The obvious answer would be know, but I constantly see theMoeWay’s guide being considered really good, and in a lot of ways it is. Doing anki and following curedolly everyday is a great way to learn… but the 30 day guide (which im definitely doing slower than 30 days) pushes the idea that you must immerse from the very beginning, and watch multiple episodes of anime a day. Will that really help me in any meaningful way? I feel like it’s a waste of time that doesn’t actually help with language accusation because I can’t understand anything accept for a few words here and there.
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It sounds like a cop-out answer but just do whatever keeps you motivated. The biggest killer of japanese learners is trying to do things the “correct” way even if they don’t enjoy it, and then burning out. If Japanese isn’t fun for you, you won’t learn it. If someone starts to dread studying, they might as well quit because they’ll never make it. That’s just the truth.
The idea that you will just forget Japanese if you don’t study for X hours every day is completely unfounded. Early on in my studies, I took a 2 year break from Japanese. During those 2 years, I didn’t forget a single thing. That is to say, take it at your pace. If you like to study for 8 hours every day then that’s great, you’ll learn quickly. But that’s not for everyone.
Basically, I would stop thinking about what is a waste of time or not, and just focus on what keeps you invested in your studies. Any combination of listening, reading, and Anki vocab will move you in the right direction.
Lastly this is just my opinion but I think the “AJATT” method (aka constant immersion) is kinda overhyped. You’re not really learning efficiently if you’re not actually engaged with the material on a meaningful level.
do whatever you like and experiment and change your mind all you like
it’s not absolutely necessary
also, incomprehensible immersion is not helpful, so don’t waste a lot of effort on it. different amounts will differ by person, and also by what phase of learning you’re at, and also over time what you feel more or less frustrated by, but if you’re getting less than 25% of it, then it’s probably not that helpful. you can still do it if you want but again don’t beat your head on it
No.
I will say that if you have limited exposure to asian cultures and languages, doing it now even if you understand nothing is only a benefit. We can argue the merits of if it’s a waste of time, but you don’t need to be focused on it. Like having background music or the TV on in the background, you’re passively getting used to the sounds and rhythm of the language–which entails emotional expressiveness. Those add up down the line even if your comprehension is 0%.
After a year of heavy study for me, I still don’t fully immerse with Japanese subtitles. I can’t get over the hump of not understanding every line, it bothers me when I watch stuff. Even English shows, I like turning on subtitles so that I don’t miss anything.
At the moment, I only use Japanese subtitles for anime that I don’t care too much about, so that it doesn’t bother me as much. Weird right, forcing myself to watch stuff that I don’t really care for, for the sake of immersion.
For other anime, I try to practice active listening rather than switching off my brain. I glance at the English subtitles if I can’t understand the dialogue, but I try not to read them immediately.
More important than putting a lot of hours in the beginning is to find how much time you can commit to it.
It doesn’t matter if you put 12h a day in the first month if you give up on the second.
I’ve been using a transcription/translation app to watch anime to help with my listening and its been really useful. I usually have it translate into english sub but sometimes I transcribe japanese. The app’s called https://Translate.Mom
I think that “comprehensible” input is better personally. Get a base of basic grammar and get some vocabulary; then start listening/ reading to materials at the appropriate level.
But that’s just me. My mind wanders too much listening to things when I can’t pick anything out, i end up tuning out.
But ultimately, don’t do anything that sucks the fun out of it; cuz then you won’t stick with it.
Why not? I did it with music. You get used to distinguishing the sounds of the language, and learn some words in the meantime. It can be active – like actively reading along with the lyrics, trying to sing them, translating, creating an Anki deck from the song, etc. Or you can just leave a song or playlist on repeat, in the background.
Music’s great bc it’s byte sized (compared to anime, radio, podcasts, literature, etc) usually enunciated clearly, and you get recurring styles & vocab within the same artist. Really helped me with remembering vocab/kanji – or recognizing it when I encountered it in formal study.
Also a lot of songs have fan translations, and you can use that to help understand the lyrics. Yuki Kajiura’s music in particular is very useful for this. There’s a fan site where they have JP, romaji, and EN translation for all of her songs: [canta-per-me.net/lyrics/](http://canta-per-me.net/lyrics/)
As someone who has done immersion in some form since the beginning with healthy amounts of flashcards and grammar study, the answer is not straightforward.
Doing multiple hours a day depends on your schedule, but ill advised: you will run into the immediate problem of language fatigue: when you first expose your mind to a new language, it will struggle to parse out every detail and will then grow tired as it can’t do so. This leads to content feeling mentally draining, at least early on.
I’d say doing no more than an hour, or however much you can tolerate a day will be more beneficial. If you can stick to n+1 comprehensibility – where you can understand almost every word outside of 1 or 2 – so much the better.
But as you develop familiarity with the language, you want to spend more time in it to get further comfortable. Like doing weight training, or running, as you condition your mind to Japanese, your brain will get less fatigued by the language which means you can spend longer in it. As long as you are consistently supplementing with regular study, and practice, it will create a virtuous cycle. These days I immerse far more than I study and while my results aren’t spectacular, I have improved dramatically within the course of the last 6 months after three years of study after focusing on hours of immersion and less study. But that could also just be me doing it for 3 years. Take it with a grain of salt.
It will still take an assload of time no matter what you do. But immersing is an essential part of the process.
You could do it and see if in 30 days you thought it was useful or a waste of time. In the end the most useful thing is whatever you are motivated to do regularly, to learn some new stuff and review some stuff you’ve studied. Just getting in as much time per day that you can do those things in a way you’ll be motivated to, will cause progress.
If you’re motivated by watching stuff immediately, hearing snippets of words and phrases you’ve just learned and new words you’re eager to look up and understand asap? Cool. If you’re unmotivated and avoid doing immersion because it feels draining at this point? It’s okay to do something else until immersing feels more motivating/enjoyable. Or find immersion materials you understand better at the beginner level (things like Comprehensible Input Japanese youtube, Tadoku graded readers, nihongo con teppei and beginner podcasts, manga or anime you’ve watched in English before and already know the plot of to help you guess new words from context etc). I did srs and tadoku graded readers until I felt I could be motivated to read manga and look up words, or play video games and look up words. That’s what worked for me. What works for some is immersion in shows right away, what works for others is studying 2000 words and grammar with their study hours first then adding immersion. Do what works for you, either will ultimately get you to your goal.
So like. If you were going to study 1 hour, but if you immerse you planned to immerse 2 hours a day on top of that? Yeah you will probably make progress faster than if you only spent 1 hour per say total on japanese. Immersion will work better than no immersion as a beginner, if it m gets you to study more hours per day. If you choose not to immerse, and instead study all 3 hours per day? Then you’ll also progress faster than if you studied 1 hour.
Im pretty early in my japanese learning, like a few Hundred anki cards into core 2k.
I love to watch japanese vtuber for listenig immersion, even tho i barely understand anything, but if i überstand something, or i can guess what the Streamer is talking about, thats such a nice feeling and it Motivates me so much. Cant wait for the Moment i can immerse with light novel, visual novels and Manga ptoperly, but thats too early atm for my level
In theory, immersion from the start is beneficial to building a mental model of the sounds of the language. Moreover it helps improving your tolerance to ambiguity since if you’re capable to watch a 20 min anime when you know 0 words, you’ll tolerate ambiguity when you’ll just know 2k words.
In practice, I didn’t do it because it was a pain. I add more pleasure doing words on anki, that’s why I did, and I started reading at 2k words, and listening at 3.5k words. I don’t regret my choice.
Being french which has close phonemes to japanese, and having watch anime since 15y ago with subs, I already have an initial knowledge of phonetics so it didn’t harm me in any way.
Even if you’re not in the exact same case, more than “tolerating ambiguity” I’d say “do what you tolerate/have fun with”, it’s really what will get you far.