Getting Nihongo Jouzu

[Koronesuki]

May I ask you how were you using anime in studies?

I wasn't. Not really. I've seen ridiculous claims online that it's possible to learn to speak Japanese simply by watching enough anime. Obviously that isn't true. If it was that easy, I'd have been fluent years ago. I've watched a lot of anime, but I'm still waiting for that magical moment when I suddenly realize that I can understand what the characters are saying without reading the subtitles. I don't think it's going to happen. I'm sure that watching anime in addition to actually studying Japanese is helpful, but that wasn't what I was doing.

I did once actually try to study Japanese years ago, but I didn't get very far. I've never been good at learning languages. I just don't seem to have a knack for it.

 

[Postal rrat]

I wasn't. Not really. I've seen ridiculous claims online that it's possible to learn to speak Japanese simply by watching enough anime. Obviously that isn't true. If it was that easy, I'd have been fluent years ago. I've watched a lot of anime, but I'm still waiting for that magical moment when I suddenly realize that I can understand what the characters are saying without reading the subtitles. I don't think it's going to happen. I'm sure that watching anime in addition to actually studying Japanese is helpful, but that wasn't what I was doing.

I did once actually try to study Japanese years ago, but I didn't get very far. I've never been good at learning languages. I just don't seem to have a knack for it.

I mean not the guy who asked but in broad strokes it is definitively possible to learn Japanese just by watching enough anime but most people leave out the fine print. If you read the actual fine print for doing it you would start by turning off the subtitles. If you're never cracking open a text book or core vocabulary pack. you should start with thrilling adventures of Peppa Pig and your going to watch that shit like a toddler as much as mummy and daddy will allow and preferablely the same episode multiple times. At some point you will realize you would rather lobotomize yourself and give it up. So it's absolutely true you can learn Japanese just by watching anime, pure immersion isn't as much fun as they try to make it sound though.

 

[Gorilla Drip]

I've seen ridiculous claims online that it's possible to learn to speak Japanese simply by watching enough anime.

In a way, that is actually true but just like Postal rrat said, it's completely unfeasable and I have no idea why anybody would subject themselves to it. The misunderstanding these people have is that by just watching subtitled anime you'll be learning japanese. This is absolutely false. As you pointed out, you'll just be readings subs and not learning shit. How it is possibile is through sheer raw continuous exposure. You can learn japanese by watching say 100? 1000? anime series raw with no other aide. But why would you?
What I want to say though is that you can use anime as a further tool for japanese study and I recommend you do if you wanna get jouzu.

 

[Koronesuki]

Was it Tenma who claimed that she learned English by watching Die Hard every day for months? Maybe I should try that: pick a Japanese movie and watch it every day without subtitles and see how long it takes me. Somehow I doubt that would work very well, or that I would enjoy the process very much.

 

[agility_]

A friend learned Swedish by listening to rock music constantly, sometimes you should lean onto what really works best for you. In my case rote memorization never yields good results, so I listen to conversations first.

 

[Postal rrat]

Was it Tenma who claimed that she learned English by watching Die Hard every day for months? Maybe I should try that: pick a Japanese movie and watch it every day without subtitles and see how long it takes me. Somehow I doubt that would work very well, or that I would enjoy the process very much.

Really depends on how you watch it as much as I am critical of learning through pure immersion it does work. I would say immersion is a great help to study but I honestly think it's the other way around. In that study is a great aid to immersion and immersion is the only thing that actually teaches you Japanese. Textbooks and grammar guides teach you about Japanese it's rather like swimming in that respect you have to get your feet wet. If you watched a Japanese movie every night without English subs you would definitely see results but learning grammar and running anki cards at the same time would be a massive force multiplier. I'm pretty sure this is closer to what Tenma actually did though I'm mostly basing this off some hazy recollection than any thing truly solid.

If you want to move forward on this you should pick something you understand well enough to enjoy. At the earliest stages it's more like pick something you enjoy despite not understanding. if you're a muscle obsessed fox women, macho men are a real help. While you are watching focus on meaning more than grammar. The important thing is to keep the part of the brain that recognizes patterns awake and engaged. Fair warning you are going to be pretty confused first time every time you kind of just have to push past that.

If you have an anime or movie you have enjoyed in the past that's often a good pick the added context is a great help. some people swear by the subtitle tutor method where you watch a show or movie with English subtitles first and then watch it again without. I found that doesn't work for me because I find myself more trying to remember the subtitles than understanding the Japanese.

For the study end you need to learn kana, learning kana is probably the only thing I would recommend Duolingo for. After that I would recommend either downloading or making an anki deck. there are advantages and disadvantages to either option I personally went with premade. The trade off in simple terms is between fast or good though neither option is bad I would say after maybe 50-100 anki cards you should pick up a grammar guide it's hard to learn grammar without a very basic vocabulary. I recommend Cure Dolly for grammar and Kaishi for Anki

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1196762551

 

[Banana Hammock]

Was it Tenma who claimed that she learned English by watching Die Hard every day for months? Maybe I should try that: pick a Japanese movie and watch it every day without subtitles and see how long it takes me. Somehow I doubt that would work very well, or that I would enjoy the process very much.

Find a Japanese dub of Die Hard.

I recommend Cure Dolly for grammar and Kaishi for Anki

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1196762551

I feel kinda bad saying this since she apparently died a year or two ago, but I can't stand Cure Dolly's videos. If you're the same, I've been using Japanese Ammo with Misa and Bunpro.

 

[Postal rrat]

Find a Japanese dub of Die Hard.

I feel kinda bad saying this since she apparently died a year or two ago, but I can't stand Cure Dolly's videos. If you're the same, I've been using Japanese Ammo with Misa and Bunpro.

Ehh there is a good transcript of her videos that I often use for reference if you value the information but can't stand the lacking sound quality or if you just prefer reading you could use that instead I'll link it later

Edit: its later https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XpuXerkGU8waJ4DPDNJA4bGeqOvM-csXjTe57iHARHc/edit

And yeah I can see the presentation being a little off putting for some people. I wouldn't recommend it if it didn't work though. The two common bits of advice for watching cure dolly is to turn on the captions and watch at 1.5 speed the first I don't think is actually needed but the second helps she talks a little slowly

 

[Koronesuki]

Really depends on how you watch it as much as I am critical of learning through pure immersion it does work. I would say immersion is a great help to study but I honestly think it's the other way around. In that study is a great aid to immersion and immersion is the only thing that actually teaches you Japanese. Textbooks and grammar guides teach you about Japanese it's rather like swimming in that respect you have to get your feet wet. If you watched a Japanese movie every night without English subs you would definitely see results but learning grammar and running anki cards at the same time would be a massive force multiplier. I'm pretty sure this is closer to what Tenma actually did though I'm mostly basing this off some hazy recollection than any thing truly solid.

If you want to move forward on this you should pick something you understand well enough to enjoy. At the earliest stages it's more like pick something you enjoy despite not understanding. if you're a muscle obsessed fox women, macho men are a real help. While you are watching focus on meaning more than grammar. The important thing is to keep the part of the brain that recognizes patterns awake and engaged. Fair warning you are going to be pretty confused first time every time you kind of just have to push past that.

If you have an anime or movie you have enjoyed in the past that's often a good pick the added context is a great help. some people swear by the subtitle tutor method where you watch a show or movie with English subtitles first and then watch it again without. I found that doesn't work for me because I find myself more trying to remember the subtitles than understanding the Japanese.

I was joking when I suggested the daily movie watching (if I'm going to spend that much time trying to learn Japanese I might as well study properly), but now you've got me thinking about what movie I would choose if I actually did it.

 

[Postal rrat]

I was joking when I suggested the daily movie watching (if I'm going to spend that much time trying to learn Japanese I might as well study properly), but now you've got me thinking about what movie I would choose if I actually did it.

I strongly suspected you were joking but you keep hanging around so I figured I would try to make learning approachable. I wouldn't discount movie watching as not studying properly it's important to use whatever language you're learning for something, and while most people assume using is speaking it doesn't have to be.

As for what you might watch Ghibli movies seem like a weirdly obvious choice at least to me. Whether or not that's an actually good choice I don't know.

 

[Banana Hammock]

I was joking when I suggested the daily movie watching (if I'm going to spend that much time trying to learn Japanese I might as well study properly), but now you've got me thinking about what movie I would choose if I actually did it.

I already told you.

Die Hard Collector's Blu-ray BOX [10000 Set Limited Edition]

[Duration time] 132 minutes [voice information] English (DTS-HD / 5.1), Japanese (DTS / 5.1) (Tsuguru Uraura version), Japanese (DTS / 5.1) (Nozawa Nachi version), Japanese (DTS / 5.1) (Takenori Murano version) [subtitle information] Japanese / English ãLimited Edition Contentã First...

www.suruga-ya.com

 

[Koronesuki]

I strongly suspected you were joking but you keep hanging around so I figured I would try to make learning approachable.

People keep responding to me, so I keep responding to them. I just came in here to recommend some anime (based entirely on the fact that I like them, not on their usefulness for learning Japanese, which I know nothing about).

I wouldn't discount movie watching as not studying properly it's important to use whatever language you're learning for something, and while most people assume using is speaking it doesn't have to be.

As for what you might watch Ghibli movies seem like a weirdly obvious choice at least to me. Whether or not that's an actually good choice I don't know.

I suppose Ghibli films are an option. I hadn't thought of those. My first thought was Kurosawa films. My second thought was anime movies that I already own.

 

[Banana Hammock]

After watching Mint play this game, I feel like it'd be really good for practicing real-life uses for Japanese.

 

[Postal rrat]

After watching Mint play this game, I feel like it'd be really good for practicing real-life uses for Japanese.

Looks cute I'm interested, but I'm cheap, and yomitan, mokuro, and Somalian manga have seen me in good stead for vocab mining.

 

[Banana Hammock]

Oh, hey. I'm watching Okayu play the new Zelda game, and it looks like it's mostly kana, with furigana over the few kanji it has. From what I can find, you can change the language of the game by changing your switch's language (there's nothing in the game's settings for it). Might be a good one for practicing when you're around N4-N3. Especially if you've already played through it so you know all the controls.

 

[tragic amphibian]

A lot of video games are a decent way to work on your comprehension since they're usually targeted at a middle school reading level. For my fellow "will the Kanji learning ever end?" bros, that's nice because it means that you can start to read most things in the game since the kanji will be mostly limited to the kyoiku kanji aka the first 1000 kanji taught in school. Secondary school kanji will show up but not as often and it'll be "what the hell is that? ....ohhhh, ok, that's how to use that" situations.

The bigger bastard, for me anyways, is always grammar.