Hello everyone, I would love to get thoughts and opinions on using English or Japanese titles when watching Japanese shows. I’m around an N3 and am decent at listening and filling in the gaps where I don’t understand (even though I know I miss things).
These are my thoughts so far, but I would appreciate others’ experiences and thoughts
-using English subtitles would help me get the full understanding (this is what I’ve always done in the past) but often I rely too much on the English subtitles and don’t really listen
-using no subtitles would make me rely purely on my Japanese listening skills, but I know there would be many important things I would miss
-using Japanese subtitles could help understand more (I’m a visual learner, so I find kanji very useful) and would be good reading and listening practice
-I can’t imagine myself watching episodes twice (once with subtitles, once without, or similar things) as I don’t watch that much TV.
It depends on my mood and why I’m watching the shows.
There have been times where the show is comfortable enough for me to just watch with Japanese subtitles but I will multitask and if I want to double check something I’ll look at the Japanese subtitles.
If there is something with lots of detailed and technological vocabulary or a lot of slang I will use English subtitles. If it’s something that I am watching to enjoy, then I will most likely use English subtitles.
If it’s something that I am interested in, but only slightly (and there are no other options available) I will use Japanese subtitles. I am not at the point that I will purposely choose no subtitles at all unless it’s a TV show without those options.
A good personal example is I was watching タコピの原罪 with Japanese subtitles for the first few episodes. This was because I live in Japan and often new animes etc. will not have English subtitles as soon as they are available. I remember halfway through watching the actual series, suddenly English subtitles were available and I switched immediately so I wouldn’t miss a thing, but I was comfortable continuing with Japanese if I had no other choice. When Chainsaw-man was coming out, I had a similar problem, but I could not figure out any of the Japanese there because it was extremely difficult for me and even with subtitles on there was no way. I had to delay watching it by 3 days after it came out so I would for sure have English subtitles.
I think what I’m getting at is, if you aren’t enjoying it enough to slog through the challenges of watching something in Japanese, and you have other options, English subtitles are fine.
For me, it depends on my mood, why am i watching it in the first place, how complex the words are, and whether its my first time watching it or not.
Most cases, i would stick with english subs. BUT i would listen very closely and see if i can transcribe what theyre saying in my head. I would also try and mimic their speech and intonation. If i cant understand what theyre saying (convo topic is too niche, hard vocab, unidentifiable grammar and speech patters), then i would look down at the EN sub and use that as a reference point. Plus i wanna watch it for entertainment mainly, not for studies
But if its a series i watched a ton of, and i can recall from the top of my head what the scene is, then i watch it with JP subs instead. I know what the contexts are, i know the general direction the show is progressing, i know who the chars are. So i use this oppurtunity to really study and dissect the JP subs, and learn from it.
You haven’t stated what your exact goal is, but your instinct is right. For where you’re at, watching with JP subs will generally be the most beneficial.
EN subs:
Probly highest comprehension (depending on the other person’s interpretation/translation)
No benefit to JP reading
Your brain will read the text, before the actor has even said the line
arguably some minimal benefit to JP listening
Of course you could pointedly not look at the subs (maybe even successfully), but then what’s the point? If you want them as a reference, just toggle them on briefly, if you need
Audio-only:
Highest benefit to audio-only decoding (hearing sounds & turning them into words/meaning)
Lowest level of comprehension
no way to get immediate feedback on whether you actually heard accurately
No benefit to JP reading
If the BG music or SFX are too loud, you’re out of luck
Audio + JP subs:
2nd highest comprehension
immediate feedback on whether you actually heard what you think you heard (ie does it match the subtitles?)
Ability to pair unfamiliar sound combinations to writing you recognize and vice-versa
like you pointed out, both skills will improve
ただし、there is a portion of listening that will only be improved by audio-only, just as their is a portion of reading that will only be improved by text-only. But in the meantime, why not work on both?
Also there’s a 4th combination you didn’t mention: English Audio + JP subs… But it’s basically as bad as JP Audio + EN subs, just in the other direction. And you probably don’t read quickly enough (or maybe you do)
As an experiment, remove the visual portion of this - and try it with a song. See which most effectively improves your understanding of the song (words, sounds, and comprehension). I’m willing to bet it’s listening with JP lyrics.
There really isn’t a best approach and definetly no one size fits all for stuff like that, so rather take all the advice in this thread as ideas instead of gospel, including mine
I do really badly with japanese subtitles. While my reading isn’t bad adding japanese subtitles to anime is the worst option for me. Comprehension and learning is way below using english subtitles or none at all. My brain is to focussed on matching the written word to the spoken word that it doesn’t start on trying to understand the meaning. But even in cases, where it’s easy enough, my brain still prefers the written word and I get almost no listening exercise. Not worth it for me, might change later, when my japanese is way better.
No subtitles at all is a good way for me, as long as the anime is easy enough to get a few full sentences and most of the words in a sentence. I don’t mind too much, if there’s a dialogue that goes over my head. If I think it’s important, I can just watch that part again with subtitles. I noticed I get way more understanding by disabling the subtitles, even ln words that I thought were hard in SRS, but suddenly they click.
English subtitles are mostly used, when I watch something for fun. But even then, it still benefits me greatly if I try. My english reading is quite fast, I can parse the sentence with just a glance and without hearing the words in my mind they get automatically translated to meaning. So I don’t have english to japanese translation in my mind, but meaning to hearing a japanese sentence. This helps me especially well with sentence chunking, word order and grammar. Sentences I wouldn’t have get with just listening suddenly start to make sense, cause I know what they want to say. I just have to make sure to just glance at the subtitles, though. It’s easy enough to slip up and just lose yourself in the subtitles, especially if you’re already very used to watching anime with english subtitles.
For me: watching with english subtitles has absolutely the same effect as rewatching a known anime without subtitles. But that’s probably one of those outliers, so you would have to check for yourself if that works for you. But since you said you’re not a fan of rewatching (same here), this might benefit you, if you’re the type who can just go directly to meaning.
I’m not watching anything yet because I’m barely N5, but I read somewhere the tip to 1. Watching with subtitles in your native language (or another language that you understand), 2. Watching again with Japanese subtitles and then 3. Watching again without subtitles.
I think in your case, with limited time to not re-watch the same episode, watching with JP subtitles is probably best.
However, if you happen to be in the mood to watch something you already watched (not necessarily back to back, I mean like if you wanted to watch the JP version of a movie you watched as a kid or a year ago or something like that), then that would be a good opportunity for subtitle-less watching. I’ve been watching some Disney movies that way, it’s been fun.
What I do is listen without subtitles, and when I don’t catch something I turn on captions to see what I missed, then turn them off and continue listening.
I prefer Japanese subtitles over English ones for studying. English subtitles sometimes force me out of my “listening to Japanese” train of thought because of the differing sentence order. A long sentence will sometimes be split in two subtitles, but the order that the information is conveyed in will be switched between Japanese and English. Sometimes the English subtitles distract me more because I will start off listening for the Japanese, get a moment of panic and “I didn’t get everything”, try to read the English, but then I miss some stuff. So I’m not very good at reading English and also listening to the Japanese. For language improvement, I will choose Japanese subtitles every time. I could imagine it will be quite exhausting at N3, but good practice for sure.
I do all 3. My partner and I watch anime together and we’ve got six we are watching weekly: 4 with Eng subs, 1 with JP subs, and 1 with no subs. We decided that based on what shows were coming out this season and how high our current JP level is as some shows are easier than others. I feel like all methods are helpful in different ways as people have described above me.
