when I put in lyrics. such as
乾いた胸が かりたてるのさ
I get everything from
“my dry heart is irritated”
“I have a dry chest”
“I’m just trying to get a dry heart”
etc.
The lyrics (Which i also know isn’t literal like i want) Is “This dry heart is screaming”
I really want the literal translation which will help me understand sentence structure better and allow me to know what word is which.
EG 追われる “be pursued/hunted/chased/driven”
I want to study like this:
追われるように 急いでいる
As if you are being chased, you are in a hurry
追われる (be chased)
ように
so that/in order
急いでいる
you’re in a hurry.
And then have asides
追 : Chase
急 : rapid/urgent
Song lyrics aren’t how people normally speak but it does help with sentence structure regardless . and I can learn the Kanji one by one.
This just works for my ADHD brain.
But i can’t be sure how accurate the above translation even is because i get such varied answers online. I just picked one at random to use as an example.
I can separate the words on my own from listening to the song and it’s pretty clear where pauses are to finish out sentences and stuff too.
EG i can seperate these into words/ the grammatical emphasis etc;
追われる ように 急い で いる
but it’s not helpful to see 追われる and have the translation make it look like that part means “As if you are”
I hope that all makes sense and someone has an idea of what website i could use to basically make my own practice sheets out of songs. And sorry if my example is really badly translated….after all that’s what I’m seeking advice on. But i’m also sorry if i broke the sentences/words/emphasis etc up wrong. i’m still really new to japanese, but repetition just makes me forget so things like duolingo make it harder for me to retain information due to my ADHD, it affects the language centers of the brain pretty badly so I need to learn in a way that works for me and might not seem ideal.
Once i do have a better grasp on words I can watch more Japanese media/movies/anime etc to learn speech patterns via immersion and observation. but remembering the kanji and hiragana requires me to write things i can link to something else, in this case songs i like…and it’s such a shame my fude nib fountain pen never get’s any attention.
Honestly one of the main reasons i want to learn Japanese is so i can sing along to songs and understand lyrics haha.
4 comments
Using machine translators in the learning process is a terrible idea. Learn grammar and use a dictionary for the words.
Do you use Yomi-chan? Amazing tool, and a staple for any japanese learner.
I think the best way to study lyrics is to find a bilingual site [like this](https://owldb.net/song/dry-flower-yuuri/) (which allows you to view just the japanese or english, OR side by side) so you can test yourself, and then compare to the translation(although the TL isn’t always accurate)
I remember using songs to learn. You’re right in that it’s not particularly practical, but it helped me a lot because it was fun to me.
[This website](https://www.animesonglyrics.com/) was particularly helpful as it has Original Japanese, romaji, and English lyrics in one place, much better than any machine translator. It mostly has songs from anime, so if you’ve seen the song in an anime they’ll likely have it.
Hey! ADHD myself and have been studying Japanese for more than 3 years now. Do you have some resources / research about ADHD affecting language learning in particular? I’ve only seen papers on how it affects short term & working memory and learning in general due to the lack of dopamine. (Don’t mean to doubt you, I’m just interested since I have trouble with language myself!)
I’ve done really well pairing anki to learn vocab and then listening to songs or TV shows to get this rewarding feeling when I do recognize words. I don’t recommend learning only by analyzing songs because that can become frustrating quite fast – but songs can be like, your cherry on top, your reward! You can add what you learnt from songs into anki as well.
Most days I have trouble concentrating on
finishing my anki, so I’ve started connecting it with walks (with my dog). Movement helps you with the whole dopamine / understimulation thing as well. Courses and a study partner can go a long way too, since they’ll help keep up the routine thats so hard for us to do.