Ten Things I Wish I Had Known About 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, as well as in all cases miserable failure was the result. No, they are some pointers as to the way you can better benefit from watching Japanese popular media, adding to your other studying efforts.
You will find mainly two issues that watching anime, movies, TV shows or perhaps theater can assist you with, should you have little to no previous knowledge. You guessed it, listening right? Well that is one. And also the other is vocabulary. You may learn to pick up grammar as well, but that may have to be after you recognize some core sentence structures.
Take notes of all of the recurring words that you do not know. If you see the phrase used repeatedly over 20 minutes, and it's not something restricted to the confines of science fiction or fantasy, jot it down and memorize it. The thing about a language that causes it to be hard 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 anime, or movies, or TV shows, is 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 in any other case, paying attention and not mixing up accents is a great 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 lot of unique expressions and sentence endings, you should be fine. Checking out some countrywide news may be an excellent idea, as they will be more likely to speak within the standardized accent. When you are not interested in hyojungoć¨?ćş?čŞ?, the standardized accent, but say Kansaiben,é?˘čĽżĺź you can do some study by watching anime online 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 might 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 could actually wind up not being understood, or just make an incredibly weird first impression.
Should you have already established some base comprehension of Japanese grammar, you may learn some basic casual speech by studying the form. Or you can identify when particles are now being omitted, then concentrate on another 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 utilized in other situations.
One thing to note is the fact that the topic is usually omitted from Japanese, even in semi-formal writing. But on the flip side, if you omit it too frequently, people are certain to get confused as to what or who you are speaking about, and you have to go back and explain. There is a balance to be found on the contrary, and media really can be a step forward within the right direction.
On the subject of learning value, some genres are superior to others. I would have to state that for the most part, slice of life can be the very best. There are actually two reasons for that. First off, there is simply simply more conversation involved, even if battle heavy fantasy or science fiction 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, because the challenges they face are not murderous robots, or vampires, they can be everyday problems. As well as in the process of coping with them, you learn tons of more relevant vocabulary and conjugations than you need to do through most other genres.
Sometimes you can see that you're able to pick material which is perfectly suited for you. For anybody who is going to work, or already work, in a big Japanese company, stories revolving around salarymen or perhaps the corporate world can help you remember several 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 will only work against you in the long term. If you start slipping in incredibly informal words or conjugations into conversation in an official context, you are bound to give a bad impression.
If you find yourself in a position the place you have to learn a whole lot of Japanese in a short time frame, you can substitute all your normal media consumption with the Japanese equivalent. Find a band you like, pick out some movies to watch, rather than TV watch series relevant to what you 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 there are definitely things you can 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 into the pattern of only watching, and not doing any real work. The top effects will be achieved with a combination of the 2, and if you have the opportunity, interaction with others in Japanese as well.