JAPN 301 · Lesson 1 · Speaking

Say It First

Your whole self-introduction, written out. Every word is on the page, so there is nothing to remember and nothing to find. Read it aloud until your mouth knows it, then look up.

After this you can

Say a complete six-line self-introduction out loud, in Japanese, without stopping to search for a word.

Why it's written out

the idea

Reading is already your strong side. Speaking is where you stall, and that is a retrieval problem rather than a Japanese problem. Right now you are being asked to find the word, pronounce it, and get the grammar right in the same second. Three jobs at once is one too many.

This sheet removes two of them. The word is already chosen. The grammar is already correct. Your only job is to make the sound. You can read Japanese, so you can say Japanese, and the distance between those two is repetition with your eyes open rather than more studying.

Everything here comes from Lesson 1's three expressions. Nothing new, nothing extra. If it is not on your instructor's prep sheet, it is not on this page.

Three passes

how to use it
Read it looking down.Straight off the page, slowly, out loud. Wrong pitch is fine. Getting the sound out of your mouth at all is the whole goal of pass one.
Read it again, faster, twice.Same lines, same page, no memorising. You are building muscle, not memory. This is the pass people skip and the one that does the work.
Now look up and say it.Eyes off the sheet. When a word goes missing, glance down, take it, keep going. That is using the sheet correctly, not failing.

Every kanji carries its furigana, the same way your textbook and your instructor’s handouts do. If you can read the kana above a character, you can say the word — that is the only decoding this asks of you.

The script

six lines

Words marked in orange are yours to swap, and a menu of ready-made options sits under each one. Pick one and read it. Don't compose.

Line 1 · open

“Nice to meet you. I'm ____.”

Your name in katakana — write it in once, at the top, then read it from there every time
マイケルMichael
サラSarah
クリスChris
ジェシカJessica
ダニエルDaniel
エミリーEmily
The one word you supply This is the only blank on the sheet, because it is the only word nobody can pre-write for you. Settle the katakana once — ask your instructor if you are unsure — and it stops being something you decide mid-sentence.
Line 2 · where you're from — uses という

“I come from a town called Virginia Beach.”

Swap the town
バージニアビーチVirginia Beach
ノーフォークNorfolk
チェサピークChesapeake
ポーツマスPortsmouth
サフォークSuffolk
ハンプトンHampton
The trap Nothing goes between and — no , no , no pause. Say as a single word and you cannot get it wrong.
The textbook's own sentence · Irodori A2-2 L.1

“I came from a town called Da Nang, in Vietnam.” Line 2 is this sentence with your town dropped in. Same shape, nothing invented.

Line 3 · what you're doing now — uses 〜ています

“Right now I'm studying Japanese at university.”

Line 4 · what you used to do — uses 〜ていました

“Before, I was working at a café.”

Swap the workplace
カフェa café
レストランa restaurant
スーパーa supermarket
店みせa shop
病院びょういんa hospital
会社かいしゃan office
The trap in lines 3 and 4 These two are one letter apart. means still true this morning; means it is over. And don't reach for — that says you worked there for one day.
The textbook's own sentences · Irodori A2-2 L.1

A past stretch, then a present one. The exact pair lines 3 and 4 are built on.

Line 5 · your hobby — uses 趣味しゅみは…ことです

“My hobby is listening to music.”

Swap the hobby — every option is already in dictionary form
音楽おんがくを聞きくlistening to music
映画えいがを見みるwatching films
本ほんを読よむreading books
料理りょうりを作つくるcooking
写真しゃしんを撮とるtaking photos
ゲームをするplaying games
絵えを描かくdrawing
歌うたを歌うたうsinging
The trap only ever attaches to the plain dictionary form — こと, never こと. Every option above is already in the right form, so reading it as printed makes this mistake impossible.
The textbook's own line · Irodori A2-2 L.1 dialogue

Note the . The book prints the hesitation on purpose, because pausing out loud is native rather than a mistake. You're allowed to do it.

Line 6 · close

“Pleased to meet you.”

The whole thing, no breaks

the version you say out loud

Once the six lines are comfortable one at a time, read this straight through. This is what you say in the VLT session.

About 25 seconds at a comfortable pace. Under 15 and you're rushing — the pauses between lines are part of sounding fluent, not gaps to fill.

When you get stuck mid-sentence

say one of these

These buy you time. Say one instead of going quiet, because silence is the only thing that actually stalls a conversation. Read them aloud twice each now, so they become the reflex.

You need it again, slower

You need a second to think

You don't know the word, so ask for it

This one turns being stuck into a question, which is a real conversational move rather than a failure.

You genuinely didn't follow

Buying a beat, the way the book does it

Both are printed in Irodori. A filled pause reads as fluent; an empty one reads as lost.

Shadowing

the same idea, with the course audio

Reading aloud works better still against a native voice, and Lesson 1 has audio in Canvas — the textbook tracks and the Video Viewing clips.

  1. Play a line. Don't speak, just listen once.
  2. Play it again and talk over it, script in front of you, matching the rhythm rather than the speed.
  3. Third time, half a beat behind, still reading.
  4. Only then try it with the audio off.

Match where the voice rises and falls before you worry about matching speed. Rhythm is what makes a sentence sound Japanese. Pace is just confidence, and it arrives later.

Use the course's own audio rather than YouTube, so your ear and your quiz are hearing the same voice.

One thing to ask in class

worth the question
Worth asking in class

“What's the difference between and ?” It's a real ambiguity rather than a softball, and asking it in Japanese is itself speaking practice.

Later, when the script starts to feel boring

Boredom is the signal you have outgrown the sheet. Then, and only then: cover the page and say all six lines from memory, swapping in a different town, workplace and hobby from the menus.

Do not start here. Producing from nothing is exactly where you freeze, and doing it before your mouth knows the shapes only rehearses the freezing. The script comes first, and the memory is a side effect of having said it forty times.

Built from Lesson 1 only · Irodori A2-2 · nothing here sits outside your instructor's prep sheet
Prints as a handout — use your browser's print view.