Sometimes you get lazy, you know? You let a day slide here, another day slide there, read a few English sites, listen to a little English radio. A little bit won’t hurt, you tell yourself. You even think you’ve gotten far enough and start contemplating learning something else.
Then a Japanese person pops up like jack-in-a-box. 「今度うちで遊びに行かない？」ZOMG, brain freeze! What am I supposed to say? What am I supposed to say? Cue me sitting there mouth flapping open like a fish on the beach. Eventually I managed to stammer out a weak 「お邪魔します」and matters are laid to rest, but I have just exposed a fatal flaw in my learning process.
Not enough input yet! In fact, I’m starting to have doubts about the “Enough good input will lead to good output” process, but I don’t have a leg to stand on because I haven’t gotten that much input yet. Sure I’ve been reading a little more, but when it comes to listening, I can’t remember the last time I got out a podcast or even a movie and paid close attention. More importantly, I don’t even enough input for every day scenes. I know a lot of words you might use on a battleship like 発信準備 but what do you say when someone invites you over? I drew a blank.
So I have seen my shortcomings, and I’m going to work on them a lot more from now on. Stammering is uncool in any language!
