Learn Japanese (日本語を勉強している)

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This is a community dedicated to learning Japanese.

When I was on reddit I used to go to r/learnjapanese a lot.

I don't want to use reddit any more.

Thus I made this community.

Feel free to post any questions about the language, or status updates, or frustrations, or resources (try not to shamelessly plug your own though).

I'll probably update this description at some point.

founded 6 months ago
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I think the life is strange series is a real hidden gem when it comes to language learning. You spend a lot of the time interacting with the world and you get your character's thoughts. You hear their voice and you also see subtitles on the screen. If you didn't catch everything you can just keep repeating it over and over.

The first game adds time travel to the mix, which adds more repetition but also in a way that makes sense and is still really novel.

I'm using those games as a kind of anchor that I keep coming back to, noticing that I understand more and more each time.

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(posting because it might be useful to people)

My next goals for learning are:

  • To become "fluent" at watching slice of life anime and dramas
  • To be able to easily hear japanese pitch accent

refold.ia as well as various youtubers recommend gaining a high level of proficiency listening and comprehending the language before you start to speak it.

The reason is, because you will be able to recognise if you are pronouncing things wrong or otherwise sound weird and will be able to correct yourself. You have better feedback loops, and are less likely to get a lot of repetitions of pronouncing things the wrong way and developing an accent.

Refold talks about different types of immersion:

  • Active: you are giving your full time and attention to the immersion
  • Passive: you are doing something else and listening to the language in the background

Active immersion is further divided into two types:

  • Intensive: you are looking up everything you don't know
  • Free flow: you just watch and let yourself understand what you understand

They are described as both being beneficial, and complementary practices.

I'm planning on watching through K-on intensively and yuru camp as free flow immersion. After this I'll switch them.

After that I'll go through a list of slice of life anime and series until I'm very comfortable with the domain.

I'm also doing my flashcards everyday on jpdb.io

I learn ten new words a day and revise old ones according to an algorithm

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I've been learning Japanese for about 4 years now.

There's two main parts to how I study:

  • Flashcards at jpdb.io, I source them from anime and TV series, so I learn all the words in a particular series while watching it
  • Immersion, I watch through anime and play games, and listen to podcasts (mainly nihongo con teppei) I also take the audio from anime, put it on an MP3 player and listen when on walks, public transport or running errands around the house

I also sometimes find myself going back to various apps and websites:

  • Satori Reader
  • Aomi
  • supernative.io
  • pitch.migaku.io