the stock five (お疲れ様です, お世話になっております, よろしくお願いいたします, 失礼します) and the downward-only ご苦労様 register trap.

Comprehensible output in Japanese explained: Swain's output hypothesis, the three functions of speaking, and why input alone leaves gaps you produce to find.

Find a free Japanese conversation partner: how exchange apps, meetups, university clubs, and Discord compare, plus the reciprocity tax that makes them fizzle.

HelloTalk for Japanese: an honest review of the big language exchange app, its corrections and Moments, the creep-DM problem, and how to filter partners.

Learn to agree and disagree politely in Japanese: そうですね, 確かに, おっしゃる通りです, soft disagreement, and the hedging grammar that softens any opinion.

An italki review for Japanese learners: community tutors vs professional teachers, the pricing bands, how to evaluate a tutor, and the trial-lesson strategy.

Japanese convenience store phrases made simple: recognize the clerk's keigo (あたためますか, 袋はいりますか) and answer with a few short polite replies as a beginner.

Japanese greetings for every time of day, plus workplace and seasonal ones. Both casual and polite forms of each, with a clear rule for when to use which.

Japanese journaling turns writing into deliberate output: why it complements speaking, the daily three-sentence rule, and where to get entries corrected.

Japanese train station phrases for buying tickets, asking about lines and transfers, and decoding the signs and announcements you only need to recognize.

Making a phone call in Japanese, from もしもし to 失礼します: personal vs. business openings, asking for someone, taking a message, and closing politely.

Minimal-pair production drills in Japanese: curated sets for vowel length, geminate, and pitch, plus a say-record-compare loop to fix what your mouth collapses.

Mora-timing drills that retrain English stress-timing into even Japanese beats: tap-each-mora, metronome counts, and graded read-aloud passages to practice.

Online vs in-person Japanese tutoring compared: cost bands, tutor pool, feedback quality, and the one thing in-person still does better. Pick the right format.

Order food at a restaurant in Japanese with confidence: the 〜をお願いします pattern, asking for the bill, the staff keigo to recognize, and what お通し is.

Preply vs italki vs Lingoda for Japanese: how Preply's subscription model compares to italki's pay-per-lesson, and why Lingoda offers no Japanese.

Japanese pronunciation priorities, ranked: vowel and consonant accuracy first, then mora-timing and intonation, with an honest take on where pitch accent fits.

Record and compare your Japanese pronunciation to close the gap your own ear hides: the record-listen-compare loop, own-voice blindspot, and honest feedback.

Learn the Japanese self-introduction (自己紹介) from はじめまして to よろしくお願いします, with polite and casual versions of every line and the bow-or-handshake answer.

Self-talk in Japanese is forced speaking practice you control: why it works, three routines to narrate your day and think in Japanese, with no partner needed.

Sentence-level prosody practice for Japanese: drill whole-sentence pitch contours (statement falls, question rises, focus) with shadowing and recording.

Solo roleplay Japanese conversation practice with no partner: script both sides of a restaurant, interview, or phone call, extemporize, then record and compare.

Talking to a doctor in Japanese at N4: describe symptoms with 〜が痛いです and 熱があります, decode the doctor's questions, and handle the 処方箋 and 保険証 insurance card.

Tandem for Japanese: an honest review of the moderated, video-call-native exchange app, its free vs Pro tiers, and how it stacks up against HelloTalk.

Shadowing before conversation builds articulation and prosody as muscle memory in a low-pressure setting, so your first real Japanese talks go further.

Using AI for Japanese conversation practice: what an LLM chat assistant can do, what it gets wrong, prompts that work, and the verify loop you must run.

When to start speaking Japanese, settled practically: the silent-period vs. early-output debate, what the research says, and a low-pressure way to begin.

Why you can read Japanese but can't speak it: the receptive-productive gap explained through Swain's output hypothesis, plus a daily forced-output fix.

Why you understand more Japanese than you can say: the 3–5x productive-receptive gap explained, and a forced-output routine to convert passive into active.