Why You’re Not Fluent

Basic Aspects of Language

• Listening
• Speaking
• Reading
• Writing

Aspects of LanguageーJapanese-Specific (Slightly More In-Depth)

• Listening
• Speaking
  • Levels of Politeness
• Reading
  • Kana
  • Kanji
• Writing
  • Typing (Knowing how to pronounce a word to be able to write it)
  • Writing by Hand (Knowing how to draw the character/word)
    • Textbook style (slow, neat)
    • Handwriting style (sloppy, fast, shorthand)

Things You Don’t Study or Do But Should

Check off what you actively study or what you think you know.

• Read
  • Fiction
    • With Visual Aid (Manga, Video Games, News Articles)
    • Without Visual Aid (Novels, Essays)
  • Nonfiction
  • Speed-Reading
    • Speed-Reading with Subvocalization (Voice Inside Your Head)
    • Speed-Reading without Subvocalization (No Voice Inside Your Head)
    • General Speed-Reading (Reading the Same Thing Multiple Times and Getting Faster)
  • Font-Recognition (Signs, Calligraphy, etc.)
• Listen/Watch
  • Casual/Pleasure
  • News (Formal)
  • Listen/Watch at Faster than x1.0 Speed
  • Listen/Watch at Low Volume
• Speaking
  • Talking to Someone
  • Deliberate Speech using Anger, Sadness, Etc.
  • Singing Songs
  • Singing Fast Songs
• Writing
  • Typing
  • Writing (From Memory—Not Transcription)
• Deliberate Studying
  • Kana (Beginners)
  • Kanji
  • Vocabulary
    • Everyday-Use Vocabulary
    • Vocabulary Through Pictures
    • Jargon (Technology, Anatomy, Etc.)
    • Slang
    • Etymologies
      • Knowing How Word Definitions Have Changed Over Time (Rape, Gender)
    • Pitch-Accent
  • Names & Pet Names
  • Grammar
  • Idioms
  • Metaphors
  • Sarcasm
  • Irony
  • Dialects and Regional Variances
  • Onomatopoeia
    • 擬声語
    • 擬音語
    • 擬態語
    • 擬情語
  • Proverbs
  • Euphemisms
  • Rhetoric
  • Satire
  • 同音異義語
  • 四字熟語 (Four-Character Compounds)
  • Geography (Communication Location, Directions [Especially Japanese])
  • Folklore
  • History, Politics

Look at everything that you didn’t check off. Native and fluent speakers can communicate and understand all of these aspects listed, even if they’re not experts in things like geography, etymologies, or folklore.