Hello and welcome to this Bizmates question and answer video series for Japanese businesspeople.
And today's question is a very common one. Everyone wants to know the answer to this one.
How can I improve my speaking? What can I do?
Tough question, let's try to answer this.
Well first of all, how often do you speak English?
Well many people say, "Well Hika, I have no chance to speak English."
And remember in a previous video I mentioned, no, you do have a chance to speak English.
You have to make the chance, but you know it's true, not everyone has a chance, some people don't.
So you know, they often say, "You know Hika, I can't practice speaking by myself. What do I do?"
It's not true. You can practice speaking by yourself. Absolutely, OK.
Because I'm gonna introduce a simple 3 step process. One is read aloud.
OK, read, read something, you know, while speaking. Read something aloud.
Write, people say write? Writing is not speaking. Oh it is.
It's a form of output. When you actually write.
When you construct sentences. OK, taking vocabulary and grammar and putting together.
Making your own sentences. This will help your speaking. OK, it will.
Because you're forming sentences in your head as well as on paper.
And then you get that, what you've written, and you read it aloud.
Read aloud, write and read aloud. Let me show you.
So how do I do this? So I've taken a piece out of like a text book here.
OK, it's a, let's read this. So first step, read aloud.
So it's from a textbook. It could be a newspaper. It could be anything. OK, but read aloud.
And not like, Hi there. My name's James Smith, but my friends call me Jim for short.
But try to read with feeling. I try to imagine.
When I was studying Japanese, I would imagine that I was a news reporter.
I'm like a news reporter. I'm on T.V. And I'll read with feeling.
Hi there. My name's James Smith. And it makes a big difference.
OK, so let try that. Hi there. My name's James Smith,
but my friends call me Jim for short. I was born and raised in a small city in Texas
but have lived in New York for the last 5 years.
When I first moved here, I was like a fish out of water.
I didn't know from right to left.
I wandered aimlessly in the streets of New York trying to find my hotel. OK.
Just like that, read aloud with feeling. Not in a boring, monotone way.
Then look at some of these key phrases. Born and raised. When I first moved here.
I wandered aimlessly in the streets of. And steal these words or phrases.
And make your own similar write-up or article. Like this. So...
Hi, my name is Taro. I was born and raised in Toyohashi,
but I live in Tokyo now.
When I first moved here, I didn't know Tokyo so well.
I often got lost and wandered aimlessly in the streets of Tokyo.
Now I can go anywhere I want without any trouble.
Write it out, steal those phrases, plug them in. And then read aloud.
And this time you could really read with feeling because it's about you, right?
Hi, my name is Taro. I was born and raised in Toyohashi,
but I live in Tokyo now.
When I first moved here, I didn't know Tokyo so well.
I often got lost and wandered aimlessly in the streets of Tokyo.
Now I can go anywhere I want without any trouble.
There you go. I did this all by myself. Read aloud, write it out and read aloud.
And I hope you can try doing this, OK, at home. And improve your speaking.
But of course it's best to have a partner to speak with, Yes.
But you could do this by yourself. OK, we'll see you in the next lesson. Thank you.