Originally Posted by
Elin
Mm... Speaking-wise I'm terrible. Really, really bad. ^_^ But I'm pretty much that way with English too. So I think my problem with speaking Japanese is less to do with my actual ability and more just to do with my personality, in any language. I'm simply too shy. ^_^ I fare much better with writing. Of course I still make lots of little errors, but I know how to express myself fairly well if given time to think things through. ^^;;;
Listening-wise...hmm... I'm okay. ^_^ I have lots of practice listening to Japanese via voiced-over games, but... I'm kind of spoiled by the subtitles that tend to accompany them. Having subtitles along with voices, even if they're subtitles in the same language as the voices, helps a lot, as if you don't quite catch something by ear, you can just read it off the subs. To be honest, I still haven't had that much practice listening to Japanese with no accompanying text. So I sometimes get lost, especially if a lot of words I don't really know so well are being used.
Reading-wise, though, I think I do pretty okay now. ^_^ My grasp of grammar is pretty good, and generally when I fail to understand something, it's as simple as looking up a word I happen not to know in a dictionary. It's rare that I'll run into something that I really struggle to find meaning in. If it were a language like French rather than Japanese, and I could guess my way past many words simply because they share roots with English ones, I think I'd probably be able to read most non jargon-y things without much hesitation now.
So...adequate-ish? ^_^ I still have a long way to go, especially since my vocabulary isn't anywhere near as big as it should be, but I feel as if I've done the bulk of the actual work now. The rest is just a matter of reading and listening as much as possible. ^_^