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The original was posted on /r/learnjapanese by /u/danke-jp on 2023-08-10 21:11:33.

Hi all,

For context, I’ve been learning for nearly 3 years now, and am at the point where I can read with no dictionary and listen to new content with no major issues. However, the thing I’ve been seriously lacking is speaking practice. I’ve used HelloTalk and had a handful of good conversations, but I still feel like there’s a disconnect between what I’m trying to say and what actually comes out of my mouth. To fix this, I’m trying shadowing to get used to actually forming the sounds of the language so that when I want to say something it can just come out as-is.

However, starting out, I’m finding it pretty difficult and tiring. I can usually shadow single sentences, but when they start speaking the next sentence while I’m still speaking the first sentence, I’ll often miss some of what they’re saying and have to pick up at a later point. I’ve also found that after 10 minutes or so, the quality of my shadowing drops off and I have trouble repeating what they’re saying.

For anyone with experience shadowing-- What was your progression like? How long did it take to get past this initial awkward stage and be able to shadow multiple sentences together? How did your endurance build over time? I’m trying to get an idea of what I should be expecting in terms of progress.

Also, speaker recommendations for shadowing 大募集中 😁 I’m a male, so male speakers would be ideal. Thanks all!

(P.S. are y’all shadowing podcasts? How do you shadow multiple speakers at once???)