Comments on: Okay, Fine, So You CAN Learn Japanese From Anime

By: Deutsches Brot

Deutsches Brot — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 13:19:00 +0000

Jawoll! (I agree =) )
If I want to learn from anime with the intention to practice “realistic spoken japanese” I would not chose “Dragon Ball” for example (or Okabe from “Steins;Gate”). More adult animes like “Monster” would be my choice with a realistic setting where people most of the time behave “normal” and speak “normal”.

@common sense: Yeah I also asume that what rings in my ears for days cannot be outspoken normal even it is in japanese… . ^^

Nice to see the writer has an open mind about these things.

By: dekinai

dekinai — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 23:45:00 +0000

for me, having had a few years’ worth of classes under my belt, watching anime these days really helps train my ears and i get listening practice that i wouldn’t have the opportunity for, otherwise. i wouldn’t recommend it much in the very beginning, only because it would also offer so many distractions.
i also tend to rewatch old familiar episodes where i already know what’s happening and don’t need to watch, try to put it on in the background while doing other things, and listen and repeat the dialogue, without looking at subtitles. one thing i like about it is the chance it gives to hear at full speed so many different glimpses of dialect, ways different characters are written (normal human child vs adult vs youkai vs whatever… ) and differences among generations, gender, level of politeness (and personality) in context that i never really could have gotten from classroom learning. you’re better off having a solid foundation, for sure, but once you understand a little bit about why different characters have such wildly different speech patterns, i think it’s a great supplement if you aren’t lucky enough to overhear tons of conversation on a regular basis. you just need to have a clue to start off with about whether a person sounds normal, human, young, old, freakish, etc… but that isn’t so difficult, is it? for the first few years i couldn’t listen and comprehend much of anything approaching normal conversational speed, but with the reading, writing, and vocab to back it up, just ~listening~ often and with focus has really helped my brain to be able to simply keep up. and i assume being able to toss out a one liner and make myself sound like a creepy old youkai, a crabby obaba, or a whiny little kid completely at will to enhance some joke someday will be a fun ability to have. i’m not sure where else i’d be able to pick up that kind of detail, if not by watching these cartoons.

By: Mari

Mari — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 11:44:00 +0000

I didn’t learn Japanese from watching anime, but when I arrived in Japan as an exchange as an exchange student, I noticed that everything sounded so familiar, especially the /way/ people talked (intonation etc.). I was able to pick that up very fast and I began to imitate it, so I could ‘fake’ my Japanese skills in the beginning (which led to more people talking to me in Japanese so I could learn faster)!

Also, no one can deny that anime has some Japanese culture in it, and that helped me soooo much.

Now that I’ve to Japan, though, I can’t stand to watch anime anymore, haha.

By: lumiina

lumiina — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 14:48:00 +0000

I agree that adding Japanese subtitles can be helpful (especially to reinforce correct language and as a source to intensively study from), but when you’re reading from subtitles, it doesn’t necessarily test and and improve listening comprehension.

So do both. Watch with Japanese subtitles and watch without them. And rip the audio from the anime you watched so you can practice listening on the go.

Also, you have to be careful about inaccurate subtitles. A lot of Japanese subs with Chinese subs under them are inaccurate because they are transcribed by non-native speakers. For example, you’ll see this a lot on Youku.

By: Zaywex

Zaywex — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 18:17:00 +0000

Hmmm, this sounds like a more streamlined approach to your article on dramas. ;)

By: Jon Walmsley

Jon Walmsley — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 12:27:00 +0000

When I watch anime I watch it to relax and enjoy the entertainment, if I can understand bits and pieces here and there that’s great but I’d HATE attempting to formally study everything that’s being said, at least at the moment. Sure, in a couple more years once my own Japanese learning has reached a good enough level I’ll watch some anime for the explicit reason of practising my listening (and I’ll hopefully be naturally picking up and understanding a lot more thats being said anyway) but until then there are much better resources to learn Japanese from that are enjoyable in their own right without having to take out the enjoyment of watching entertaining anime. That’s my perspective anyway.