4 Unusual Facts About Anime
This isn't some fanatics guide to learning Japanese through only relentlessly watching anime, and not doing any work at all, a feat that I have seen attempted, as well as in all cases miserable failure was the result. No, they are some pointers as to how you can better benefit from watching Japanese popular media, adding to your other studying efforts.
You can find mainly two things which watching anime, movies, TV shows and even theater may help you with, if you have little to no previous knowledge. You guessed it, listening right? Well that's one. As well as the other is vocabulary. You can learn to pick up grammar as well, but that will have to be after you recognize some core sentence structures.
Take notes of all of the recurring words that you don't know. If you see the phrase used repeatedly over 20 minutes, and it's not something limited by the confines of science fiction or fantasy, jot it down and memorize it. The thing about a language that causes it to be challenging to learn from just textbooks and old audio CDs, is the fact that languages don't stay the same. They change with time, and sometimes keeping up to date with popular media, is the only way to have an up-to-date vocabulary, short of actually living and breathing the language.
One thing about anime, or movies, or TV shows, is that there can sometimes be a good amount of different dialects in play. If you already have experience from living in Tokyo, or someplace with a relatively neutral accent, you should be fine. But otherwise, paying attention and not mixing up accents is a wise idea. Identify where the different characters are from, in anime this really is often not possible, but usually if you steer clear of the characters using a whole lot of unique expressions and sentence endings, you should be fine. Checking out some countrywide news could be a good idea, because they are more prone to speak within the standardized accent. For anybody who is not serious about hyojungoć¨?ćş?čŞ?, the standardized accent, but say Kansaiben,é?˘čĽżĺź you may do some research by watching comedians from Kansai, although you might want to refrain from using all the expressions you hear.
Speech in anime, or movies for that matter, is often very casual, and omits elements one could have to use in normal or formal speech. On the opposite side of the spectrum, in samurai themed animes or movies, the grammar is riddled with old conjugations, and the vocabulary is archaic. If you attempt to be polite by following suit, you might actually wind up not being understood, or just make an incredibly weird first impression.
If you have already established some base familiarity with Japanese grammar, you can learn some basic casual speech by studying the form. Or you can identify when particles are going to be omitted, then concentrate on the other parts of the sentence. While you proceed, you realize some parts of Japanese grammar may be learned almost as vocabulary, you learn the specific context by which to use it, and after that you simply expand while you see it utilized in other situations.
One thing to note is that the topic is usually omitted from Japanese, even in semi-formal writing. But in contrast, if you omit it too frequently, people are certain to get confused as to what or who you are speaking about, and also you have to go back and explain. There's a balance to be found however, and media will surely be a step forward in the right direction.
With regards to learning value, some genres are superior to others. I would have to say that for the most part, slice of life may be the most appropriate. You will discover two reasons for that. First off, there will be simply more conversation involved, even if battle heavy fantasy or sci-fi is usually riddled with crazy monologues, there is actual dialogue. Dialogue made to portray actual conversations between people, from our world.
Then perhaps more importantly, because the challenges they face are not murderous robots, or vampires, they're everyday problems. And in the process of going through them, you learn a lot of more relevant vocabulary and conjugations than you need to do through most other genres.
Sometimes you can discover that you're able to pick material which is perfectly suited for you. In case you are going to work, or already work, in a big Japanese company, stories revolving around salarymen or even the corporate world shall help one remember some of the lingo.
Try and only absorb things relevant to your actual age group. While understanding the terms secondary school students use might seem a way to remain hip, it shall only work against you within the long term. If you start slipping in incredibly informal words or conjugations into conversation in a proper context, you are bound to give a bad impression.
If you discover yourself in a position in which you have to learn a lot of Japanese in a short time period, you can substitute all your normal media consumption with click the next internet page Japanese equivalent. Find a band you like, pick out some movies to watch, in place of TV watch series relevant to what you may need the Japanese for. This really is especially effective in between study sessions, as it provides a necessary break, while not completely losing focus of the task at hand.
While you can find definitely things you can do to benefit more from simply consuming popular media, do not treat it as a complete substitute to actual studying. If you find yourself lacking motivation, don't let yourself fall into the pattern of only watching, and not doing any real work. The best effects will be achieved with a mix of the two, and if you have the opportunity, interaction with other people in Japanese as well.