• Content Assistant (1 position available)
• Summer Intern (1-2 positions available)
• Trial Writer (1-5 positions available)

Although it’s probably best if you just head on over to our Tofugu Jobs Page to learn more, here is a quick summary of the three positions:

Content Assistant

This is the biggest position available right now. Essentially it comes down to content and being able to produce a lot of it… without sacrificing quality. The content you will be assisting with includes but is not limited to: video, articles, guides, reviews, and social media. This means we are looking for someone who has experience in both writing and film, with an emphasis on writing.

We are currently looking for someone to fill this position on a part time basis with potential for full time down the road, should the shoe fit. Please take a look at the Content Assistant section on our jobs page for more information.

Application Due Date: March 23, 2014

Summer Intern(s)

Every summer Tofugu runs an internship with the sole purpose of giving all you poor Japanese Studies majors hope (just a little bit). A couple bits of good news for this summer in particular. First, we’re posting this announcement up nice and early. This time we’ll be catching all you early-summer colleges in time. Second, it’s going to be the first summer where we pay our interns hourly (in the past it was either a living/education stipend or nothing at all). So, you know, you might be able to eat food and get off the streets.

The internship will have a set curriculum to it with several goals from our end, but we’ll also be attempting to focus part of the internship on your own interests and future dreams as well. If you’re interested in learning the “Ways of the Fugu” in a mostly educational sort of way, please consider applying for the Tofugu Internship.

Application Due Date: May 1, 2014

Trial Blog Writer(s)

Occasionally we are looking for new writers to bring into the fold. But, there’s a trial period to find out whether or not you’re reliable and consistent enough. This position is that trial.

If you consider yourself a writer and would be interested in writing articles for Tofugu, please take a look at the Trial Writers section of our jobs page.

Application Due Date: March 23, 2014

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If you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments below and I’ll try to get back to them. Good luck to everyone who applies!

Power Pros Baseball is a Konami series of cartoony, arcadey baseball games that’s been published every year in Japan since Bill Clinton took office. Year in, year out, Power Pros faithfully recreated the Japanese league rosters as near-featureless bobblehead-looking guys, with quick, polished gameplay and a “Success Mode” with a storyline and life sim elements. For two years, they tested the waters of the American market, releasing MLB Power Pros and MLB Power Pros 2008. I played these games obsessively, but they never came back. Once I found out I could import them, I gained not only a language practice tool, but a reason to learn as much as I could, so I could play more of that game. At first I could only play individual games, then I learned enough Japanese to navigate a season, and then I learned enough to read and enjoy the life sim and story mode. So, for any of you Japanese students interested in finding games to supplement your language study, here’s a quick guide to importing Japanese video games.

Sony PlayStation 3, PS4, and Vita

I think this screenshot just sold me a PlayStation 4.

The Sony consoles are your best bet for importing Japanese games because they’re popular in Japan and have little to no region lock. Traditionally, game consoles bought in America or Europe couldn’t play Japanese games without some sort of workaround or adapter. Many people still try to find first-run NES launch titles because they have a secret Japan-US adapter inside the cartridge which can be taken out and used for other games. Sony started to reverse that trend when they made the PS3 region-free, so Japanese PS3 games can be played on any region’s console. (PS1 and PS2 games are still region-locked, even when played on a PS3.) So all you need to do to play Japanese PlayStation games is get your hands on the games themselves.

We’ll talk about how to get disc games later on, but the PlayStation has another import-friendly feature: a freely-accessible Japanese PlayStation Store. By creating a new sub-user on your PlayStation, you can sign up for a Japanese PSN account and get access to the same download titles you could get in Japan. After doing that, any demos and free-to-play games are easily available to you, but paying for games is another hurdle. You will need either a Japanese credit card or Japanese PSN cards, which are sold on a number of websites but usually at a 70% markup. Ten dollars of Japanese PlayStation Store credit will likely cost you $17.

Like the PlayStation 3, the PS4 is region-free, so games bought from the UK or Japan or Australia will all work on a North American console. The PS4 doesn’t launch in Japan until February 22nd, but when that time rolls around, there are a few Japan-only games you can import, including the strategic RPG Natural Doctrine and the new samurai-era Yakuza game.

The PlayStation Vita is also region-free, but in this case discs are much easier to deal with than downloads. The Japanese PSN Store isn’t as easy to access on that device as it is on the PS3. It can still be done, it just requires backing up and resetting your Vita.

Games Worth Importing: Summer Vacation 4 (Boku No Natsuyasumi 4) (PSP), Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan! (PS3), Yakuza: Ishin (PS3 and PS4)

Nintendo Wii, Wii U, and 3DS

The Nintendo Wii and Wii U don’t make things so simple for you. Both are region-locked, so by default an American console will not play Japanese games. Importing a Japanese Wii or Wii U can also be frustrating because online features will check your IP Address, so you will need to resort to VPN trickery to do anything involving the internet on a foreign console. There are always a number of fixes circulating for the notoriously hackable Nintendo Wii which can allow you to play games from other regions, but because these hacks are always changing, potentially illegal, and occasionally prone to bricking your Wii, it is hard to recommend any given solution.

Nintendo’s handheld consoles get a little complicated, but they are very good for Japanese study. The original DS is region-free, except for the online DSi store and the DSi-exclusive game cards (all four of them). The 3DS is region locked, so you’ve gotta buy a Japanese one to play Japanese games. We at Tofugu have gone over before why you might want to buy a Japanese 3DS, one major reason being the great library of games with furigana options for those millions of us who are still working on our kanji. There are dozens if not hundreds of Japan-only, text-heavy DS and 3DS games, making both handhelds a terrific choice for an intermediate Japanese student.

Games Worth Importing: Captain Rainbow (Wii), Miles Edgeworth 2 (DS), Youkai Watch (3DS)

Microsoft Xbox 360 and Xbox One

Microsoft’s game consoles have not yet caught on in Japan, so the selection of import games is limited and the selection of text-heavy Japanese games almost nonexistent. The Xbox 360’s region lock operates on a game-by-game level. Publishers can ask that their game be region-free or region-locked. There are very few Japanese region-free games available, and there is no way to purchase DLC for Japanese games outside of Japan due to an IP Address check. Similar to the PlayStation, it is fairly simple to set up a Japanese Xbox Live account and try free games from another region, but you will still face the same difficulties in paying for games because Microsoft Points are region-locked. You can also migrate your account to a new region, but it will be stuck for three months, so setting up a new profile and adding it to your Xbox is almost certainly a better idea. Play-Asia has a reasonably complete list of Xbox 360 games and their region capabilities.

Xbox One will be region-free, contrary to Microsoft’s initial announcements. However, Microsoft have yet to announce when their new console will actually come out in Japan, so it could be a year or so before you get a chance to import anything. Given the sparse selection on the 360, there likely will not be a large array of Japan-exclusive Xbox One games, but at least you don’t have to sink your money on a separate Japanese console this time.

Games Worth Importing: Mushihime-sama Futari (Xbox 360 and region-free!) aaaand that’s about it.

PC and Mac

Japan is very much a console gaming culture, but there are certain niches that live on the Windows PC. Japanese indie games (sometimes called doujin games) are often readily available on the internet, if you can find them, though not many of them work on a Mac. The Japanese indie game scene is often ridiculed for just how many train simulators and pornographic visual novels it produces, but a number of now-famous indie games like Cave Story and La Mulana started off as free-to-download Japanese indie titles.

It can be difficult to wade through everything available on the internet to find these gems, however, so I have another solution for Japanese study through computer games: I go on Steam and do an Advanced Search for games that support Japanese text or audio. That list (currently 185 games long) should only contain games that let you simply switch your language to Japanese, with no hassle of importing or creating a new account or anything. You probably already own a few.

Games Worth “Importing”: Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale, Ys, Cave Story

Getting Your Disks

If you don’t happen to be staying in Japan right now, getting your hands on Japanese games can get a little difficult and expensive. The simplest way is to buy from an importer like Play-Asia.com, NCSX.com, or YesAsia.com, but they mark up the price from what you would see in Japan. For instance, the latest Pro Yakyuu Spirits game costs ￥4820 or $48 on Amazon.co.jp, but will run you $65 on Play-Asia. So why not just buy from Amazon.co.jp? You can’t, not directly. Amazon.co.jp won’t ship games, game consoles, or any electronics to a location outside Japan. You have to use a shipping service like Tenso, who can forward your game from their location in Tokyo to your address wherever. But the shipping cost will still be $15-20, so you’re not saving much money for your extra effort unless you buy in bulk.

Buying Japanese video games can be a pain, but it’s becoming easier year after year. Eventually the download options should get better too. Hopefully they will ease up on restrictions and make it easier to buy and download games in the future.

The right video game can be a fun supplementary study tool and a great reward after your language ability has jumped ahead. But most importantly to me, now I can play baseball video games that don’t suck.

If you’re an importer (or wannabe importer), let me know what games you’re a fan of the most. Anything in particular that will help with Japanese studies?

It’s jam packed with whimsy, charm, and nostalgia for what JRPGs used to be all about. Some games (*cough* Final Fantasy *cough*) have started to move towards style over substance, but Ni No Kuni gives hope for games that are still very substance driven – like JRPGs were back in the good ol’ days. So what makes Ni No Kuni so great, other than the fact that you can actually somewhat study Japanese with it (gasp!)?

What the Game’s All About

Ni No Kuni is a very traditional style RPG. You play as Oliver, a little kid from Motortown. Through a series of events, you find yourself partying up with a fairy known as Mr. Drippy and traveling to a parallel universe to save souls and subsequently, the world. The world is filled with amusing creatures and monsters, fairies, and talking cats. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Like most JRPGs, you have HP, MP, and lots of experience to gain and equipment to equip. You recruit party members and familiars to help you in battle, help townspeople out with odd jobs to advance the story, and fight monsters to advance your levels. If you’ve played an RPG before, you’ll know what to expect here. You travel around towns, an overworld map, dungeons, and locales.

For those of you totally unfamiliar with the game, here’s a review that does a good job letting you know what the game is all about.

What Sets it Apart

But playing a game like this, a game that feels more like a classic RPG than a modern innovation, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. This is a JRPG done right. Everything is absolutely top notch. It might not be incredibly innovative or fresh, but everything that is done here is done very well and the game shines as a result.

I believe Studio Ghibli’s influence on this is immediately clear as well. The animation and visuals are strikingly beautiful. Not only do you feel like you’re playing through an anime, you feel like you’re playing through a Studio Ghibli film. What could be better than that?

The soundtrack is no slouch either. All the music is very whimsical and fits in just great with the rest of the game. It was composed by the esteemd Joe Hisaishi and performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Another great thing is that the game actually lets you have the original Japanese audio track as an option. I’ve heard great things about the English dub, but being able to play through with the original Japanese voices is a real treat.

The battle system is really fun, but it takes some time to really get rolling. In the beginning you just have Oliver and one familiar to control. It works, but it’s not exactly exciting. Eventually you recruit other party members and gain access to more familiars. This is when things really start to open up.

For Studying Japanese

Since the game includes the original Japanese language track, you can use that for your Japanese studies, depending on your level of Japanese. Also, Mr. Drippy (the little fairy that follows you around) speaks in Kansai dialect, so that’s just fantastic.

Anyway, one issue is that the English subtitles (which can’t be turned off, unfortunately) are not direct translations of the Japanese audio. This can be kind of goofy (or fun) when you’re playing along listening to the Japanese and reading the English and realizing that they don’t really match up. It’s kind of entertaining to pick these out and think about how you might have translated them in your head as you’re playing along, assuming you don’t get too distracted from the game itself, of course.

Another unfortunate thing is that there’s no Japanese language subtitle option, but I think that having the Japanese audio track alone is impressive enough. All of the latest Tales games (also produced by Namco Bandai) don’t include the Japaenese audio track, so I always appreciate it when games like Ni No Kuni at least give you the option.

Granted, there are much better ways to study Japanese, but it’s nice that the game at least includes the Japanese audio. It’s better than nothing, you know?

The Future

These days I feel like we’re seeing less and less Japanese games like Ni No Kuni. Maybe that’s what makes them stand out so much more, but I really really enjoy them and I am always very excited when they make it over to America, eventually. Do I think that JRPGs will ever make a full return to games like this? Probably not. But it’s nice to know that people are still making games like these and when they do come out, they are very well received.

That being said, I’m guessing that we’ll see games like this one every once in a while, but sadly I doubt that we’ll ever see a true return to the golden age of JRPGs. But who knows? Maybe the next gen systems will surprise all of us and be jam packed with traditional JRPGs. Haha, I wish.

Anyway, I give Ni No Kuni a hearty recommendation. If I had to put a number on it, I’d give it a 9/10 just for the relatively slow start with the battle system. It’s right up there with the brilliant Tales titles I’ve played this generation.

So have any of you played Ni No Kuni? What do you think about the future of traditional style JRPGs? Do you think they’ll still be around for many years to come or do you think the influence of franchises like Final Fantasy will push them all towards “modernization”? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Oh, and here’s some pictures and back stories! So pretty!

Koichiffany knows she’s hawt. Look at that pretty mouth. She’s also an aspiring mangaka and the author of over nine thousand fanfics.

When Koichi isn’t lounging in his slanket reading some manga (it’s pronounced MAHNga, you uncultured swine!) he’s spending time with his cat, trying to teach her how to speak, just like in that one Ghibli movie he probably recommends you have to see (though, the manga version is way better).

Koichi has finally found true love, but he doesn’t know how to express it to the lucky girl. He stares for a while and wonders why she never stares back. A match made in heaven.

Koichi is working hard on his computer, trolling the people on various anime message boards who still use VLC to watch their anime. Seriously, VLC? C’mon.

CLICK ME FOR HAWT MOVES

And, if those pics weren’t enough, here’s a moving one. If this doesn’t make the rounds on Tumblr, we will be very disappointed in you.

Any character or part of the video your particular favorite? Anything just hit home a little too hard? Let us know so that we can eventually make a sequel. We have like… a hundred more lines we want to use.

GIRUGAMESHHHHHHHHH!

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXFfh2nJ5nY']

When she was added as the newest member, this story got some news. Some people care about this kind of thing, though Tofugu isn’t really interested in it, I’d say. The part we like was how it turned out she was fake. The technology behind it is also interesting. After being added to the group, Eguchi appeared in a Glico Commercial (seriously, you know you’ve hit it big once you’ve been in a Glico commercial).

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnWFbh69Hzg']

Then, people found out she wasn’t actually real… All the otaku who fell in love with her were crushed and heartbroken. Not even putting together that Gundam figurine could make them happy again :(

I don’t think the story here is so much that she’s fake (though that’s pretty  cool), I think the interesting part is the technology that went into making someone fake. Normally, when you put together a bunch of random things from a bunch of different people, it doesn’t turn out too good. I think Conan O’Brien’s “If They Mated” sketch proves this.

The “Making Of” video isn’t particularly illuminating, but it does have some info as to what they did to create Aimi Eguchi. Looks like they recorded the six idols, did some CG magic, then combined the individual face features into one fake AKB48 idol.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIpYpRobez4']

I’d say some of her pictures / videos are pretty good, though every once in a while you come across one where you’re like “ooh, she looks funny,” though I wonder if I’d notice any of this if I didn’t know she was fake.

The really interesting part, I’d say, is figuring out what will happen with her a year or so from now. Will she still exist? Will there still be rabid fans of her? If Hatsune Miku (A computer generated singer) can be super popular and have a ton of fans, why not Aimi Eguchi?

Personally, though, if I were AKB48, I’d see how long I could keep this hoax going. Start a betting pool inside the company, or something. I’d bet they could keep it secret for about a month before anyone figured it out, though you’d need to come up with all kinds of excuses why she never appears anywhere in person…

Create Your Own Idol!

This is just a little extra, but has a “Create Your Own Idol” kind of website where you can take different pieces of different AKB48 idols to make your own Frankenstein.

See what you can come up with. It’s actually pretty hard to make something that’s too terrifying, though I have faith in all of you Tofugu readers to come up with something amazing. You can’t beat this one, though.

Go ahead, create your own idols! Show us in the comments what you’ve come up with.

P.S. Steve Buscemi is a baller of an actor. If you agree, you should Follow Tofugu On Twitter.

P.P.S. If you don’t agree with the previous statement, perhaps you’re more of a Facebook type of person?

Japanese Dorama (drama)? Check. Studying Japanese? Also check. One of the most addicting things in the world is Japanese drama. If I needed to quit cocaine or something like that, this is what I’d use to kick it. Oh, and Japanese drama is a pretty excellent way to study Japanese. Watching it is one thing… but actually actively studying it is another. I will tell you exactly how to do that and get a ton of benefit compared to the time spent.

Kind Of Not For Beginners

Beginners of Japanese, I’m sorry, this method isn’t amazing for you. It’s better than the “Learning Japanese With Subtitles” article I did a few weeks ago, but it’s still not amazing. That being said, if you watch a lot of jdorama anyways, it wouldn’t hurt for beginners to try this out. I’m just saying there’s probably some things you could spend your time on that would be better for you at your current level … I’m not saying this method won’t be beneficial to all levels (just much more beneficial to intermediate / advanced students of Japanese). There are a few reasons for this:

1. Intermediate+ students will have an easier time with the kanji (an important part of this process)
2. Intermediate+ students will have the grammar foundation that will allow them to look up things they don’t know (and then make sense of them).
3. Intermediate+ students should be able to recognize and avoid gendered language / things they shouldn’t actually need to learn (as well as avoid learning how to talk like a girl / boy or something).
4. Intermediate+ students will know when someone is speaking unrealistically in the drama so they won’t end up speaking like that when they try what they’ve learned out in the real world.

Anyways, are you ready? I’m going to start at the beginning and work my way through how you might use a single episode of some Japanese drama to learn a lot of Japanese… and a whole ton of it, too. I’m kind of baffled by how well this works. Thank you internets for making it possible.

Step 1: Choose The Right Drama

I can’t really go into a whole lot of detail on how to acquire the drama… but I can tell you what drama to watch. It’s actually kind of important for this, because not all drama will allow you to follow the steps I’m laying out here. Why is that? Because we’re starting with a (Japanese) transcript of the drama first, and not all dramas have this readily available to the world.

There’s a pretty incredible website called どらま・のーと (Drama Note) where someone (or some people?) are transcribing Japanese drama episodes. The site’s all in Japanese (I’ll help make some sense of it in a moment) and it’s even doing current drama series (like right now Jin 2 and BOSS 2 are the ones getting the most attention, it seems).

There’s also a list of previous drama that have been transcribed over here, but the most current stuff is on the main DramaNote website.

Things aren’t particularly well organized, I’d say, so I’m going to keep it pretty simple. I’d use the search feature to try and find what you’re looking for, or take a look at the どらま・のーと(旧) page and see if what you want is on the list. Not every drama is up there, of course, but there’s enough to keep any Japanese student busy for a really really long time. Here’s a list of some of the more popular dramas, at least in my mind (though this guide will mostly focus on BOSS, to keep things simple).

BOSS: http://www.dramanote.com/category/7359462-1.html

Jin: http://www.dramanote.com/category/7359471-1.html

Buzzer Beat: http://www.dramanote.com/category/7359468-1.html

Rookies: http://www.dramanote.com/category/7359431-1.html

Hana Yori Dango: http://www.dramanote.com/category/7359277-1.html

Hana Yori Dango 2: http://www.dramanote.com/category/7359431-1.html

Densha Otoko: http://www.dramanote.com/category/7359260-1.html

Gokusen: http://www.dramanote.com/category/7359231-1.html

Pretty nice list, I’d say. One thing that might be confusing is how it lists out episodes. I spent a long time trying to figure out why Boss Episode 1 wasn’t doing what was written in the transcript. Then I realized I was on the wrong season. For example, if you go to the BOSS posts page, you’ll need to go back to the first page to get to Season 1 episode 1 – the ones on the most recent page are from Season 2.

The rest of this guide is going to pretend like you’re watching BOSS, though you can follow along pretty much the same way with any of the other dramas listed above too.

So, if you want to follow along on the live site, you’ll want to go to the BOSS Season 1 Episode 1 page on どらま・のーと.

BOSS Season 1 Episode 1

If you take a look at the Season 1 Episode 1 Page, you’ll see the transcript for that episodes. There’s little notes in there from time to time, but as long as you’re not a total beginner in Japanese you can find where the talking starts. Before getting started, though, I’d recommend downloading Evernote (it’s where I keep all my drama notes, so I can access them anywhere). You can see my Evernote has a 日本語 section where I put these (and other study stuff).

Right now all you can see is Jin and BOSS, because I copied over a ton of the どらま・のーと pages so I’d have access to them for later. Above is my notes for BOSS Season 1 Episode 1 (which is what we’re talking about here). For this guide, all you need to do is copy over the first episode’s content, though.

どらま・のーと doesn’t have the English translation (the image above has my own notes in it), and it doesn’t have times or anything else. All that is up to you (and I think it’s good practice).

Now, once you have the notes copied over, the next step involves some of the actually studying stuff, though how you do it differs depending on if you have English subtitles or not in the version of BOSS you downloaded, er, purchased.

Subtitles Vs. No Subtitles

I’m not going to say one is better than the other, necessarily. I think they both have their benefits and drawbacks. Let me list them out for you:

Subtitles

• Allows you to get through a lot more content more quickly (so you can study more content, but not as intensely)
• Doesn’t give you the opportunity to translate and figure stuff out on your own (which can be a great way to learn)
• Most subtitles, especially fansubs have a good number of mistakes in them, so you should be aware of that possibility.

No Subtitles

• Probably won’t be able to study as much in one sitting (though this depends on your level).
• Will have things you just won’t understand the meaning of (and will have to get someone to help you, which slows you down a bit).
• Overall probably a higher level, so +1 for advanced students and maybe +0 or -1 for intermediate students. Like I said, though, totally depends on you.

I don’t really care which one you choose, I think both can be good. The key, as always, is consistent study over a long period of time, so no matter which one you end up working with, as long as you do it every day you’ll make lots of progress, and that progress will grow exponentially over time.

Step 2: Notes + Dorama

The next step requires you to set your computer up so you can see both the notes and the video (in this guide’s case, BOSS Season 1 Episode 1). Here’s a look at an example setup. Pretty standard. Click on it to make it bigger.

On one side I have my notes (in Evernote) and the other side I have the drama playing. This version of the video happens to have subtitles, so we’ll go through that way. If your video doesn’t have subtitles (or you want to cover them, which is totally good too) you can follow pretty much the same steps, except you’ll have to look up grammar you don’t understand.

As the episode plays, you just follow along, writing the translations in. I’d recommend doing around 10 pieces of dialog at a time. Once you have the translations for all the sentences written down, move on to the next step (don’t worry, the speaking part comes after!).

Step 3: Vocab

Most likely, there’s going to be some vocab that you don’t understand or know yet (if there wasn’t any, then maybe you don’t need to study so much!). My favorite way to study vocabulary is Anki, though you can use whatever you’d like. After you’ve gotten your 10 dialog translations written down, go through and pick out the words you don’t know / don’t know really well, then put them into your flashcard program of choice. Just the act of putting your own words in is good study on its own, and of course you’ll use the flashcard program to study them over time, as well.

After you’ve put the words you don’t know into your flash card program, go through them once to help learn them a bit before moving on to the next step (which will also help you to learn them).

Step 4: Practicing Then Shadowing

The next step is actually two steps. First, you’ll want to go through your Japanese notes and make sure you can read everything. Maybe you won’t be able to (as in, going through your flashcard deck once wasn’t enough… that’s normal), so you’ll have to make sure that you can. Go through line by line and learn how to read everything – once you can read your 10 lines at a decent speed, then you can move on to shadowing, which involves using the video too.

For watching the dramas in this part, I’d recommend VLC. It plays pretty much anything, and it also has a neat little feature that helps a lot with this part. I’m sure it’s something similar on the PC / Linux, but if you hit ALT + COMMAND + ←, it’ll jump back in the video by 10 seconds. That’s perfect for studying a short bit of the video over and over again (until you can do it naturally right along with the video).

Anyways, for this step, you’ll play the video, and just try to speak along with the speaking characters. You’ll try to mimic their accent, and you’ll try to keep up with them in speed (this is why you do a little pre-study beforehand, so it’s easier to get up to their speed more quickly). Approximately ten seconds at a time, you’ll shadow the same bit over and over again, until you feel like you’re really really similar (or exactly the same) as what’s going on in your drama.

Now, this is where a little bit of knowledge comes in handy… people don’t always talk like normal people, so knowing a little bit of Japanese beforehand will help you to avoid studying terrible speech in such detail. Drama’s going to be a little better about this than anime, but that doesn’t mean you won’t run into a weirdo or two on whatever you’re watching. You’ve been warned!

After you’ve gotten the first ten seconds down pat, move on to the next ten seconds, and so on, until you’ve finished your first ten (or so) lines of dialog. Then, it’s repeat and review time!

Step 5: Repeat & Review

There has to be a bit of a mix between repeating and reviewing to make this study method really powerful. If you only study and never review, you won’t learn new words and you just won’t get as much out of it. Sure, review takes up some of your time you could be studying new things, but overall I think it’s definitely way worth it.

Here’s kind of what I’d recommend:

1. Make sure you study your vocab deck every day (Anki will tell you what you need to study and what you don’t need to study, so this is easy).
2. Go through everything you’ve done in the past once via your Evernote notes (read everything there, you don’t necessarily have to do it with the video every time, because that will get really long after a while.
3. Since you’re studying in blocks (as in 10 dialog points) you can mark sections off as “memorized” after a while. Once you’ve come to the point where you’ve memorized a block of dialog, you can probably skip that one and not review it anymore (or as much).
4. Color code things giving you trouble so you know to either look them up or study them more (i.e. use them in your Lang-8 journal entries for practice, or something). Review and work on these things more than things not giving you trouble (the point is to learn new things, after all).
5. Always try to mix in some new stuff too (as in, add 10 lines of dialog every day… or 20 lines, or 30 lines, or whatever you think you can handle while still doing your reviews).
6. Spend some time with each line of dialog and try to replace certain parts of it to make your own (different) sentences. This will help you to not get stuck on only what is said in the dramas you’re watching.

The main thing, though, is to study consistently. I’m always harping on this, but it’s the most important thing of all. Do this everyday (or do something else every day) and you’ll get good, no problem. It’s the consistency that counts, not the 12 hour cram-fests one day a week.

I hope you enjoyed this guide, and I hope it helps a lot of you too! I think it’s a pretty good strategy, and a pretty good way to practice and learn a lot, while still enjoying yourself! So… what drama will you start with?

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Just Added! Using Microphones

One thing I find particularly good for this is my microphone (there’s a less expensive version of this microphone that should do the same thing as what I’m about to describe below, though). These USB Yeti Microphones (and I’m sure plenty of other microphones I don’t know about) have an audio jack in them that lets you hook your headphones in and get zero latency headphone output. That means when you speak into the microphone, you can hear what the microphone is picking up (i.e. your voice) without any lag or delay. There’s just something great (and helpful) about listening to yourself as you’re speaking. It’s much different than just hearing yourself normally (which I think is pretty skewed, in general).

By plugging in a microphone like this while you do the shadowing portion of this guide, you can hear yourself, hear the audio from the video, and then really be able to compare and fix your accent more effectively. You’re speaking, but it’s like you’re hearing someone else. Totally different experience, in my opinion, and will help you to get your pitch, accent, and so on a lot better.

If you do this, you’ll just need to get a microphone with a good audio output. You’ll also want to make sure they’re zero-latency (because latency will throw you off, big time). I like Blue’s microphones, though to be honest that’s all I’ve ever used, so I’m sure there are others just as good out there. Starting to get super tech savvy, aye?