My name is Jaimie. I started learning Japanese about six months ago. My first class was in person but the following semester, they didn't offer the next step. This forced me to take their online classes. I've learned a lot in a very short amount of time but feel that I have a giant hurdle in front of me in terms of exercising what I do know. I live in Japan so the opportunity to speak Japanese is literally everywhere, but also it isn't. In part because when I am faced with that oppurtunity, my mind just seems to go blank because I start scaring myself with things like "what if I use the wrong form and just offend them?" The other part is that most Japanese people around me want to practice English and I still have not figured out if it is rude to reply in Japanese to their English or not. As you can see, I am kind of beside myself but I really want to have the language be usable. I do fine with the written portion of Japanese in terms of comprehension and having the time to think about it. However, speaking escapes me. So, I've come to italki in hopes of being tutored properly in how to talk.