I like watching Japanese anime with the original Japanese voice and with subtitles (German or English). For me that’s passive listening because I’m not giving myself a task. I still do pick up words and phrases over time, and especially intonations. (It probably helps that I’m going to class, even if I don’t do the usual studying.)
I find reading much much harder in Japanese, though. I’ve concluded that one reason I am advancing so slowly in Japanese compared to other languages is that I can’t just pick up a book and read. My eyes will happily skip over everything.
I found an unexpected way to make progress recently. The video game Dragon Quest X is only in Japanese. I’ve been reading in the text with the phone camera and using a translation app to get the jist. But: I need to correct the text first against the original. Is it this character or that character? This sort of tasked looking over and over again has brought changes in my brain. Plus sometimes there’s audio too.
I get that. I do that with Arabic sometimes: when I'm walking and listening to a YouTube video and don't have time to stop and look up words because I'm on the go, but I recognize more and more words this way and many of them become familiar even though I don't know what they mean.
I love your way to learn Japanese with a video game!
I like watching Japanese anime with the original Japanese voice and with subtitles (German or English). For me that’s passive listening because I’m not giving myself a task. I still do pick up words and phrases over time, and especially intonations. (It probably helps that I’m going to class, even if I don’t do the usual studying.)
I find reading much much harder in Japanese, though. I’ve concluded that one reason I am advancing so slowly in Japanese compared to other languages is that I can’t just pick up a book and read. My eyes will happily skip over everything.
I found an unexpected way to make progress recently. The video game Dragon Quest X is only in Japanese. I’ve been reading in the text with the phone camera and using a translation app to get the jist. But: I need to correct the text first against the original. Is it this character or that character? This sort of tasked looking over and over again has brought changes in my brain. Plus sometimes there’s audio too.
I get that. I do that with Arabic sometimes: when I'm walking and listening to a YouTube video and don't have time to stop and look up words because I'm on the go, but I recognize more and more words this way and many of them become familiar even though I don't know what they mean.
I love your way to learn Japanese with a video game!
Great advice, my friend as always
I like to watch Slovenian mysteries/detective stories. Watching and listening closely for clues helps with overall understanding, too.
Yes, great advice ❣️