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How would I form the phrase, "I'm better at understanding (spoken) Japanese
than speaking it," both casually and politely?

Like this?:

私は日本語｛にほんご｝を聞いて｛きいて｝分かる｛わかる｝のほうが話す｛はなす｝のよりいいです。

私は日本語を聞いて分かるのが話すのよりいい。

How could I share these ideas in a natural way?
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2018-05-12T13:06:52.897
58595
2018-05-12T18:53:23.257
2018-05-12T13:30:39.470
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27915
question
nominalization comparative-constructions
How do I express "I'm better at doing X than Y"
I'd say something like:

> 私は日本語は聞くほうが話すのより（は）得意です。

This is perfectly natural. I used 日本語は instead of 日本語を to imply that you speak
other language(s) and "聞くほうが話すのより得意" doesn't apply to these languages.

If you omit (は), it sounds more like you are actually good at 聞く, but if you
keep (は), it means both 聞く and 話す are okay-ish level and 聞く is better than 話す
only slightly.

In case you want to make the sentence more casual, you can drop 私は, and change
です to だね/かな/etc.:

> 日本語は聞くほうが話すのより（は）得意かな。

To make it even more casual, you can replace 得意 with マシ:

> 日本語は聞くほうが話すのより（は）マシかな。

マシ is kind of a colloquial expression, and not many people use it for writing.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-05-12T18:53:23.257
58603
2018-05-12T18:53:23.257
29903
58595
answer