4 ms·

You nailed it for me there. I'm in the closed period I guess. I've had a lot of 1 on 1 in my second language but quit. I was fed up of getting corrected all th

You nailed it for me there. I'm in the closed period I guess. I've had a lot of 1 on 1 in my second language but quit. I was fed up of getting corrected all the time. Makes conversation a bit dull when the teacher interrupts. Might try a course with a whole bunch of people. See if that helps.

mikekchar 8y ago
If you'd like a recommendation, I would try free reading. "Free" reading means to pick up anything you are interested in reading and read it :-) The main thing is to be able to comprehend what you are reading. Sometimes the level of what you want to read is higher than your level and so you can't read it. In that case, I tend to scan the text to find vocabulary I don't know. Usually I'll try to find the first 20 words I don't know. Then use a "spaced repetition software (SRS)" application (I recommend Anki --https://apps.ankiweb.net/ https://apps.ankiweb.net/) to memorise the vocabulary. Go back to the text and try to read it again. If you can understand it, then no problem. If not, try to find the grammatical constructions that you don't understand and look them up in a grammar dictionary. These days you could probably just as easily plug it in to Google Translate and get good results, though (warning: haven't tried it -- I haven't learned new grammar in a long time ;-) ). Then put that example sentence in your SRS app. It's slow going at first (it will take you a few days to get past your first unknown 20 words, then a few days for the next), but authors tend to use the same vocabulary, grammar structures and expressions in their book, so by the time you get to the middle of the book, you will be able to understand it without having to do the above. At that point, just keep reading -- as long as you understand what they are talking about, don't worry if you don't understand a word here and there. Another quick tip if you happen to have a grammar dictionary or a traditional textbook: Put all the example sentences in your SRS app. Drill from your first language (I suppose English) to your second language. Throw away the text book :-). I found that memorising a whole mess of example sentences got me out of my closed period really, really fast. After the example sentence was memorised, almost exactly a week later it was popping out of my mouth. No idea why. Finally, for me, part of my problems getting out of the closed period was just having to concentrate too hard on physically forming the words. I fixed this by going to karaoke 2 or 3 times a week :-). Find the lyrics to a song you like in the target language. Get a recording of it. Sing along with the recording. Get some slow songs and some fast songs. Because the song is unforgiving about pacing, it forces you to form the sounds at a natural speed. You can also do the same thing with an audio book if you find singing embarrassing. Apart from studying kanji, I think this is all I did when learning Japanese (BTW, comic books are great reading material because they are completely conversational). There are also language exchange meetups in most big cities. Before I moved to Japan, I went to a Japanese language meetup and met a few expat Japanese people. I hung out with these people -- sometimes we would hang out in English and sometimes in Japanese. Here in Japan, the best English speakers I know regularly seek out and hang out with the expat community here. If you go out once or twice a week, eventually you start to be able to say a few things. But I think the best advice I can give you is to surround yourself with your target language. If you are reading for pleasure, do it in your target language. If you are watching a movie or TV, do it in your target language. Seek out and make friends with people who speak your target language. If you are cooking, then look up recipes on the internet in your target language. Just make a "target language bubble" and live in it. This will accelerate your growth super fast.

mikekchar 8y ago

If you'd like a recommendation, I would try free reading. "Free" reading means to pick up anything you are interested in reading and read it :-) The main thing is to be able to comprehend what you are reading. Sometimes the level of what you want to read is higher than your level and so you can't read it. In that case, I tend to scan the text to find vocabulary I don't know. Usually I'll try to find the first 20 words I don't know. Then use a "spaced repetition software (SRS)" application (I recommend Anki --https://apps.ankiweb.net/ https://apps.ankiweb.net/) to memorise the vocabulary. Go back to the text and try to read it again. If you can understand it, then no problem. If not, try to find the grammatical constructions that you don't understand and look them up in a grammar dictionary. These days you could probably just as easily plug it in to Google Translate and get good results, though (warning: haven't tried it -- I haven't learned new grammar in a long time ;-) ). Then put that example sentence in your SRS app. It's slow going at first (it will take you a few days to get past your first unknown 20 words, then a few days for the next), but authors tend to use the same vocabulary, grammar structures and expressions in their book, so by the time you get to the middle of the book, you will be able to understand it without having to do the above. At that point, just keep reading -- as long as you understand what they are talking about, don't worry if you don't understand a word here and there. Another quick tip if you happen to have a grammar dictionary or a traditional textbook: Put all the example sentences in your SRS app. Drill from your first language (I suppose English) to your second language. Throw away the text book :-). I found that memorising a whole mess of example sentences got me out of my closed period really, really fast. After the example sentence was memorised, almost exactly a week later it was popping out of my mouth. No idea why. Finally, for me, part of my problems getting out of the closed period was just having to concentrate too hard on physically forming the words. I fixed this by going to karaoke 2 or 3 times a week :-). Find the lyrics to a song you like in the target language. Get a recording of it. Sing along with the recording. Get some slow songs and some fast songs. Because the song is unforgiving about pacing, it forces you to form the sounds at a natural speed. You can also do the same thing with an audio book if you find singing embarrassing. Apart from studying kanji, I think this is all I did when learning Japanese (BTW, comic books are great reading material because they are completely conversational). There are also language exchange meetups in most big cities. Before I moved to Japan, I went to a Japanese language meetup and met a few expat Japanese people. I hung out with these people -- sometimes we would hang out in English and sometimes in Japanese. Here in Japan, the best English speakers I know regularly seek out and hang out with the expat community here. If you go out once or twice a week, eventually you start to be able to say a few things. But I think the best advice I can give you is to surround yourself with your target language. If you are reading for pleasure, do it in your target language. If you are watching a movie or TV, do it in your target language. Seek out and make friends with people who speak your target language. If you are cooking, then look up recipes on the internet in your target language. Just make a "target language bubble" and live in it. This will accelerate your growth super fast.