Recommendations for early immersion sources?

Japanese
#1

I’ve been studying Japanese for around 2.5 months now. Granted, I’m still at the very beginning of my journey and sadly my grammar is seriously outpacing my vocabulary. I realize that target-language immersion is probably the most powerful tool to build an actual comprehension and no amount of grinding vocabulary on any app will be a substitute for it. But here’s the issue: whatever I can even remotely understand is just boring.

This is both a review of what I’ve tried so far in case someone needs suggestions, and me hoping that there’s things I haven’t considered yet that might work better.

Comprehensible Japanese input is probably the most understandable platform. However, I struggle to remain engaged because the content is fairly bland. This is not criticism towards CJI - there’s no way around it. If you target someone who knows 5 words, you can’t have deep and meaningful monologues about life topics in your videos. They are doing a great job, and it’s a me-issue, not a them-issue. It’s exactly what it needs to do, largerly comprehensible with enough secondary context (made up term, don’t know how else to describe it) to fill in the blanks of whatever I’m not getting. But I can’t do this for more than 15-20 min.

Simple / slice of life anime sort of works. There’s even the occasional sentence I manage to parse if it’s short / simple enough. Sadly the availability of Japanese subtitle files online is relatively limited. But for now, this is probably my main source of immersion. But it’s probably out of my league and I’m not sure if I’m doing this properly. I have to pause almost every scene, look up some words, occasionally look up grammar patterns and if all else fails ask ChatGPT stuff like “what’s the し doing here in this sentence exactly?”

The most enjoyable thing for me right now is the InterviewingJapan youtube Channel, I got the Patreon to get access to their JP sub versions. Same issue as the animes, a 10 minute video takes me 1+h to comprehend at my current level. It’s super enjoyable, but I’m not sure if this is the most effective use of my time at my current level.

Satori Reader is the next thing, it’s somewhat enjoyable, it’s somewhat comprehensible, probably the best for me right now. The sentences feel artificial at times compared to anime and interviews but it’s probably the smoothest experience that feels like the biggest ROI on time investment.

Twitter / X is a fun one, too. I created an account dedicated to following Japanese posters. I learned a lot of slang and there are a lot of simple messages. Nothing to add here. Really enjoying this one. Besides, Japanese social media is pretty wild, the entertainment factor is huge.

Any more suggestions on something that could be more appropriate to my level (or lack of level, lol)?

4 Likes
#2

I highly recommend natively, the rating system is very helpful to find native content you like. I would suggest starting with manga first, you can read as slow as you want and get. lot of context clues from the pics :slight_smile:

Curate a few lists of stuff you like on there, and then follow the bookwalker links for free previews to see how much you can already understand before you buy anything.

My fav beginner manga was Gal to Dino | L16, but there is no bookclub for it as far as I know. So starting with a manga that has a bookclub like chis sweet home or yotsuba might be more helpful.

If you notice that even beginner manga is still too much to handle, I recommend the tadoku readers, they have very beginner friendly ones with really not much text.

Some people recommend Crystal Hunter, the first one is free, so you could take a look, but personally I disliked it.

Don’t feel discouraged to just watch japanese anime with subtitles in your native language, try to catch words or grammar structures you already know and watch yourself understanding more and more as time goes by :slight_smile:

Hope you’ll find some good starter content for yourself. :slight_smile:

5 Likes
#3

Thank you, I appreciate the recommendations and I will look into them today. Especially the manga actually looks fun!

One thing though:

Pretty much every immersion-related guide / video / tutorial I’ve seen, discouraged me from considering this to be immersion. I do this a lot, as I still mainly consume anime with subtitles in English (or in my native language in the rare cases they’re available) as my source of entertainment. I do try to focus on what they’re actually saying. But I was told that for the purpose of immersion, watching with subtitles in a known language is not very useful. I’m actually happy you’re saying this because without knowing it any better, I felt like those little wins where I understood half a sentence in Japanese while reading the subtitles felt pretty good and they’re accumulating, slowly. But it’s surprising, because the average youtube-language-learner tells me not to. Not saying they have authority, but this appears to be an input that goes against the usual recommendations.

That said, I think you’re right. It feels useful.

1 Like
#4

When I first started immersion I remember it was painful. I started with the OG pokemon anime and for the first maybe 15-20 episodes it was very difficult for me to actually get through a whole episode. But then around episode 20 something just clicked and it became much easier. I still barely understood anything, but it wasn’t agony. Now I’m 500 episodes in and can easily understand everything. It became a nightly habit, and now NOTHING puts me to sleep like an episode of pokemon lol

My recommendation is don’t pause the anime and make sure you know every single word. Maybe every now and again pause it if you hear a word you’re curious about or if it keeps popping up, but pausing at every single word sounds exhausting and not sustainable. In general you need to prioritize studying in a way thats sustainable for you in the long term. If the way someone studies is super intense and tedious, 9 times out of 10 people will burn out and give up.

My advice: view immersion as something completely separate from studying. Make it fun, don’t stress about it, and don’t count it as study time.

6 Likes
#5

People who discourage you from using subtitles in your own language usually focus more on efficiency, cause with subtitles you only get small wins. But it’s highly motivating and fun in my opinion :slight_smile: Some folks focus on efficiency and speed, but others focus on fun :slight_smile:

My opinion: the more you enjoy the process, the longer your motivation stays high. And in the beginnging, with just a few words and grammar, you wouldn’t understand anything while watching anime, that sucks the fun out pretty quickly.

For what it’s worth, I had enough success this way so far. I can already read easy manga without lookups now and I’ve started watching anime without subtitles recently. I never cared about speed or efficiency and focussed mostly on fun and content I enjoy. I’ve finished the N5 content here on bunpro and am currently a third through the N4 content. Early immersion is great! You just have to make sure you enjoy it, otherwise it’s a chore and we tend to skip chores in the long run.

4 Likes
#6

I personally like Netflix over VPN (JP server) with Language Reactor Chrome plugin. You should be able to find some type of JP content there that suits you. I would recommend watching shows with more natural speech. You can use Language Reactor with YouTube too for videos with Japanese or auto-generated Japanese subtitles. A lot of Japanese YT content don’t have JP subtitles though since they tend to embed JP subtitles in the video itself. Auto generated JP subtitles are spotty at best so not great for learning because the sub is often incorrect.

From language reactor, it will pause when you hover over a word in the subtitles so you can see the built in dictionary def. You can also mark vocab as learned or learning. You can also adjust settings for display of furigana. You can also export learning vocab to Anki. Good luck on your journey!

2 Likes
#7

I can highly recommend Japanese with Shun vlogs on YouTube or podcasts on YouTube/Spotify. I have started watching him after passing the N5 exam, and it’s been great both in the difficulty level and being interesting. I started watching his vlogs from the oldest ones, and they are all travel/lifestyle related; he is showing his daily life while living in various countries.

Still, like I mentioned, I started watching him after passing N5, so that’s probably around 1k vocab in, and in the beginning, I had to mine lots of new vocabulary while watching. And I still mine new vocab every single episode, but since he covers the topics that I find interesting, I don’t see this as a problem. The majority of his content is N5-N4, with some episodes being more N4-N2, but it is marked in the video name.

4 Likes
#8

I started using Migaku recently and I love love love it. That being said, I built myself to a point of about 70-80% comprehension prior to even getting it.

At your point, I feel like immersion should be utilized just to pick up the rhythm and pitch of the language. I don’t think meaning should be important at this stage in your learning journey. Just enjoy the content (with or without subtitles) and keep grinding the studying!

1 Like
#9

I’ve also found Japanese with Shun’s beginner podcast episodes to be a great listen, not boring yet easy to follow :slight_smile:

And not immersion per se but I can really recommend shadowing as a means to both improve your listening comprehension and learn/solidify grammar points and vocab, I’m currently going through the Japanese with Kanako N5 playlist which is great

頑張って！

2 Likes
#10

thank you everyone for the recommendations, that’s a lot of new possibilities to look into! :partying_face: they all look super promising

1 Like
#11

Heads up, anki export

  1. Needs data cleaning.
  2. is a premium future.

I mined 73 cards before the 1 month free trail was up.

#12

I recomend trying a different type than “slice of life”
I think “what is fun to watch if I don’t understand”

For me:
Cooking, fantasy, and cute.
I don’t pause for look ups.

#13

Bluey on Disney plus has Japanese audio but it’s mostly listening only. But it’s good listening practice

#14

TV.