What Everyone Must Know 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, as well as in all cases miserable failure was the result. No, these are some pointers as to the way you can better take advantage of watching Japanese popular media, adding to your other studying efforts.
You will find mainly two issues which watching anime, movies, TV shows and even theater will let you with, should 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 also, but that will 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 word 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 causes it to be challenging to learn from just textbooks and old audio CDs, is that languages do not stay the same. They change with time, and sometimes keeping up to date with popular media, will be 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 somewhere with a relatively neutral accent, you should be fine. But if not, paying attention and not mixing up accents is a wise 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 whole lot of unique expressions and sentence endings, you should be fine. Checking out some countrywide news may very well be a great idea, since they tend to be more likely to speak in the standardized accent. For anybody who is not enthusiastic about hyojungoć¨?ćş?čŞ?, the standardized accent, but say Kansaiben,é?˘čĽżĺź you can 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 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 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.
Should you have already established some base knowledge of Japanese grammar, you may learn some basic casual speech by studying the form. Or you can identify when particles are going to be omitted, then focus 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 through which to use it, and then you simply expand when you see it used in other situations.
One thing to note is the fact that the topic is often omitted from Japanese, even in semi-formal writing. But at the same time, if you omit it too frequently, people can get confused as to what or who you are speaking about, and also you have to go back and explain. There is a balance to be found on the other hand, and media really can be a step forward within the right direction.
When it comes to learning value, some genres are superior to others. I might have to state that for the most part, slice of life can be the best. There are two reasons for that. To start with, there is simply simply more conversation involved, even when 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, because the challenges they face are not murderous robots, or vampires, they are everyday problems. And in the process of dealing with them, you learn tons of more relevant vocabulary and conjugations than you do through most other genres.
Sometimes you may discover that you're able to pick material that 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 age group. While understanding the terms secondary school students use might seem a way to remain hip, it's going to only work against you in the long run. 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 discover yourself in a position in which you have to learn a great deal of Japanese in a short time period, you may substitute all your normal media consumption with the Japanese equivalent. Find a band you like, pick out some movies to watch, in place of TV watch anime 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 will discover 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 into the pattern of only watching, and not doing any real work. The very best effects will be achieved with a combination of the 2, and should you have the opportunity, interaction with other people in Japanese as well.
