What's your immersion?

i didn’t know you could set your language to japanese, do you have to use a vpn or no? I’m very lazy and don’t care for installing a vpn tbh

You can’t change your region, obviously, but you do get some more Japanese options if you set the language in your profile settings to Japanese. This can be different per profile, so my mum’s profile, for example, is still set to Dutch for her.

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For me it’s mostly music and Visual Novel games. Actually Japanese music makes up probably up to 90% of what I’m listening to now.
When it comes to VNs, reading them in Japanese has become strangely… how to say… addictive? Even though my reading pace is much slower than in English, whenever I read a translated one it now feels kind of weird :wink: And although there are some translated titles in my backlog, I happen to keep postponing them in favor of untranslated ones.

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Once you start to read Japanese at any level, you realize how much that translations don’t capture, or capture in a way that is slightly off. This is one of the motivations to keep going!

@Ncastaneda You have really put some thought into how to use Japanese films to further your study. I still remember reading your post a couple of years ago when you stopped SRSing. It struck me then as the work of a person who has really put some thought into their “meta-learning.” Which is really why I started this thread to begin with, so people could see how other people successfully take charge of their time and activities so that they deepen their understanding of the language. Thanks for your input here!

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Yes, that’s true. And currently when reading translation I also become somewhat slow, because for unvoiced lines (like narration or protagonists’ speech) I just keep thinking “I wonder what the original text could have been?” :wink: That’s why I prefer dual language releases for translated titles :slight_smile:

And when reading untranslated one, I often catch myself thinking - "That line would be absolute nightmare to translate and make it sound good :open_mouth: ". And the more I learn Japanese, the more I respect translators’ work, and I become more understanding and less complaining about certain translation choices.

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I’ve set my phone, computer and any other electronics default language to japanese when I first started. I feel like it’s actually helped a lot as I figured out 今 meaning before getting to it on WaniKani. I’ve eased up on it a lot but for the first month I tried to do everything in japanese. Only allowing myself to listen to japanese music or podcasts and even trying to google things in japanese.

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Speaking with my Japanese junior high school kids outside of class and in non-English classes. It’s really fun to get to know them and have them teach me proper grammar, new kanji and kanji stroke order if I’ve forgotten

On a less wholesome note, also going to bars out here and challenging myself to speak to any interesting looking stranger :’)

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The more grammar, vocabulary, and kanji you learn, the more you’ll understand. So keep listening. You’ll notice all kinds of improvement.

I watch TV Japan, and every time I learn a new grammar point, I’ll hear it on TV within a day or two. It’s very motivating! Also TV Japan has Japanese subtitles on most of their programs, so that gives me reading practice, too.

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Japanese Motorsports fan here!

Sadly I’m not good enough yet to follow Super-GT or Best Motoring :cry:

One day I hope to understand the ドリフトきんぐ without English translations

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Cooking! I love to cook Japanese food, and their are (obviously) a lot more recipes available in Japanese than in English.

Figure skating! For very similar reasons to OP’s post about sumo.

YouTube videos. Most recently, Seina and Noah from Terrace House just started a YouTube channel that I’ve been loving lately. Lots of natural Japanese, and they post a lot of the spoken dialogue on the screen like a variety show would.

Fashion! Love reading fashion magazines or shopping Japanese sites.

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I met him once!

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New Japan Pro Wrestling. I’m not far enough to understand the commentary or storylines, but it’s fantastic wrestling.

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I love sumo, as well, for many of the reasons you mentioned. Prior to this current basho, I was watching it via NHK World, which is on over-the-air TV here in San Francisco. However, the beginning days of the basho was not on NHK for some reason (my TiVO DVR automatically records it every six weeks). So, I opened the YouTube app on the SmartTv and found out it was being broadcast in Japanese and the guy doing it had way better graphics laid over the top of the video to instruct me on previous ranks of each rikishi, previous matches, weight, height, etc. Still, a lot of English verbiage , but the audio is 100% Japanese. This is a step up over the NHK World broadcast, which is in English. Love watching little Enho get his occasional win (doesn’t look like he’ll get his kachi koshi this tournament).

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It was nice to see you today! How did you find the lesson?

Btw

Your name is Marie, right? I thought it was cute that they called you まりえ instead!

Yes, please delete now!

My immersion is my family.
I married a Japanese woman who already had two kids.

So, much of our home life is mainly Japanese. And that would be home, casual Japanese.

Sometimes I watch TV with them, but I find it easier to follow Doraemon and Chibi Maruko Chan on Netflix.

For comprehensible input, I use the Japanese for Busy People and Genki audio files.

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What’s the channel name for that? Care to throw up a link?

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The content on YouTube already deleted, unfortunately. The YouTuber prefaces each day with a “Dear NHK, I promise to delete these video upon completion of the last day the tournament. Thank you for your leniency.” I watch Day 15 about 20 hours after it happened. I just searched for the same content, but looks like the channel made good on her/his promise to NHK and deleted everything. It’s well done, though, and easy to search up when the tournament is actually happening. Check it out in November.

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Anyone else playing Genshin Impact with Japanese subs?

Pretty sure I’m being very inefficient because of it, but it’s enjoyable, I think.

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Hey, weird way to ask maybe, but I can’tthink of any other way I might do this.

To Mark [last name omitted] (maybe @RoseEater?) , who sent an email about the calligraphy lessons to my teacher!

A message from her: she sent two emails in reply to your message on 19 September. Maybe they got into your spam folder, but please check, and get back to her!

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