Improvising while learning Japanese Sometimes when you can't think of a word in Japanese, the best solution is to get creative and improvise!

This insight was originally published on November 01, 2022, and transferred here later.

Oh man… I have been trying to think of this word, but I cannot remember it for the life of me! I think it started with an "I"... It’s this fun exercise that a lot of actors & comedians use to practice their craft. They have to think on-the-spot, without a moment's notice, to respond to their environment. Then they just kind of hope it works out. Ugh!! What was that thing called?...

Oh yeah— now I remember! The word I am looking for is "improv", short for "improvisation".

via GIPHY

Improv can help your Japanese conversations

As someone who is learning Japanese, I often find that it can be really difficult to remember all the words I have learned when the time comes to use them. That inability to remember the word you are trying to think of is colloquially called "tip-of-the-tongue syndrome"; & just like dramatically portrayed earlier in this writing, tip-of-the-tongue syndrome can be a regular annoyance when trying to use any language. This is where improv can help!

Learning how to better improvise so you can work around the missing vocabulary & phrasing you are looking for can be an incredibly useful skill during & long after you are actively learning Japanese. It is also much easier than you might think!

For example, let’s say you are practicing some beginner level Japanese with a classmate & forgot the vocabulary item for "flower".

A lady is frantically rushing through a dictionary to find a word while another lady impatiently waits.

Yes, you could stop in the middle of the conversation to pull out your personal じしょ (jisho) & look up your elusive Japanese word; I’m sure that sort of conversational interruption is greatly appreciated— but here are some better options to communicate the idea you need without losing the flow of your lesson & conversation:

Describing your word

When it comes to communicating your missing Japanese vocabulary in a conversation, one of the best ways to continue the flow of communication is to describe your word with the vocabulary you can remember. It allows you to continue practicing the Japanese you have already learned, while also giving you an opportunity to think in a more flexible way when more occasions like this pop up.

An image of a flower with notes about different parts or characteristics of the flower in Japanese. The grass the flower grows on is noted by くさ. The leaf of the flower is noted by は. The colour of the stem is noted by みどり. The colour of the petals is noted by あかい. The size of the flower is noted with ちいさい.

For our "flower" example, a Japanese learner might benefit by describing certain aspects of a flower. Saying it is a thing with a certain colour, size, or having "a good smell" are a great start! If your word isn’t a noun like "flower", then describe contexts that make sense for your word. If it is a verb, where & when does one do it? If it is an adjective, what kind of things share this quality?

Parallel words

If you do not have all of the words you need to describe your original word, then you can always try using words that embody similar characteristics as a placeholder for the word you are looking for.

The flower is shown next to a tree, noted as an equivalent.

For our "flower" example, maybe you want to describe it as a type of "plant". If you don’t know that vocabulary yet, you could use 木 (き / ki) instead. 木 is the Japanese word for "tree", & is often taught early when learning the language. So you could describe the "flower" as a "small tree".

If you want to further branch out (pun intended) on ways to describe the word with parallel concepts, you could compare parts of the flowering plant to parts of a body. The stem could be the "body", leaves the "arms", while the flower itself acts as the "head" of a plant. You can even get creative & describe the petals like "hair" to the flower.

The flower is shown next to a human body, comparable parts are noted. The body of the human and the stem of the flower. The leaves and the hands. The flower itself and the human's head.

Thinking like this takes a little creativity & practice, but that creativity pays off when you are trying to get better at communicating in a language you are learning! Let’s say you aren’t quite comfortable enough with your vocabulary yet to try this, but you still do want to communicate. What kind of improvisation can you do to help with that?

Gesture

If your words are completely missing, or you are too stunned to continue making Japanese words happen in the conversation, then there is another option to improvise without destroying the conversation: gesture. When words fail, sometimes you just have to pantomime what you can to get your idea across. If you succeed, then hopefully your conversational partner(s) can help you reach the word you are seeking.

You can gesture for a word by acting out behaviours the word does. For the "flower" example, you could gesture with one arm to act as a flat surface to represent the ground, & the other hand can "grow" out from under it like a flower might. For verb words, maybe try doing the action or a simplified version of it. For adjectives & adverbs, making movements or hand shapes that exemplify the quality. A quick motion could be done for something that is fast, or pushing your hands closer together to portray something as "small".

Now go out & practice improv techniques to help your Japanese~

After doing any number of these techniques, hopefully you can communicate the idea of a "flower" without needing to use the word 花 (はな / hana). It isn't guaranteed to always work because communication involves more than just the person speaking; but it will definitely help you become more adaptable while you begin communicating in Japanese. Try some of these improvisational methods you just read about to communicate some of the words below in Japanese:

Fireworks: 花火 ( はなび ) (hanabi)
Spoon: スプーン ( supoon )
Fox: 狐 ( きつね ) (kitsune)
Banana: バナナ ( banana )
Heavy: 重い ( おもい ) (omoi)
Spicey: 辛い ( からい ) (karai)
To walk: 歩く ( あるく ) (aruku)
A sneeze: 嚏 ( くしゃみ ) (kushami)
To exit: 出る ( でる ) (deru)