Practicing Conversational Japanese

As with learning any language, if you want to learn how to speak it, you actually have to practice speaking it, ne? Below are a few groups you could join to practice speaking Japanese:

1. University clubs: Check to see if you have a "Japanese Conversation and Culture Club" on campus.

2. Form a study group with your classmates. You can meet up in person, or try a "virtual" study group via Skype, Google Hangouts, FaceTime, etc.

3. Meetup.com: Check out "Japanese Language and Culture Meetup Groups"

4. Become involved with your local Japanese community association. The Calgary Japanese Community Association is pretty active and many of the older members are helpful when you try to speak Japanese.

5. Youths can check out the Japanese Youth Association of Calgary.

Although many of the links are Calgary-specific, you can check online to see if there is a similar group in your area.