The tricky thing with Japanese is that casual Japanese basically comes through three means:
1. Breaking grammar rules (mostly by not including things like particles in the sentence)
2. Contracting words by dropping characters out of them (してる vs. している)
3. Using plain form (which, in present-positive, sounds the same as the dictionary form of the verb).
If you do not have some of the basics of Japanese sentence structure down, it is extremely hard to take a casual sentence in Japanese and think about what they are actually saying (and what you should say when using Japanese). If you have the fundamentals down, though, it becomes much easier to understand the casual forms, and you can know "oh, they are dropping the を particle there" (instead of getting into the habit of thinking it's ok in polite Japanese to break that rule).
It can, but definitely don't use it as your sole learning source, and you'll have to pick the right anime or you may develop some weird unnatural speech patterns. I have found Chi's Sweet Home and other anime geared towards young children to be really motivating because I'm starting to understand them more and more as I learn. I've heard from others that shirokuma Cafe is another really good one because it uses really natural, real-world Japanese.
(also majorly sconding what マイコー said about casual Japanese. Most anime seems to be casual form and/or has regional accents that are nigh on impossible for a beginner.)
I Use anime to supplement my learning as "educational break time" because it's why I am learning in the first place. The thing I have really noticed with anime though is in order to get the most benefit from it you have to turn the subtitles off. You won't understand much at all at first, but the subtitles are a huge distraction from actually absorbing the language. You're much better off leave them off as you watch then have a script on a separate screen that you pause and reference when you feel you really need it.
I found a site called Animelon that is really amazing for learning from anime. It allows you to turn off subtitles entirely, show them in English, or in Japanese (both with and without Kanji), and with the Japanese subtitles you can highlight words and it has a built-in dictionary so you can translate it yourself as you go. Their Library isn't huge and lack a lot of major titles, but what they do have is amazingly helpful for learners.
I agree with the previous posts, personally, I find it very hard to understand more than a few disconnected phrases, when watching anime in Japanese. Even subtitles are often too fast and require me to pause the show for each line. But watching them with English subtitles helps in so far that you passively recognize certain sentences retrospectively once you know the English meaning.
anime is a good way of entertaining yourself while simultaneously getting some immersion in! it is definitely not as thorough or fast as reading, or actively participating in something, but that doesn't stop it from being fun! I personally find it helpful for practicing listening. but there is no wrong way to use it, except if its your only source for learning (but that goes for all learning tools!), it all depends on your goals and what motivates you. I know people are concerned about if one might learn to speak rudely, however as long as you can understand other sources of Japanese, you can pick up the polite ways of speaking, too, from them. learning solely from anime would be really hard, anyway, so I wouldn't suggest it. I second Animelon! despite their small library, they have one of the most often recommended anime for learning, Shirokuma Cafe. for one thing, it's really cute. secondly, the voice actors speak slower and supposedly more politely (relative to other anime), and thirdly its pretty grounded other than there being animals running around like people. the puns are also fun ways to remember words. if you're still concerned about anime but want to consume some pop culture, you can always give the manga versions a try- reading is good practice, since you'll be doing it a lot!!
It's not an anime exactly, but I found the show Million Yen Women on Netflix pretty understandable. There's not too much background noise and they don't speak too fast or slangy as opposed to for example Midnight Diner. With subtitles you have a fair chance to understand at least individual conversations within an episode.
Yes it will, you should be listening to native audio/ watch native content regularly. Netflix has a good selection of anime and japanese shows that have japanese subtitles which are helpful
The simple answer is Yes and No; the reason as below:
1. Some anime have profanity language which you might want to avoid.
2. Some anime have incomplete Japanese sentences, which may not help your learning.
3. And as Michael said, grammar contractions and simpifications needs practice to understand.
I would actually recommend *News* reading apps, which are usually good with proper grammar. The only downside would be some vocab are quite specific. But at least you can learn the grammatical structures.
2. Some anime have incomplete Japanese sentences, which may not help your learning.
I would actually recommend *News* reading apps, which are usually good with proper grammar. The only downside would be some vocab are quite specific. But at least you can learn the grammatical structures.
I agree, NHK easy news for example is a great way to train reading and learning new words, especially since explanations for difficult words are in Japanese as well.
Concerning ellipses, I think it's actually important. This is, in my opinion, one of the hardest parts in understanding a new language. And TV shows help to learn the usage in context, where you have a chance to guess the meaning.
Instead of anime you could also watch children's movies. I watched peppa pig, which is amazing to learn basic sentences and verbs and is gramatically correct. It also has a great load of repetition, so that helps to learn new words. I also watch my little pony , which is a lot more thriling than peppa pig, which really helps me a lot. There is also rokoko and another anime with a monkey, but the latter is a little old fashioned, so thougt the Japanese is formal and acurate I find it very hard to understand. I also found that the Japanese in 'the great pretender' on Netflix is much easier than in many other anime series.
One addition I want to make, the most important thing is that you have fun. I found posts of ppl on the internet that looked down on ppl using television, movies or anime as a learning tool at all. (*Wonder what they intend to do with a language they only learned from books and tapes.) It also matters what you want to use it for. If you intend on taking JPLT 1 eventually I'd be a lot more focussed on the grammar and correctness than when your goal is to try and follow an anime on Netflix for fun. That said, fun in learning makes everything easier. So find what you're into and do that. Maybe you have a fav song or show that you've watched a million times that you can translate, poems that you can write whatever. The only real wrong way to do anything is to not do it at all.
I use anime more as 'passive learning' than active learning. So I just keep my ears open and get really excited when I hear words that I recognize. It would be nice if Funimation or Crunchyroll had a option where you can see one or both english and Japanese subtitles, the Japanese subtitles would be clickable so you could click on any word you want. Unfortunately they don't have that so that's why I don't use anime actively in my studies personally.
It would be nice if Funimation or Crunchyroll had a option where you can see one or both english and Japanese subtitles, the Japanese subtitles would be clickable so you could click on any word you want. Unfortunately they don't have that so that's why I don't use anime actively in my studies personally.
Animelon has this option if you don't mind a smaller selection! You can choose Japanese and English subtitles at the same time, and hiragana, katakana and romaji (though the last three aren't as useful, they're still options ^-^)
Formal Japanese no informal Japanese yes. If you plan on holding an actually Japanese conversation IRL it's recommended you master both informal and formal Japanese. It would not be a very good idea to go " What's up brah " at the cashier and " Greetings my beloved biological relatives " at your family
I know people are concerned about if one might learn to speak rudely, however as long as you can understand other sources of Japanese, you can pick up the polite ways of speaking, too, from them. learning solely from anime would be really hard, anyway, so I wouldn't suggest it.
