For some reason I’m like the opposite of this… there’s something about studying Japanese that I really enjoy. I think that’s why I’ve been able to stick to it so consistently. I enjoy studying grammar, I enjoy studying kanji etc. I still don’t love pitch accent though but it’s coming.
Also this, at this point my “studying” is all done with native material that I’m actually interested in. This would’ve all been a much less enjoyable experience if I still studied with JLPT word lists and textbooks (personally).
Yeah I disagree with this as well. I find boredom insurmountable, even for an awesome end result. Which is admittedly inconvenient, because things that entertain you as an adult are much more difficult to understand.
Lately I’ve been asking bilingual people at work how they learned English, and universally the answer has been “It was hard at first, but I watched a lot of cartoons.”
The inconvient part is, if you’re not 10 years old, cartoons with comprehensible input for newbies are usually incredibly boring.
But, I would stop studying if I had to just listen to textbook material and children’s cartoon. And listening to harder stuff keeps me going out of interest. So. Yeah.
I learned English in the same way. I was forced to play the video games I liked in English cause Swedish versions did not exist. I had to watch Anime with English subs cause Swedish ones were not available. We rarely dub films so I constantly heard English etc.
I do the same with Japanese now so that I’m telling my brain “hey you need to understand this, this is all you get”
I mean studying in general. I’m pretty sure most of us are here because we want to learn Japanese. Maybe a few are here because they have to in order to get a job or something but that is less common.
For example I don’t care too much for math but I have to pass calculus, actually I need an A to up my GPA so I spending the time to study and prepare for tests.
That is more because the motivation I have for the end goal. I don’t have much interest in algebra or calculus but the motivation matters.
Many us like Japanese but in general we will face something in our life we don’t want to study/learn or care about but still need to learn it because it’s a part of the bigger picture.
So motivation is the important part and using a resource or method that interests you and prevents you from being bored definitely will benefit motivation
I don’t mind studying from a textbook, because I feel I get more in depth explanations of grammar points and things like that. The anime I watch I can understand very little. I did watch Grave of the Fireflies last night, and I picked up on a lot more than I thought I would.
Don’t dissagre with you, need to pick the resources correct for you.
Though being easy doesn’t mean boring.
Some the Japanese dramas are kinda silly and funny but seem to have basic level everyday speech.
The one I was watching, something housekeeper I’ll have look up the name, has such bad acting i laughed a few times but still had a decent story.
They oddly speak slow and say common stuff like いってらっしゃい and おかえり but in general seem to be saying stuff you would actually hear people say in japan on the street at least.
Everyone learns different though so best to try everything and see what works best
This is good advice. The audio with these readers is fairly simple, but listening is a good bit harder than reading. Repetition is your friend here. Read while listening is good advice, but read and listen separately a lot too. Listen and shadow. Repeat.
In spite of the fact that they are called readers, the real value of these readers is that they come with audio tracks. They have been criticized for their relatively high price, but considering the audio, I think they are priced fairly. The level of listening is very similar to what you will hear on the lower level JLPT exams.
I just discovered this site the other night, and I was amazed at how many ideas I could pick up on in some of he reports. I think this is a great way to practice listening.
I like NHK News Easy as well for both the practice and straightforward news reporting (at least for ‘Easy’ IMO…can’t comment in general). The WaniKani Stats page gives the approx reading ability percentage based on level.
I’m a speech pathologist so I’ve started applying a therapy technique called minimal pairs to help me with pitch. Basically just find homophones that differ only in pitch, an example would be rain vs lollies. Learn to say and hear the difference with word alone, then maybe try working up to using it in sentences. Also if I’m learning any new Japanese words through random conversations with friends I’ll always ask my Japanese native speaking friend to say it as soon as I learn it, so that it might be easier to recall the correct tone down the track.
