LLearn Japanese

Hello this for more experience people

  • February 2, 2026

I m around n4 level almost passing it

I ve been looking at anime with Japanese subtitles for a while its fun knowing some words while reading but I wanna know if I should switch to raw. watching it raw gets me tired since I gotta be more focused on the dialog , whatever my point is should I watch it raw or keep the jp subtitles?

by Mammoth-Leader8453

6 comments

  1. Many people keep the JP subs for a long time.. myself included. If you want to turn them off specifically to train listening that’s a good idea sometimes, but mostly keeping them on for now will get your speed reading better while giving you as much chance as possible to actively study material (pause and review subtitles, mine words/sentences etc).

  2. Just one data point but I almost always keep JP subtitles on if available.

    I can understand most natural speech okay even without it though (e.g. YouTube videos without any subs, etc).

    I don’t think subtitles will hurt you too much, but I would recommend getting a healthy mixture of both.

    And also it’s content dependent. I’m not going to try to parse fantasy European military terminology in an anime through listening alone. I’ll turn on subs for those. If it’s a YouTuber talking about a place they’re visiting then you should try to listen without crutches imo.

  3. At your level I think the subs help a lot. Everyone has their preferences though, based on what’s enjoyable or builds the skill they care about more. I personally used them when available for a long time and only recently prefer to just listen. But I also read a lot, tv shows are just something I get in and out of. It doesn’t seem to hurt listening aquisition to do both.

  4. If you are focusing more on understanding reading, then Japanese subs I believe it can be mostly useful. But if you are focusing on understanding speech as to be able to speak or just not depend on translations/subs for Japanese content, then dropping subs I believe it is the best.
    Even if it is difficult, for that end goal you have to be able to parse messages by ear in real time.
    Like you said, watching raw can be tiring because you have to be focused, but that is where you are learning. Will be difficult until you get used to

  5. IMO subs aren’t really gimping your listening training too much unless you’re so good at reading that just skimming subs is enough to fully read them.

    You are not at a point where you can do that so I’d say keep them on. Unless you absolutely not care about learning kanji/improving reading at all.

  6. Unless you feel like your listening skills are weak, I don’t see any particular reason why you should change what you’re doing. Doing things the fun, non-exhausting way is the best way to actually keep it up without getting burned out anyway.

    I’ll personally probably never drop subtitles in Japanese media. I have a hard time paying attention to even English things without also having English subtitles on, and that’s my first language. Some of us are just subtitle people, period.

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