At what point should I expect to understand *some* Japanese?

Bunpro
#54

I take issue with this being stated as though it’s simply a fact. I found WaniKani to be wonderfully structured, and really feel as though, less than two years after starting it and Japanese in general, I have an almost uncanny superpower to read kanji and guess (kanji-based) Japanese words, despite still being at a low-medium level in terms of grammar.

I’ve been primarily concerned with reading while learning Japanese, but I’m beginning to realize that not having developed any real listening skills is holding back my reading. So I second this!

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#55

I remember seeing a conversation about how the results were probably faked, while I cant find the original conversation when you put it through fotoforensics it suggests it was probably edited.

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The website believes the pink parts have been edited. While the website is not 100% accurate Ill let you make up your mind on if hes telling the truth, I just wanted to warn that these types of posts are often faked and take it with a grain of salt. :slightly_smiling_face:

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#56

And just to add: Even if you can pass N1 in a year of studying, it’d have to be so highly specialized and targeted that I highly doubt you’d have a well-rounded grasp of the language as a whole, even if you look amazing on paper.

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#57

I definitely call “BS” on that Reddit post. If going from zero Japanese to passing the N1 with a perfect score in 8.5 months isn’t impossible, it’s at least a savant-level accomplishment. If the poster in fact did that they ought to have immediately switched their major from physics to linguistics because they have genius-level aptitude for language.

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#58

Im more suprised that most of the people there dont doubt it and say they just put in the hours and everyone else is jealous

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#59

I think it would be useful for you to practice tolerating ambiguity. I’d say it’s one of the most crucial skills in the language learning.

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#60

I have fully-diagnosed OCD so I know how difficult it’s going to be to take this advice, but… continue the immersion practice and try consciously to be OK with ambiguity.

What I usually do is watch an untranslated show or listen to a podcast such as Japanese with Noriko. Then afterwards I’ll read a summary on the show’s fan-wiki or rewatch the show with English subtitles (Noriko provides transcripts on her site, which is why I recommend her podcast).

Netflix is great for immersion practice when you need closure: a lot of their shows have both Japanese and English subtitles (although there are a few where the Japanese subtitles are region-locked and require a VPN for some weird reason). But I fully realize that the second time I watch is just for my own curiosity; I know I’m not learning. Three radically different shows that I’ve enjoyed practicing with have been Erased, Alice in Borderland, and Stay Tuned.

I’d also recommend watching some shows with Japanese subtitles and other shows with no subtitles. This is something else I fully realize is easier said than done, since I’m also partially deaf. But since Japanese has such a huge amount of homophones, there really is no substitute for just listening until your brain ties specific homophones to specific contexts. When NHK was still accessible without a VPN, one thing I enjoyed doing for practice was typing everything I heard as I was hearing it. I didn’t get even close to everything, but it was interesting to see that I was hearing a lot more than I was consciously understanding.

I’m more than cognizant that this is a big thing to take on, but it’s also made me better at comprehension than I ever was even when I was taking Japanese 303 in my junior year of college!

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#61

Haha. The thing is, I’d like to believe he’s a savant, both because I don’t like cynicism and suspicion as a general rule (“tearing down” is the rule of social media) and because there is an endearing earnestness in the way he writes his report (he wrote multiple status updates over the past year too). Something intangible about it rings true to me, in other words, and he was putting in several 9 hour shifts along the way. I’ve met physics students like this, they’re a charmingly odd bunch. Top “1% of learners” as someone put it, might cover it, if true; and I imagine it might translate to higher-level maths when such a person is not investing so much in his hobbies.

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#62

That wouldn’t be top 1% of learners. That’d be top .01% (or less) of learners. I mean, I get where you’re coming from. And to your point about social media, I have no plans to go create a Reddit account and air my doubts over there. The poster might very well be telling the truth. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s highly improbable.

You can also maintain a healthy level of skepticism (something that would benefit social media, as conspiracy theories seem to spread like wildfire through it) without posting harsh things. If I was a Redditor, I probably wouldn’t have said anything. At most I’d say that person’s results should be completely disregarded by other language learners, as it will be of no benefit. You’ll either be inappropriately encouraged that you can achieve the same (you can’t), or you’ll be immediately discouraged and want to give up (you shouldn’t). Outlier results like that are rarely helpful, which is why you see them discarded from statistical analyses so often.

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#63

I happen to be a math professor (it’s weird that so many topics in this thread are touching on my personal experiences but I promise I’m telling the truth!), but for several personal reasons, I wasn’t a top student.

In my experience on both sides of the lectern, there are two kinds of students: the ones who coast on natural talent and the ones who work for that A. Natural talent always runs out eventually, and it often wrecks students who’ve never had to build coping skills. That’s exactly what happened to me! The only reason I went the distance and got that degree is that I transformed myself from the former student into the latter student.

I know this sounds discouraging, but I think it’s reassuring. There’s no need to be born special. It might take longer, but just about anyone can be that good at Japanese (or math) someday. You just need discipline and willpower!

EDIT: In other words, I don’t think it’s important who the best is or how long it took them. Whether that person’s results were faked changes nothing about what you should do for yourself. If you keep working and growing, you could still surpass them someday. But what’s much more important is that you could find the satisfaction within yourself that you know you’ve acquired a useful skill.

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#64

I also have another, kind of related question. People say “Anime Japanese is like another language” but is it really that different? Sure, it doesn’t sound like how native speaker would speak but are grammar and selection of vocabulary different too? It wouldn’t help at listening at all?

#65

I suspect what people mean when they say that is the language spoken in anime is often overly familiar. That is, characters use plain/casual language when speaking, even to superiors and strangers (depending on the character and the anime). That’s something you would rarely encounter in real life. Instead, you would expect to hear (and expect to use) polite language in many everyday settings, such as at work, when at a store or restaurant, when sightseeing, etc. Depending on your job and whom you interact with, you might also be expected to employ honorific or humble terms (which is one of the reasons it’s covered on the JLPT). In general, you would only use plain/casual language with your family and friends.

That’s my understanding of it, at least. This is all based on what I’ve read online, not firsthand knowledge, by the way.

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#66

My experience is limited, but that sounds right to me. It should be fine for listening/reading practice until you need to get formal with keigo and whatnot. In fact, I’d recommend a healthy diet of informal Japanese immersion practice. One of the biggest pains in the ass about learning Japanese is eye dialect and colloquialisms. It’s extremely useful to build an intuition for how Japanese people abbreviate things when they speak quickly… and practice listening to Japanese people speaking quickly, for that matter.

Until you’re understanding everything you hear, I’d say it’s more important to just spam yourself with whatever native speech/writing you can get your hands on. Just try to focus on picking out individual words and don’t talk that way to anyone who isn’t a good personal friend!

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#67

It will 100% help. I think the running meme/joke (at least, I hope people aren’t serious lmao) is that if you speak solely like they do in anime then you’re going to sound a little childish/super casual/etc. depending on what you’re watching. At the end of the day though, it’s going to help a ton, and it’s going to expose you to a ton of slang.

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#68

I think it depends largely on the anime, as stated before. There are a lot of shows that take place in settings where formal and humble language is the most common register…

I think the most common register in a show is going to fall along genre lines. Certain slice-of-life shows might give you a decently faithful approximation of what everyday conversation in a certain scenario may look like, but if you watch a lot of shounen or fantasy anime, you need to be more scrutinizing in what you “take away” from your learning.

But my motto is, “take it where you can get it.” Literally anywhere. No matter where it comes from.

Practice is practice. I ain’t gonna put on airs; as soon as I could stumble my way through them, I read a lot of hentai doujin manga. It DID end up helping! But of course, I was mindful about where I was sourcing my knowledge from the whole time. :stuck_out_tongue:

And, well, here I am now, that much better for it.
¯\(ツ)/¯

“Take it where you can get it.”

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Immersion month 4: Letting go of subtitles
#69

Another internet lie then, it’s not like I will yell at people like “Baka!”.

That’s nice because I watch Anime, also weird because even after watching tons of Anime, I didn’t learn single thing about Japanese. Of course that was before studying, maybe things will be different now I’m studying. Though I started thinking about “what does that mean” while watching and missing the stuff happening sometimes.

#70

69th post in your own thread nice

Anyway, it takes time. Pseudo-mathematically, it’s
((immersion time) * (exposure volume))

I watched literal hundreds of shows over the span of a few years, plus listened to Japanese vocal music day in and day out, morning to evening, almost all the time when I wasn’t watching anime, before I ever “picked up” anything… granted, that’s back when I wasn’t trying (much, anyway), so you can proooobably get better results sooner if you keep making a conscious effort. :stuck_out_tongue:

But unfortunately, the flipside is that no matter how impatient you are to see results, sometimes you just have to keep going and going and going and going, and it’s an endurance challenge.

I do want to mention, once again, the advice in this thread about re-iterating over the same material several times, though. Watching the same anime over and over can, obviously, get boring, and if stuff like Teppei or other explicit listening exercises aren’t your jam, find some good Japanese vocal music to put on repeat or something. Going over something familiar, but not-yet-understood, across the span of days, weeks, months, can both serve to help you learn the contents, and also be a good benchmark for seeing your own progress, especially on a decently-sized sample set of media.

EDIT: Just wanted to add, after checking the OP, that only being 4 months in… trust me, you have nothing to worry about. Not really getting much of anything is no big deal at this point. Just keep it up!

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#71

I want to thank you all for your detailed responses.

@Silver_Skree @Muere @HotAirGun @Brand_S

Quick questions:

  • How does Pimsleur “work”? What would be a typical day workflow using them?

  • How about Italki? My previous experience with a Tutor wasn’t the best because I felt my case needed a lot of customization (I’m very advanced in Kanji, reading and writing, but I make fundamental basic errors when speaking, hearing, etc.). I’m worried that I would just be wasting money with someone that just wants to recite grammar points instead of actually transforming an experience around me (I know, everything customized means more money)

  • Should I just watch some Netflix shows in Japanese with the understanding that I will NOT get it all, but I should NOT pause to figure out why I dont understand it? (This has been my main blocker with immersion). Is this what you refer to with “tolerate the ambiguity” ?

  • That N1 post in Reddit in less than a year. I’m not sure. I have dedicated 1 to 2 hours DAILY since August 2019 till now, and…I’m so far from N1…

#72

Honestly I would stay clear of Pimsleur. I’ve listened to some content in the past and I feel like it’s not structured properly at all. I view it as what people would take to go and memorize sentences if they want to travel abroad to a country and be able to survive for a bit and order food. Obviously this is purely subjective, but I cannot for the life of me understand the pricepoint it’s at. There’s some content there, but you’re not really understanding how it all works and why it’s being used the way that it is. From there, you’re going to have a tough time branching off from these sentences and creating some yourself. A little hard to explain, but it’s just not for me. Oh I forgot to mention - if this is a route you’d want to take (audio files that help teach you) then I would recommend japanesepod over it. Yeah their pricing is a little weird and their methods a little predatory lmao, but they do it much, much, MUCH better. Maybe this can be something you can look into?

There’s a myriad of youtubers out there who provide way more in-depth explanation of things while giving you varied sentences to actually push you and also don’t take 30 minutes to poorly explain things. Said youtubers tend to ask for the watcher to either translate a sentence shown or, more commonly, will say a sentence in english and then have the watcher translate it. I think this is a much more engaging way to practice listening. To each their own, but nothing I’ve seen, and most non-sponsored reviews seem to not be able to justify the absurd subscription price.

This is interesting to read! I’ve had friends use italki and preply before and they’ve never mentioned anything like this, usually it’s been nothing but positives. Bummer! Usually when you schedule with a tutor you can message them to say what you’re really looking for and a lot of the time they’ll have pre-made ‘lessons’ that are dedicated towards either purely grammar, casual speaking, reading news articles together, etc. Try to find a tutor that has some reviews left and see what people are saying. There’s the whole debate of certified tutors vs. community ones, but that’s a whole 'nother convo. I’d check both preply and italki to get a better feel for things. To answer your last question, there’s no reason why customization would mean more money. What exactly would you want to do with a tutor? Just casual convos?

Ignore that post lmfao. The chance of it being real is so low and even if it was, it’s a pure ego stroke that has no basis in reality. It is beyond absurd and should be treated as such, the things learnjapanese discuss just continues to boggle my mind. O well :slight_smile:

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#73

Thank you!

My tutor was not from Italki, I was mentioning how I felt with the experience, hoping that Italki would be different (with your description, it seem like it is).

In my “perfect world scenario”, a tutor would be able to grasp what I’m good at, what I lack, and be very direct into HOW I should work to improve. I would really like very clear-defined instructions, on a daily basis, with clear expectations. So far all of my progress has been …well, me learning as I go. I would really like some expert structure with defined checkpoints on top of this whole thing…

Yes casual convos could be a start, but I would like an actual improvement plan, with visible results after established dates.

Again, perfect scenario, I know all of this is very hard.