Daily Thread: simple questions, comments that don’t need their own posts, and first time posters go here (February 21, 2024)

5 comments

1. Hi, I’m in between N4 and N3 and I’m still watching Japanese media (dorama and anime) with English subtitles. Should I try watching without subs at all? I can pick up words and make sense of some sentences when I don’t read the subs, maybe 30 to 40%? I can recognise grammatical forms like the potential and receptive form, but I don’t see how this will help me pick up new vocabulary unless I mine the subtitles to Anki. But that feels really tedious and I just want to watch to relax.

2. 唯一、恋人と呼べた相手はすでにおらず、別のだれかと新しい人生を歩むらしい

   How is 唯一 working here? I think this says something like, “Person he can call his sweetheart is not here, maybe will move on to start a new life with someone else”

   Like is 唯一 an adverb to おらず perhaps? So it’s like the only person is not there

3. 1. What does the は in 思って(は」いた mean here? What happens if you remove it e.g 思っていた?

   今後について話をする必要はあると思ってはいたが、しかし『相談』ではなく『提案』とは

   2. Is the かねて in the following sentence the same as this : https://mainichi-nonbiri.com/grammar/n2-wokanete/

   は部屋で見覚えのないクロッキー帳を見つけた。本棚の後ろに隠されるようにして置かれていたのだ。
   　勉強の合間に気分転換をかねて、それが結局は大掃除に繫がるのだが、そうしていなかったら見つからなかっただろう。

4. Hello, I have been Dictionary Diving (and sometimes using Anime/Manga) for around 1.5 Months now, and have added nearly 1k words into Anki, however I still feel like I am unable to understand basic things.

   I have been thinking about capitulating and using standard Textbooks, since they’ll likely be a better resource for identifying basic grammar/vocab, however I have generally been somewhat reluctant out of fear of developing a “fluent”, but clearly stiff/flagrantly-“foreign” “English-Japanese” that requires 5+ Years to learn various Kanji, and overuses Pronouns/「です」

   For those of you who have learned via Traditional Methods, are these concerns justified, or am I off the mark here? I probably could have at least reached N5+ by now had I spent as much time with Textbooks, as I did with the Dictionary, but that fear of quickly becoming “good enough” rather than eventually become “fluent” has paralyzed me.

   My goal is to reach some level of fluency in a year (or 2 at most). For reference, I can basically study indefinitely… for now, but that will not always be the case.

   In your opinion, should I simply work on refining my Dictionary/Animanga-Diving, or should I switch to using Traditional Methods?

5. i’ve done 246877 reviews on anki in the ~13 months i’ve been studying japanese ama