What is the one useful study/learning technique you use that you're pretty sure most learners don't use?

As someone who pretty much only listens to Japanese music nowadays, I should really try this technique out on at least one song. What a great idea!

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Shary, I hope you managed to find a balance for time management! There are people out there that are more than willing to correct your sentences, both typed and how it’s written. It’s a matter of finding them. If all else fails, a teacher online will do it. iTalki has some very inexpensive tutors that would work. 頑張れましょう!

I would say it’s rather beneficial to practice talking to yourself. I also talk to my pet in Japanese.

For phrases I have a hard time remembering, I will just imagine a scenario and talk to myself using that scenario. For difficult grammar points, I will practice saying things out loud until it becomes less of a struggle.

When on a long commute, look at the cars and trucks and practice describing them or counting them.

And of course, practice these with a native speaker or at least find examples of native speakers saying what you’re saying/trying to say to make sure it’s matching up normal Japanese. You don’t want to be practicing incorrect grammar or something that doesn’t make sense.

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For listening practice, I really enjoy Japanese news based in English speaking countries. When I tried listening to Japanese news I often got caught up in the names of companies or places that I wasn’t familiar with, and of course these won’t be in the dictionary.

I’ve been using SBS news which is Australian news for a Japanese audience. Suddenly I can identify which are companies, places and people and I get a lot more out of the rest of the Japanese in the news articles.

I still listen to NHK and the like, but the more resources the better.

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maybe try using a good translater for this such as deepL

Using Japanese subtitles to watch videos that are not in Japanese

If you use Netflix, pretty much all (or it might be all) the shows with the Netflix logo on it will have Japanese subtitles. Pick a show in a language you know or even a language you don’t know. I watched a few episodes of a Thai show and being able to use Japanese to “understand” a language you don’t know can be real confidence booster.

If you don’t use Netflix, Youtube has a ton of options. Any non-Japanese video that has a majority Japanese audience will have good subs.

Example:

If you’re someone that enjoys vtubers, you can binge clips and practice Japanese at the same time.

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Was doing this recently actually. With my Japanese family they wanted to watch American shows, but left the Japanese subs on and half of the characters spoke in Mexican Spanish which I don’t really understand so I had to read the Japanese subs to clarify what they were saying. Was a very good exercise.

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Vouching for this one. Whack a little 切り抜き and (日本語)字幕 into your YouTube search. You may have trouble when you hit the smaller companies or indie VTubers, but for Nijisanji, Hololive and Holostars, you’re likely gonna find a whole load of JP subbed clips. Works for EN, JP, ID… whichever VTuber you prefer.

Also! There are things like スタこれ and the recently-finished ジャンプアップロー, which are really fun little segments if you’re at all interested in the Holostars JP lads. All videos have JP subs I believe, and a majority have EN subs if you need a little help. Subs are colourcoded for each speaker too, which can be really useful if, like me, you’re not so good with the ol’ hearing and distinguishing voices.

I did initially go off on this post with a boatload of recommendations, but we’ll save my oshi shilling for now. Apart from the Holostars shoutout, that is :sweat_smile:

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