It's been nearly 2 years since I've moved out to the Tokyo area and one of the things I realized that I am starting to miss is having roommates to chat with. What I noticed is the ability to speak well is as good as your ability to keep it sharp; if you stop, it will fade.
Since moving to Tokyo, I am immersed in the Japanese psyche; gone are the days of having international and bilingual Japanese friends. I could switch into English mode whenever I wanted and through that, I've kept my speaking, writing and thinking skills sharp. Having bilingual Japanese friends was also a big help since we could switch back between languages if things got tricky. Though I am pretty proficient at saying what I need to say in Japanese I consider myself far from eloquent in expression. In other words, don't expect any extraordinary oratories from me in Japanese (yet).
I believe that a person's linguistic skills are related to their ability to describe something logically, the succinctness of communication and the detail at which their thoughts are expressed. As it maybe subtle, many important thoughts and interesting conversations are usually the result of good attention to details, especially interesting details, otherwise communication gets boring (as to what would be considered "interesting" is a whole different problem all together, but I will assume that you know what I mean).
If you were to ask a person a simple question, "what do you do on the weekends?" The boring answer would be something like "oh, stuff" or "hang out with friends," which is dull for an answer. I used to chide students learning English conversation from me, "unless you don't like the person you're talking to, you're going to have to give a better response." The more interesting answer would be "I like the out doors and usually go cycling on sunny days to enjoy the good weather," which gives room for the conversation to go somewhere instead of the previous dead-end answer.
Being a good conversationalist depends on avoiding dead-end responses and finding other directions to take the conversation after reaching the end of a train of thought. Good comprehension and cognitive ability to process and respond to information on the fly is also required to hone a skill such as this. However sadly, there is no silver-bullet to getting that silver-tongue. Becoming a good conversationalist is hard and takes a considerable amount of time to be practiced in a second language because it requires a multitude of different skills. On the right topic and the correct frame of mind, I can usually hold a good conversation in Japanese, but if things head into "foreign territory" when I don't have the vocabulary or the understanding to respond appropriately, it gets tough.
The hardest environments to hold a conversation for me is with a medium to large group of Japanese people. Colloquial phrases and cultural references are usually hard to pick up and when the conversation gets exciting, the pace picks up making it harder to follow. It would be like expecting a foreigner to understand what some one means when "they got one upped" and someone else responds "don't worry, you'll take them down." And a dictionary isn't going to help either.
But if you really want to set the bar high and get in with the locals and have an impressive conversation, either through slang or verbal eloquence, it can be quite frustrating not being able to express complicated and detailed ideas in the manner that you are able to do so in your native tongue, even more so if you are very proficient. There has been many instances where I have faced this problem, to at some point where I've given up in some occasions because it would take too much effort. The deciding point is usually between the time it takes for me to explain something to someone with complete satisfaction vs the time I would lose to do something productive.
When one starts to give up on talking because it is tough, it becomes a self-fulling prophecy: the less you talk the harder it becomes to explain something so the the less you talk and so on. I even find myself losing my English proficiency without people to talk to on a regular basis. The prospect of that is freighting so I've decided to try and keep up with my English through writing and thought, this is the biggest thing I've miss about having roommates; having good communication.
1 comment:
Wow, Justin, it's always so interesting to read your posts, because there are very well thought through. In advance I apologize for my one French way to write English ^_^
I understand very well the problems and the analysis you described above and I agree. I'll maybe complete in this direction:
To me, the better you become at talking to people in a foreign language, the less you need to improve your ligustic skills. It also means that you forget to use the "school methods" to learn, meaning : writing & reading. I really think that the oral proficiency depends on the writing/reading proficiency.
For instance, if you don't understand cultural references or specific vocabulary, then reading will help a lot.
But in the end, you cannot improve your talking & listening proficiency by just writing & reading. But still, I have been able to keep up with my Japanese by watching Dramas in France!
But since you have no roommates right now, writing is a good way to keep up with your English ^_^ Don't forget to listen, too.
Oh, and you can call me if you want to tell stories and jokes! I'm on skype everyday!
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