How to get motivated for immersion in advanced japanese?

Japanese
#1

Greetings fellow learners.

I wanted to ask what everyone is using to expose themselves to advanced japanese, and how you can keep yourself motivated to keep doing it. Myself I like to just type in “ニュース” on YouTube and that will get me livestreams of current news sources. But I have to say, world stage news would be one thing but I am not particularly invested in the petty crime sections or the 50 yen increase in donburi prices that infes surface on these news shows as well.

With “advanced” I mean formal settings of japanese riddled with those great 漢語 words that I have seen, read and written everywhere but that blend together in my head when I hear them (しゅうちょう, ちょうしゅう, ちゅうちゅう, etc…). The problem is that these somewhat will never come up unless you are working in japan or have some other setting where people are required to treat you with keigo or the other way around.

As a bonus question if that is too easy to answer. What does everyone use as a checking mechanism to make sure they actually parsed the content correctly, and did not mishear anything? :slight_smile:

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#2

What am I using to expose myself to advanced Japanese? Bunpro reading mode and a sprinkle of cramming listening, which I should do more.

The sentences cover a range of genres from news to fiction and are short enough that you can check comfortably. I would suspect that if you complete all N2/N1 vocab cards and can translate them well to Japanese your proficiency in comprehension will jump up significantly. I certainly feel my reading has been boosted quite a bit since I’ve replaced my previous SRS with full time Bunpro reading. Fun factors may vary, but it’s rewarding.

Apologies if this isn’t quite the answer you’re after, but it’s helping me a lot.

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#3

You’ll get a good feeling for having understood correctly in native content because you’ll feel less confused. It’s hard to “check” against native content without a very analytical process.

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#4

Get a novel you’re interested in and read it. If you get one that you like, you won’t even notice that you’re reading Japanese after awhile.

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#5

A lot of books and manga deal with more complex topics. I’d try looking for specific ones that deals with topics were you want to expand your vocab or grammar on. For example some fantasy settings use a lot of keigo.

If you have a specific thing you want to have, for example “lots of keigo” or “lots of abstract/philosophical words” I would suggest asking in the Seeking recommendations Thread on natively. They are usually pretty spot on and knowledgable. They also have some book recommendation threads and lists for specific dialects and stuff.

#6

I have to say my general gripe with this is that I have not been a book person for most of my time on this earth, and subsequently I have failed for a long time to find a book I “want” to read in japanese just as I struggle to find one in my native language. I pick up books from time to time to find out very quickly that I don’t keep on reading them. Do you have any suggestions? I tried to maybe find harry potter or lord of the rings in japanese, but I’m afraid it’ll end up being the same again.

#7

I like using Migaku with Netflix. My kanji reading skills outpace my listening skills by quite a bit and I have to pause and read to catch what’s being said. I use the Japanese subtitle browser to read the Japanese-only version of the subtitles and hover over words I don’t know. If I can’t grasp the meaning, I read the English.

Some people do games with texthooking, but that takes a lot of setup work and doesn’t work with everything.

#8

Come join me at Immersion Log Let's try something new! - #275 by Noxsora

I know 漢字 and 敬語, this is my first time seeing 漢語
You are a higher level than me so you can do the same stuff as me
漢字: websites, blogs, magazines, フリーペーパー, most video games, change default language on your devices. Manga has furigana all of this stuff doesn’t

敬語: I think of this as ‘customer service voice’ a story something like Grand Maison Tokyo or Shirokuma cafe that’s set in a restaurant will have lots of keigo

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#9

Why are you doing it, if you are not motivated? Is someone making you take a test or something?

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#10

Why even choose news if you don’t find it interesting?

I’d burn out in a day if I had to force myself to listen to news when I never watch/listen to it in the first place

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#11

Currently I’m manipulating myself utilizing my pride and a bit of ego, it’s true. But I do know that I probably constitute a japanophile of some sort, I greatly enjoy interacting with the language on a general level as well as with the natives.

That is to say, I did succeed in transitioning from english scanlations of manga to their actual native content, after a certain period in which that was quite inconvenient. I’m hoping the same is true for advanced japanese, I just haven’t succeeded in getting over the initial hill of annoyance for having to look up stuff all the time.

#12

Thinking of it, even in english I wouldn’t know where to find content that I like just from nothing. Talk shows that I like, Monty Python, some YouTube creators that I keep watching are things I discovered over the years. It’s not unreasonable to believe that the only thing you’re missing is finding that book or that video source that you have grown enough now to enjoy.

#13

I know thos feeling all too well :sweat_smile: When I was a kid, I loved to read everything and no matter the book, I just finished and enjoyed it. When I became older, I grew really picky and finding an actual book I would enjoy became every other year thing :confused:

For whatever reason, this doesn’t apply to manga or light novels. Those are always fun, even if it’s not my preferred genre. So luckily, I’m on easy mode for finding immersion materials.

Would be branching out a possibility for you? If novels aren’t your thing, but you still want high density and high difficulty immersion materials, how about visual novels or other video games? Or have you tried non-fiction (japanese cooking books? history books? tech books?)? You could also use podcasts with written scripts. If all those things fail, maybe passive immersion just isn’t your style and you want to go a more active route, instead of finding stuff to read, you could just write about those things? A language partner maybe?

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#14

Whatever you find interesting in English/your native language should still be interesting in Japanese. And likewise a boring topic won’t be more interesting just because it’s in Japanese.

Also if I find a TV show or manga I find a little boring, I don’t power my way through it, I’d rather drop it, find something new and not feel burned out.

#15

I gotta agree with you on that one. One thing that really sucks is just trying a bunch of small things until one eventually just sticks with you and then it becomes a habit. I feel like when I was younger I could move from thing to thing and power house through so much junk but now as an adult, Im just tired all the time, and enjoy very specific niche things. Which in Japanese, can be very difficult without the vocabulary that comes with it.

So then I gotta struggle and push through with learning specific vocab which can then burn me out when I just wanna casually read about gunpla or some history