Had to write this post before laying down on my 枕 pillow（まくら）and going to sleep.
I’ve been figuring out ways to link people online to practice chatting Japanese, and i was chatting to an interesting fellow named Masa, who does a very interesting radio show as a tool to practice speaking English. He uses an iphone to record the skype chat, then uploads it to the service. So far he has recorded over 48 of these conversations, each one running an average of five minutes. That’s a lot of hours of practice time, and its a pretty easy way to both meet people and practice the language.
I thought that was a VERY creative way to use his recording site. But what I noticed is that even though our conversation was brief, when we chatted a little in Japanese, I felt this immediate “arsenal” of sentences popup in my head from what i’ve been studying through SRS with anki, or stuff i’ve been writing on the blog. Instead of feeling 100% stuck, I had a little more leeway when speaking. I couldn’t say everything I was thinking, but I had some “workarounds” that helped me to chat pretty easily. It was also cool to hear him tell me about how his Iphone app worked (he was speaking in rapid Japanese). I didn’t know 99% of what he said, but I definitely got 85% of it, so I feel that’s progress. I was also surprised at how calmly I chatted Japanese with him, something that used to make me quite tense, nervous and a ton of other things. I think it has to do with me reaching out to other bloggers, doing my video blogs and connecting more with people. I don’t feel as isolated, and I don’t feel like I’m “constantly failing” as I did before. It just feels like a process that I can hopefully share with other people. So that’s just a little point I wanted to write on my “arsenal” before bedtime.
おやすみなさい
Jamaican Learning Japanese 