Currently having a bit of a problem with actually enjoying the content I watch, making it harder to learn. Since I need broad immersion sources, much of the content seems rather mundane or dull (such as weather news, or basic conversations).
It doesn't have to be crazy interesting, but this is a reoccuring problem, where I will have a load of content that I can watch, but I quickly recognise the format and style of it, and it becomes predictable and super dull, despite the learning gains.
I am usually most engaged in watching anime, reasonably engaged in podcasts, least engaged in the mundane but super useful immersion content (like basic conversations/weather news/grammar videos)
Here's what I'm currently working with for my study. I keep trying to optimise it, but end up jumping between a lot of stuff instead of just immersing!
- Immersion content
- Anime with japanese subtitles has worked the best for me as a blend of listening and reading, along with social cues provided by the animation.
- Currently watching Hunter X Hunter. Any other good immersion anime that is relatively interesting please do suggest!
- Have not read any manga solely due to the reason it takes far longer to digest content. Have to manually rip kanji with scanning software if I want to figure out what a word or phrase will be.
- Unless someone knows of a website or software that automatically generates a script for manga? I can't see it being worth it until I can read most of it already, spending so much time looking up words is a huge downside.
- Anime with japanese subtitles has worked the best for me as a blend of listening and reading, along with social cues provided by the animation.
- Listening
- Podcasts are the way to go:
- Currently listening to Nihongo Switch. I found her voice to be very clear and the content very understandable. More suggestions like this if you have any!
- Podcasts are the way to go:
- Writing
- I'm looking for a better way to practice writing to prompts, both typed and handwritten. I absolutely despise using Genki II's workbook as I find it so damn boring, but it was really useful for learning.
- I considered responding to ChatGPT or something, having it generate me some writing prompts and then give me feedback automatically on what I wrote, but I have no idea how accurate it's Japanese is.
- Another was interacting on the Japanese discord learning servers, but I feel like this already requires you to have quite a conversational level.
- I'm looking for a better way to practice writing to prompts, both typed and handwritten. I absolutely despise using Genki II's workbook as I find it so damn boring, but it was really useful for learning.
- Remembering
- Anki mining deck:
- I currently have a big of a backlog of cards I'm working through. I still find it useful for going through a load of kanji to be honest, but apparently HypoTiger is quite against doing this? Don't exactly get why but
- Jouyou Kanken Kanji pre-built deck:
- Hiragana words come up and I guess, then write the kanji for them, helping me to remember my stroke orders.
- Anki mining deck:
- Speaking
- Unironically, VRChat Japanese worlds are actually a good place for interaction. I only discovered this recently, but there's a lot of Japanese people hanging around on VRChat, talking about whatever and if you know some Japanese, you can try and join in on conversations, or just sit around and listen.
- iTalki which I've used, is good, but requires a certain level of speakable output already, which I'm still more or less lacking.
- HypoTiger was able to get quite fluent, simply speaking to himself in Japanese? That seemed like a good method, but how does one even do that? How do you start freestyling random responses talking to yourself?
Thanks all for any suggestions.
by Key_Object814