I’ve gotten weirdly in to watching “Learn English” videos in Japanese. I am a native English speaker. It started because the I know English already so the subject matter was easy to understand, and despite purporting to teach you English, these videos are 90% in Japanese. Now I’ve gotten to the point where these videos are really easy to understand, but I still find myself watching either because the hosts are really funny (shout out to Kevin’s English Room) or because I like linguistics and foreign language pedagogy and think it’s interesting to see how they approach teaching different concepts
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I think I’m going to copy you on this and see where it gets me 
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Please, by all means! Let me know how it goes for you ^^
Love your pfp btw haha
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Thank you! It’s by tj3star over on Instagram and it’s based off of when Dio and Giorno use team special in Eyes of Heaven 
Are you a JoJo fan?
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oh that’s heaps cool! some of the team specials in that game are crazy awesome, love seeing that represented in fanart and such!
i am quite, yes! i’ve been reading the manga (in English, not quite that far along in Japanese yet sadly haha), watched the anime a couple years back and just fell in love with the franchise ^^
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Right? I might need to ask about commissioning a Dio/DIO one two, that one’s baller.
Ayyy, noice! Well whether or not you read it in Japanese or English, you’re welcome to hang out in the thread! https://community.wanikani.com/t/berrys-bizarre-thread-a-thread-for-ジョジョの奇妙な冒険-appreciation/50110 I need to update upcoming events and merch sometime. There’s also the book club for Part 1 if you decide to read in Japanese. I keep forgetting to check in on it but I’m up to vol 3 now and I’ve been sharing my thoughts on the read every day challenge.
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My sister has never studied Japanese and she doesn’t know how to read it. But she’s watched a ton of anime growing up. The other day, I was playing Duolingo’s Japanese stories on speakers and she realized she could understand it. So we ended up going through all the stories to see how much she can translate, which turned out to be almost all of it. She also told me she had visited a Japanese-speaking church once and was able to comprehend the gist of what they were saying o_o
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reading YouTube comments
I wanted to know was everyone was wwwww-ing about
(definitely only do this on lighthearted entertainment videos, because outside of Hikakin, Fishers, Orutana, and the like, the comment section can be just as much of a dangerous place as it is in English
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In hindsight, this probably isn’t weird, but it’s crazy effective. I am an OBSESSIVE anime watcher, I watch the same episode (with English subs when I wasn’t as fluent yet) at least 5 times if I like it that much (I blame the bishounen), so not only do I memorize what’s happening, I can pick out almost the entire sentence (grammar, vocab, pronunciation and all) without having learned those vocab yet. I was just really obsessed, it wasn’t even intentional, and I guess I’m sensitive to context clues as well. Thanks to all that, learning most grammar and vocab were a breeze until N3.
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I don’t think it’s weird I think its pretty common for Anime fans but watching and reading Naruto (and the sequel) as a child really helps me with learning Japanese now.
I watched the dubbed version as a child on tv and learned english through reading the manga online. Then I started watching subbed anime episodes online which got me into wanting to learn Japanese in the first place.
As a child I looked up all the meanings of the names of people, places, ninjutsu and sometimes phrases. I learned how to count thanks to the bijuu. I never really learned most of the kanji so now I am connecting everything.
I forgot most of it over time but when I really started learning japanese I reencountered most of the things I learned as a child and it always helps me. I look at something like 油 and immediately think of 油女 (Aburame, a clan name) and I know it means oil and it’s reading. Or I learned 道 in WK and thought of 六道仙人 (Rikudō Sennin, Sage of Six Paths), so I knew meaning and reading based on that. 転 is revolve? … ah yeah makes sense if 転生眼 (tenseigan) literally means reincarnation eye. Another reading of 力 is りき? … oh wait Jinchūriki (人柱力) means power of human sacrifice is it the same kanji? etc.
So in many cases I see something new in WK (or somewhere else) and can immediately connect it to something from Naruto.
I’ve never realized just how much Japanese I already knew just from liking Naruto as a child. It’s really mind blowing sometimes when I think about it.
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Sure! There are lots of talented creators, but I tend to watch videos that have more talking than just sounds, especially if I’m approaching it from a learning perspective.
Calm Asmr is a pretty well-established creator. He makes a wide range of videos, but I enjoy the ones that focus on story. His ideas are so creative! I’ve noticed there are Japanese and English subtitles available for certain videos. He uses a lot of technical vocabulary.
Hatomugi Asmr is another big name in the Japanese ASMR community. She’s got millions of views on some of her videos. She focuses a lot on sound triggers, but she’s also got a playlist with 89 videos with JP subtitles! Recently she started a joint podcast project with another ASMRtist, but I haven’t checked it out yet.
HiromiVoice I stumbled over one of her videos a couple of days ago, but I was impressed with the sheer amount of videos she’s uploading. All her video titles are in both English and Japanese. They’re also subtitled sometimes. I thought the description of her channel was really sweet and explains why ASMR can be important to people:
When I had insomnia, the thing that relieved me the most was a human voice.
From that experience, I started YouTube with the hope of helping others get a good night’s sleep.
Here, I mainly provide readings, chats, and planetarium-style videos.
There are tons more out there (with a lot of niche videos, lol) but I think this is a nice place to start!
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I found that with a baby you don’t get much free time but you get much of ‘brain free’ time if that makes sense. When you spend an hour getting your child asleep, you can’t, say, read a book but you can build a story in your head. Most of the stories on my website have been crafted in my head whilst getting my child asleep (don’t tell her !).
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Great! Thank you!
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Just had a look at one of her videos which was quite random - she’s role playing doing a cranial nerve examination on a patient (eye movements etc). I can see it might be quite a useful tool for learning Japanese. But it was a terrible cranial nerve exam…
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Hehe, I wouldn’t trust any of these people with my real health issues, no 
I’ve never had a cranial nerve exam in real life, but I suspect it’s a bit more involved than following a bright light with my eyes for 10 minutes… ASMR is so widespread now that I wouldn’t be surprised if you could find videos made by actual medical professionals! I’m sure some of them are shaking their heads at these videos, haha.
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I know I already posted here but I forgot a very important weird thing: fake conversations.
So I’m sure I’m not alone in the fact that I have very detailed imaginary conversations in my head.
So what I’ve done is have those fake conversations in Japanese. I’ll imagine I’m explaining something or having a debate about something, just in a stream-of-consciousness kinda vibe. And then during my fake-convo, I spot the gaps in my vocabulary and pause to look those up in a dictionary before continuing.
It’s helpful because you can do it anywhere, anytime, and it makes accidental-zoning-out sessions semi-productive!
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Cooking recipes that are written in Japanese. Sometimes it’s difficult to gather all the ingredients 
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Oh, that’s a good idea! I often talk to myself like that, but not in Japanese, unless I’m specifically practicing at the moment. Otherwise, there’ll just be a few words or phrases at most, and often not even that. I’ll have to try talking to myself in Japanese from now on.
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That happened to me too! I guess everything gets all jumbled around after a while, and some things just need time to untangle.
I listen to Disney songs in Japanese. Since I already know what the English words are and what the song is trying to convey, I can see & hear how they express that thought in Japanese. Also, Disney songs aren’t cryptic like native Japanese songs lol. Eventually I’ll memorize phrases, and one day that phrase just randomly makes sense. I sing it out loud and the grammar just hits me. I’ve learned lots of conversational Japanese this way.
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