Learn From These Mistakes Before You Think About Watching Anime
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, and in all cases miserable failure was the result. No, these are some pointers as to how you can better take advantage of watching Japanese popular media, adding to your other studying efforts.
You will discover mainly two issues that watching anime, movies, TV shows or even theater shall help one with, should you have little to no previous knowledge. You guessed it, listening right? Well that is one. And the other is vocabulary. You may learn to pick up grammar as well, but that will have to be after you recognize some core sentence structures.
Take notes of all the recurring words that you do not know. If you see the phrase used repeatedly over 20 minutes, and it's not something limited by the confines of sci-fi or fantasy, jot it down and memorize it. The thing about a language that can make it challenging to learn from just textbooks and old audio CDs, is that languages do not stay the exact 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 thai anime subtitles, or movies, or TV shows, is the fact that there can sometimes be a great deal 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 an excellent idea. Identify where the different characters are from, in anime this is often not possible, but usually if you steer clear of the characters using a lot of unique expressions and sentence endings, you should be fine. Checking out some countrywide news could possibly be a wise idea, as they will be more prone to speak within the standardized accent. If you are 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 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 also the vocabulary is archaic. If you try to be polite by following suit, you might actually end 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 may identify when particles are being omitted, then concentrate on the other parts of the sentence. When you proceed, you realize some parts of Japanese grammar can be learned almost as vocabulary, you learn the specific context by which to use it, and after that you simply expand as you see it employed in other situations.
One thing to note is the fact that the subject is usually omitted from Japanese, even in semi-formal writing. But on the other hand, if you omit it too often, people could possibly get confused as to what or who you are discussing, and also you have to go back and explain. There is a balance to be found however, and media can actually be a step forward in the right direction.
When it comes to learning value, some genres are superior to others. I might have to say that for the most part, slice of life can be the best. There are actually two reasons for that. First off, there is simply 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, since the challenges they face are not murderous robots, or vampires, they're everyday problems. And in the process of handling them, you learn tons of more relevant vocabulary and conjugations than you need to do through most other genres.
Sometimes you can discover that you are able to pick material that is perfectly suited for you. When you are going to work, or already work, in a big Japanese company, stories revolving around salarymen or the corporate world will let you remember some of the lingo.
Try and only absorb things relevant to your age group. While knowing the terms secondary school students use might seem a way to remain hip, it shall only work against you in the long term. If you start slipping in incredibly informal words or conjugations into conversation in a proper context, you're bound to give a bad impression.
If you end up in a position in which you have to learn a great deal of Japanese in a short time frame, you can substitute all of your normal media consumption with the Japanese equivalent. Locate a band you like, pick out some movies to watch, rather than TV watch series relevant to what you may need the Japanese for. This 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 may do to benefit more from simply consuming popular media, don't treat it as a complete substitute to actual studying. If you find yourself lacking motivation, do not let yourself fall in to the pattern of only watching, and not doing any real work. The most effective effects will be achieved with a variety of the 2, and should you have the opportunity, interaction with other people in Japanese as well.