i’m sure it helps to watch anime without subtitles but i’m just wondering am i missing out because I can’t get japanese subtitles on my anime (crunchyroll) I still get a bit of reading with apps like hello talk but just wondering if there is any other better effective methods that isn’t to prone to burnout. or should I just keep immersing with whatever you can get my hands on. thanks
1 Like
Pretty much. There some ways to get Japanese subs by using a VPN and viewing Netflix Japan if you want as well.
9 Likes
If you want Japanese subtitles, Netflix is what you want.
They have quite a lot of content too!
2 Likes
for me I will always watch with subtitles. For me it is a process with continuous learning.
English is not my native language but I always watch usa tv shows and movies with subtitles to keep learning new words and become a habit for immersion.
Doing the same now with anime and I see some progress to see especially those burned items (and most of them forgotten by me) in dialogues and keep them fresh in memory.
2 Likes
Where is Takagi-San? It’s on there but not on the list…
Yes, it does help! 
It’s best to watch something that’s as close to your level of comprehension as possible (well, slightly above it, really) so if you’re a beginner it will probably be a good idea to start with stuff for little kids. That will help you reinforce simple vocab and grammar and eventually you can move on to higher level content.
Depends on your goals. If your trying to get better at Japanese practice in any of the 4 main skillsets is good. I recommend trying to listen to as much as you can with visual aids like anime. But think about what your real level is and what content you should be watching. I admit I still have to watch 1/3 of Attack on Titan with subs because some terms are just too above my head for me atm. Doraemon and Chibi-Maruko Chan are my favorites for beginners.
I think ended up canceling my netflix bc there selection wasn’t as good as crunchyroll for anime and it was hard to find japanese subs as well so I just ditched it but if I had a vpn then maybe that would solve my problems
thanks a lot of problems I had with netflix as well is they didn’t have all the episodes to a series and not having a vpn sucked even more I think i’ll just keep immersing with what I can get like you said bc i’ve found more success and consistency that way rather than searching for specific material and giving up
1 Like
thanks, my skill level and the content I watch probably doesn’t match but honestly everything seems kinda hard at this point i’m enjoying watching one piece even though I can only understand like 15-20% though and it’s at least something i’ve found out I can watch for hours and not burn out ever since I subbed to crunchyroll immersion has actually been pretty fun I just worry if i’m not getting enough input bc I don’t have access to the japanese subs (I still get some reading time in from other sources)
thanks, my skill lvl and the shows I watch are kinda far off (one piece) like I still understand like 20-30% when im not dozing off but pretty much everything is kinda hard but despite that I can still watch it for hours my main concern was just missing out on the subs that’s hard to come by unless you use animelon, however I still get some reading time in from other sources now
1 Like
Shonen, while aimed at a younger audience, is intended for native speakers. So while you might know the kanji of a 6th grader, that 6th grader knows words and grammar on an instinctual level that you’re probably still in the process of learning. That being said, reading something that is “above your level” once in a while is a good way to gauge your actual progress.
One Piece is a good series for intermediate learners, but if your still getting used to the proper form of certain grammar points its going to be a challenge as a lot of it is abbreviated to sound rough or give certain flair to characters. Thats true for any series though. Stuff aimed at K-2nd grade is probably that happy medium of not relying on slapstick comedy but not dropping a quantum physics course on you.
1 Like
thanks for the comment, I would always have japanese subs on if they were available but I miss out if i’m not using a vpn or going to animelon and there’s just a lot more of a selection on crunchy roll and I was hoping it wasn’t too big of a deal to just listen rather than listen and read
Oh okay. It must be different in Australia then…All new anime that comes to Netflix has Japanese subs, and there looks like a lot of subtitled content there already but I guess that’s my country.
thank for the comment, i’ve checked out animelon they just didn’t have the anime I was looking for and the anime they did have they didn’t have all the episodes but it’s definitely a phenomenal website and i’ll have to look back into it I just wish they made it a app and I could download the shows
I’m convinced that watching content with other than native subtitles works, but that is if you are willing to listen to the language first and then slightly glanze over the subtitles as an afterthought when needed. Also need to be able to read at a fairly fast pace. That is how I learned english, but the caveat is that swedish and english is fairly similar so need to be even more careful. Would prefer native subtitles when I could get my hands on them though.
I came across a thread on Reddit a little while ago for getting Japanese subs on Crunchyroll shows. It relies on browser extensions and you have to do a bit of legwork downloading subtitle files from a site like kitsunekko and then syncing them to the show playing in your browser window.
I got it working pretty well with HoriMiya, but some files seem harder to find than others and some shows it seems like the syncing process is a more finicky than others
3 Likes
One of my favourite VTubers literally said that watching anime with English subtitles helped her learn a lot of new words, including some completely unnecessary ones. 
(Granted, it seems she started learning Japanese at a really young age, so it’s probably more accurate to say she’s bilingual with English as her main language, but that still shows that you can learn stuff just fine with English subtitles.) My personal experience matches hers.
Here’s my approach to using subtitles:
- English subtitles, reading actively – I did this when I was a beginner, and the whole point was to simply catch the most familiar words that appeared in the anime and relate them to what I saw in the subtitles. For example, if I heard ぼく or けど and saw ‘I’ or ‘but’ in the subtitles, I would know I wasn’t having auditory hallucinations, but was actually understanding.
- English subtitles, only checked when necessary – I did this as I became more familiar with anime and Japanese, and wanted to challenge myself to listen without too much help. At present, I generally do this for anime I’m watching for the first time. I only read the subtitles if I can’t understand. Otherwise, I’ll just keep my eyes focused on the action and away from the bottom of the screen.
- No subtitles, Japanese transcription as a backup – I do this when I’m rewatching a series I’m familiar with. The main advantage of removing subtitles is that you have to focus on the audio, and that’s when you notice words that you couldn’t catch before because you were too busy reading. (For example, I caught 包囲（ほうい）in episode… 13 (?) of Season 1 of The Rising of the Shield Hero after turning off subs.) However, it’s not necessary, strictly speaking. It’s something you should – in my opinion – challenge yourself to do only after you feel like you’re understanding a lot with only occasional glances at subtitles, the reason being that if you’re really trying to improve your listening, you’re probably going to do lots of guessing and checking in a dictionary based on what you hear, and that’s very time-consuming. You can reduce the time spent on guessing with a transcription, but if you don’t know enough grammar to identify what you’re stuck on in a sentence, you’re not going to understand it anyway. I don’t mean to be discouraging here; all I’m saying is that if you don’t know what you don’t understand, you won’t be able to google it.
As for where to get transcriptions, I recommend using Anicobin, which is a Japanese reaction blog that collates Twitter reactions to scenes in anime. As much of 95% of the dialogue is transcribed, in my experience, and you have a good chance of finding anime that aired after 2013 on it. I personally google ‘[anime name in Japanese] [episode number]話 あにこびん’ in order to see if an anime has been transcribed. Every set of lines comes with a relevant screenshot, so it’s usually quite easy to find a line and to verify that it’s relevant to the scene your looking at. Animelon also works, I guess, but my understanding is that its legal status is dodgy. On a personal level, legal/ethical issues aside, the reason I prefer to have a transcription open in another tab is simply that I have a clean viewing experience and can capture every detail while training my ears. It’s much more enjoyable to no-sub (possibly with a transcription) than to JP-sub, in my opinion.
Side note: one more thing in favour of reaction blogs like Anicobin: I get to see how Japanese viewers react to the series, and that means I learn their expressions too. Plus, I sometimes understand the context better as a result because see what gets their attention and what they react to, meaning the significance of a scene is clearer to me. You can’t get that from subs, JP or otherwise.
6 Likes
I seen this but unfortunately I don’t have a pc rn to do that I watch all my shows on my ipad and phone:(
thanks, interesting point, i’ll have to look more into it usually i’ll watch with no subs and if feel a really important scene comes on then i’ll put subs on and rewatch it most fluent youtubers I know have strongly sided against using english subs for immersion and after hearing why is why I decided to just turn them off so i’m not even tempted to use them as a crutch
2 Likes