This is something I’ve spent some time recently thinking about ever since listening and reading became a lot easier for me and I’ve stopped myself (mostly) from trying to translate everything and just taking it in fully as it’s own language, and not something I’m trying to figure out the meaning of in English.
But since I got to this point I often wonder if I actually do understand what’s being said or if because I’ve stopped myself from autotranslating I just don’t think about it as much anymore. For example I’ll watch an entire video of spoken Japanese on a level where I comfortably understand most of what’s being said, if not everything and feel like I get everything but I don’t know if I actually understood the entirety of what’s being said or if I just got it from context clues.
I’m hoping someone here has some kind of answer on how to move forward regarding this, or share the same problem with and want to vent about it hahah.
2 comments
If you’re reading a story and something that doesn’t fit your understanding of the story at all happens, and none of the characters indicate that what’s happening is new or unexpected, then you didn’t understand it. Otherwise you can safely assume that you are understanding everything important. If you misunderstood something small it doesn’t really matter.
(Note the above rule doesn’t apply for denpa, let’s avoid that until we are more confident :P)
Even in their native language people have differing interpretations of works, haven’t you seen people arguing over lore or character motivations?
EDIT:
The method I WOULD NOT USE would be looking at a translation to see if it matches what you are thinking. Most light novel translations and crunchyroll subtitles have errors. I’m sure there are well translated works, but it’s better to not get in the habit of it.
Option 1. ask native speaker who is bilingual or at least really good at English
Option 2. post online in daily question thread