The Undeniable Truth About Anime That No One Is Telling You
This is not 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 take advantage of watching Japanese popular media, adding to your other studying efforts.
You can find mainly two things that watching anime, movies, TV shows as well as theater can assist you with, if you have little to no previous knowledge. You guessed it, listening right? Well that's one. And the other is vocabulary. You may learn to pick up grammar as well, but which will have to be after you recognize some core sentence structures.
Take notes of all the recurring words that you don't know. If you see the phrase used repeatedly over 20 minutes, and it is 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 tough to learn from just textbooks and old audio CDs, is that languages don't stay the same. They change with time, and sometimes staying in touch 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 the fact that there can sometimes be a good amount of different dialects in play. If you already have experience from living in Tokyo, or somewhere with a relatively neutral accent, you should be fine. But if not, paying attention and not mixing up accents is a good 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 great deal of unique expressions and sentence endings, you should be fine. Checking out some countrywide news might be a great idea, because they are more more likely to speak in the standardized accent. When you are not serious about hyojungoć¨?ćş?čŞ?, the standardized accent, but say Kansaiben,é?˘čĽżĺź you may do some study by watching comedians from Kansai, although you might want to refrain from using all of 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 try 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 understanding of Japanese grammar, you may learn some basic casual speech by studying the form. Or you may identify when particles are being omitted, then concentrate on the other parts of the sentence. As you proceed, you realize some parts of Japanese grammar may be learned almost as vocabulary, you learn the specific context in which to use it, and then you simply expand while you see it employed in other situations.
One thing to note is the fact that the subject is often omitted from Japanese, even in semi-formal writing. But at the same time, if you omit it too often, people will get confused as to what or who you are talking about, and also you have to go back and explain. There's a balance to be found however, and media can definitely be a step forward in the right direction.
On the subject of learning value, some genres are superior to others. I could have to claim that for the most part, slice of life may be the most appropriate. There are two reasons for that. To start with, there will be simply more conversation involved, even if battle heavy fantasy or sci-fi is often riddled with crazy monologues, there is actual dialogue. Dialogue made to portray actual conversations between people, from our world.
Then perhaps more importantly, since the challenges they face are not murderous robots, or vampires, they're everyday problems. And in the process of dealing with them, you learn a lot of more relevant vocabulary and conjugations than you need to do through most other genres.
Sometimes you may find that you're able to pick material that's perfectly suited for you. If you're going to work, or already work, in a big Japanese company, stories revolving around salarymen or even the corporate world can assist you remember some of the lingo.
Try to only absorb things relevant to your actual age group. While knowing the terms high 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 an official context, you're 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 of your normal media consumption with the Japanese equivalent. Locate a band you like, pick out some movies to watch, instead 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'll find definitely things you can do to benefit More hints from simply consuming popular media, do not treat it as a complete substitute to actual studying. If you find yourself lacking motivation, do not let yourself fall into the pattern of only watching, and not doing any real work. The very best effects will be accomplished with a mix of the two, and if you have the opportunity, interaction with other people in Japanese as well.