I could not agree more with your points. Joining iTalki and being able to get feedback and talk with people living in Japan has really encouraged me to be consistent in my learning. I tried learning a couple times in the past and would eventually get discouraged and stop for a while causing me to start back almost from the beginning again. I think talking to the people and trying to experience the culture is one very important thing that people overlook when studying a language. Even when I see international students coming to the university here to study english, many of them seem to avoid interacting with the native people in the country and miss out on a great opportunity to motivate themselves to master the language.

Sorry but I can agree with you, Yuri. I am not a teacher but I also teach Japanese for people. That's why I have met a lot of people who learn Japanese and struggle with our language, Japanese. 

When people start to learn Japanese, most of them try to find some native Japanese who can understan English. Therefore, most of their conversations are gone in English. And it's actually not said only for Japanese but also for other language speakers, they do not point out others mistakes even though their language exchange partners made mistakes because we don't want to bruise others or interrupt when our conversation partner is talking. And even though we do not point their mistakes out, we can guess what actually our conversation partner wanted to say. And I think when I do that thing, most of learners got demotivated and because of that, most of my partners left me after 3 months. 

Maybe a lot of Japanese believe that if they have English-native speakers as their language partners, they can easily improve their English skill but it's a just myth. 

Normally when people say they are interested in learning Japanese, they are kind of used to our strange nd terrible accent which actully ordinary native English speakers can't understand. And it can be said for English speakers in Japan. Therefore even though you can communicate with English native in Japan, it doesn't mean you can do that same thing in other countries like the US. So if people really would like to improve their Japanese or English, I strongly recommend them to find teacher(s) who have credible certification(s). Otherwise they just wast their presios time. 

Thank you for this advice. I think I could raise my goal level - hopefully it will help. 

Thank you Yuri! ^_^

Great article Yuri, thanks.  Can I ask what is the name of the computer program that you're using with Skype in the photo?  I'm a teacher and I love trying out new technology to make learning English easier for my students.

Have a great week.

Emma Segev (Talk2Me English)