Over the past two days I've been watching YouTube videos about language acquisition, and I noticed something. When I started AJATT (the language learning method I've used up to now, which you should look up!), I set two goals. The first was to memorise ten thousand example sentences. That goal was pretty huge, but I worked as hard as I could and achieved it in a year. The second was to do 2,000 hours of immersion (soaking in the target language, by listening and reading, for example). In that first year I was curious, so I researched and learned a lot about language acquisition. One popular hypothesis was that "if you do 2,000 hours of immersion, you can become fluent in Japanese." Of course there were lots of different hypotheses, including ones saying 10,000 hours. But at the time I ignored the others and thought I might be satisfied with 2,000 hours of immersion. So I set a goal of 2,000 hours and gave it everything I had until I got there. About six months ago, I finally achieved that enormous goal. I was incredibly proud, and it may have been the most amazing thing I'd done in my life. But at that point, I thought, I've still got a long way to go. My comprehension was pretty high, and I'd become able to enjoy all my favourite media, but I couldn't speak at all, and when I read difficult texts like novels there was still no way I could understand them without looking up lots of unknown words. For a while I wondered what to do next. I wanted to set a new goal, but I thought the motivation I'd had for the previous one would never come again. Various language learners had declared that if you do lots of immersion you'll naturally become able to speak, so I set a new immersion goal along those lines. That goal was "read ten thousand pages". Any book would do. If I just read ten thousand pages, surely I'd become fluent. Since then I've read dozens of books, learned interesting things, and been influenced for the better. Through learning Japanese, I've picked up all sorts of skills and gained confidence too. I downloaded Audible as well and fell back in love with audiobooks. I listened to 142 hours even during the tour! I stopped tracking my immersion hours when I came to Japan, but I'm sure I've read more than ten thousand pages. And yet, I've still got a long way to go. My goal from here is to become able to speak fluently. Self-expression, I suppose: I want to be able to express everything I think. That's a bit difficult, isn't it. In the videos I watched recently, the language learners were all saying the same thing: that it takes five to eight years before you can speak naturally. I thought that was interesting. When I first started AJATT, I think I ignored everyone who said that. I thought, there's no way, 2,000 hours will be plenty. But I think the "level I'd be satisfied with" back then was a completely different level from now. If the me of that time saw this piece of writing, he'd be amazed and delighted. But as you grow, your standards and hopes change too. I have no idea how I'll achieve the next goal, but I like a challenge, so I'm looking forward to it. The next goal is also a bit more abstract than the previous ones, so I may not be able to achieve it unless I think creatively about how to go about it. I do have an idea, but it's a secret. If it works, I might tell you.

Even if writing is a creative act, I still don't have enough technique, or rather, enough material. However much you want to beat a professional kickboxer, if you don't have enough techniques you become one-dimensional, get read in an instant, and get knocked down. However much you want to build a house, there's no way you can build it without bricks and the other materials you need. Of course, if you have timber you might be able to put up a temporary shelter, but you can't live in a little shelter forever.

Through reading all sorts of books, I've come to admire Japanese writers and literature. Even though I can understand most of the text, I still can't produce beautiful sentences like that myself. I'm always looking for the reason, but it may be simpler than I thought. When I use a grammatical structure correctly, something clicks, and it feels like I've "unlocked" that grammar. Each time I use that unlocked grammar, it gets easier to use. It was the same when I was studying in order to understand. Even so, if I can understand eighty percent now, I can probably still only use twenty to thirty percent. I think what matters is opportunity. For example, if I need to use a certain word, I choose the word closest in meaning from among the ones I know and use that. If you know a wide range of words, you have more options, and the likelihood of becoming able to say a wide range of things goes up too.

I wrote "if I need to use it", but I think how you use it matters too. When I'm talking to friends or other people, I usually only use words and grammar I know well. Especially grammar, because if you get a word wrong you're generally still understood, but if you get the grammar wrong everything suddenly becomes vague, and sometimes you're not understood at all. Confidence and trust matter at times like that, and when I'm talking to a close friend, I'm not embarrassed even if I get something wrong. Even so, it interrupts the conversation, so I always end up feeling bad. I think the other way to use the language is when you're writing and when you're talking to yourself. I think this is really important.

At first I couldn't bring myself to do this kind of practice at all. That's because if there's nothing in particular I want to write about, it gets incredibly boring very quickly. Talking to myself was the same. Everyone (second language learners, that is) always says they prefer speaking practice, but personally I don't like it much. It's only my impression, but I don't think you can say something if you can't write it.

My personal long-term goal is to make a podcast in Japanese. But I don't think there's any way I could make one as things stand. So I think it's better to write what I want to say first. I don't need to write out everything I want to say, but I think I need to write the words and grammar I want to use many times in order to get used to them.

Before coming to Japan I hadn't done much output. When I came, I used the story of the trip as motivation to write a diary, and managed to build a writing habit. Sometimes I didn't want to write at all, but I wanted to write the diary every day, so not writing wasn't an option. Generally, once I start writing, I soon want to write more, so it's important to create a trigger, or as I wrote earlier, a "necessity". If you always wait for an external necessity, I don't think you'll ever become fluent. So the point is that it's better to actively create the necessity. All good language learners have that in common. It's precisely because they wanted to become fluent that they found motivation and created opportunities to use the language. Of course there are also many people who became fluent naturally by living in a country, but those people worked hard in their own way too, and although I don't know the exact figures, it's likely that it took them years longer than the active approach would have.

In short, if I were asked what you should do to become fluent, my current take is: "opportunities to use the language are what matter, so if you want to improve quickly, you should create those opportunities yourself. If you have no motivation, create a necessity, even an artificial one, and build an environment that makes acquisition easy."