I'd say my comprehension at the moment is at a "just barely passing N1" level.
I've read about 25 to 30 average difficulty novels. For reference I'm reading ようこそ実力至上主義の教室へ（classroom of the elite) right now and probably have to do 1-2 lookups per page.
For listening (anime/podcasts/jp TV) I've found that in general if I focus then I can understand mostly everything and enjoy it. But if I space out or get distracted for a second, I tend to lose the train of the conversation.
Over the last several weeks, I've been trying to practice speaking more but it's been frustrating. The words I'm searching for just don't appear in my mind when I need them, even though I would instantly understand those words if I read or heard them. For example, the other day I was trying to say "farmer" – I know the kanji stem I want is 農, but I just didnt know which word I was after (農家？農民？農業員？農人？). I tend to express myself in unnatural, verbose language that often isn't understandable to the listener. Then when they rephrase what I'm trying to say, I understand immediately and I'm like "yeah that makes sense". I've also been told that I use novel-like vocab that isn't used much in daily conversation.
I know the short answer is to just face the frustration head on and get better. But does anyone have tips or tricks for doing this more efficiently? So far I've gone a bit heavy on novel-reading at the expense of listening, so I'm thinking of switching that around and listening a lot more to everyday conversation type language. Anyone have any advice beyond that?
I do have enough opportunities to practice (my wife is Japanese), just want to figure out how to make the most of them.
by njdelima