How can i improve my spoken Japanese language skills?

Question

I have studied japanese language for past two and a half years at a university. I dont have any japanese friends so don't get much opportunities to speak. I would like to improve my overall japanese language skills speacially spoken. As i am fluent in day to day conversation in japanese, but want to improve on a broad range of topics (business, technical terminology etc). Please suggest some good websites where i can get online speacialized dictionaries in Japanese to English and vice versa.

Answer 1

www.alc.co.jp is a good web site for looking up any colloquial or technical term you need. This is the web site for the Eijiro dictionary (E<->J). Check it out! To improve your vocabulary, start reading magazines in Japanese. Time and Newsweek are a good start. Once you feel comfortable, move on to Newton, the science magazine. Once you understand Newton, you'll have technology under your belt as well.

This is what I did and it worked: I have been working as a professional technical translator for the past 20 years.

Answer 2

I teach language for a living. Although I primarily teach English in Japan I am licenced to teach Japanese as well. The only real way to learn to speak Japanese I'm afraid is to... well... speak Japanese. You might consider getting some software so your computer can type in Japanese (J-Star used to be the big thing, but it's been a few years so you should ask around). Then go and create yourself a Japanese MySpace profile (http://www.myspace.co.jp). Get in on some Japanese chat rooms and just use what you've got. Also try and have real face to face conversatinos with Japanese people as often as you can.

It can be hard. You might have to work at it, but get yourself involved with the local Japanese community. If there isn't one immediatly nearby where you are, start thinking about getting yourself to Japan.

Since you are currently a college student, I would highly recommend looking into the JET Program (http://www.jetprogram.org). After you graduate (assuming you get in) they will send you to Japan for free, set you up for four days of orientation in Tokyo, get you a teaching job somewhere in the country, then pay you $30,000 a year to do it. I did it for three years and would recommend it to anyone.

Answer 3

practice sentences. in case you have any books of eastern, ideally with romaji, that way you could communicate approximately spoken words, only practice the sentences and the pass of your speech. :)

Answer 4

http://www.jisho.org/ is an excellent japanese online dctionary, it gives answers in hiragana/katakana, kanji and romaji.

as for speaking, it might help to listen to native speakers? in which case my japanese teacher reccomends these sites to us:
http://www.japanesepod101.com/index.php?cat=12&submit=View&order=asc - for lower-intermediate

and
http://www.japanesepod101.com/index.php?cat=6&submit=View&order=asc - for intermediate.

hope this helps!

Answer 5

Use these search engines one after another.

Enter the words "learn japanese" in the box.

alltheinternet.com
alltheweb.com
http://search.internet.com/
http://www.search.com/
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/146/report_display.asp
http://www.ipl.org/div/websearching/
http://search.aol.com/
www.infoseek.com
www.lycos.com
http://www.nlsearch.com/
http://www.infind.com/
www.alexa.com
http://www.dogpile.com/
ask.com
lycos.com
altavista.com