For non-japanese:-Have you ever though of learning Japanese so watching Anime would be sooooo much easier?????

Rie said:
Hmm. Interesting topic. I agree with several people here...

Personally, I've taken 7years of Japanese classes... I am still rather intermediate, to my dismay... Classes have helped enhance my understanding about Grammar rules and sentence structure... since it is quite different from English, my mother language. Furthermore, classes have helped me to practice conversation and composition writing...

Nevertheless! I feel like I've learned much more from anime and manga. I originally started learning Japanese mainly because of anime... And well, upon encountering the idea of subtitles and Fansub teams and whatnot after a couple years of learning Japanese, I completely became engrossed in learning more. If one pays attention, one should be able to notice word/vocabulary and sentence/phrase patterns through all series and manga. That's how I started to grasp more conversational/colloquial vocab to practice and use. Then, once I began to advance in levels in school, I became the head of my class/school ALL thanks to anime/manga. TRULY so. I feel like I've benefited from taking mental notes and phrase/word memorization from reading manga and watching anime. I could not be able to read RAW manga or watch RAW anime now if I had not originally began learning the Japanese language via just anime and manga.

Really, all I got from my seven years of Japanese learning were formalities and writing structures. Nothing else. I am not yet fluent but able to converse in informal Japanese practically all due to the common usage of it within manga and anime. Reading and listening to the dialogues truly have made it more interactive and interesting to learn from; probably also easier to retain in memory. I want to also brag that I am more capable of intermediate-level reading literature thanks to reading manga... Additionally, I can watch RAW Japanese dramas and anime because of the fact that I've been keeping a keen ear on listening to conversations and catching onto phrases and words from anime. Altogether, I honestly think that I've advanced my Japanese language skills from just watching anime and reading manga.

(I intend to improve my Chinese and Korean from watching dramas and news, too.)

Lolz. Fluffy spiel I made... My bad. :P

Jasonbear said:
To be honest, I'm not willing to work that hard just so I can anime. Plus learning a language is difficult for me.

LolitaDecay said:
I'm learning Japanese because I love the language. Not because of anime.

TwilightRhapsody said:
I wouldn't learn Japanese JUST for anime/manga, that's kinda disrespectful to the language...

LolitaDecay said:
I'm learning Japanese because I love the language. Not because of anime.

SweetMonia said:
I like to hear other's experiences about language learning, Improving a language by watching drama is a very smart thing, it guarantee that you will always keep learning, specially in a somewhat more native way.

ladyxzeus said:

^_^
I only had one year of Japanese so far and teacher says "now you know ALL, next 5 years: TRAINING" She also says "all you learn here is NOTHING. Must live in Japan to know how to talk" so chyeah. ^^;

However I am Portuguese. Unlike some may say Portuguese and Japanese are very similar languages. The structure of Japanese grammar is very easy to understand for us (well... For me it is and I'm kind of a grammar freak. But I think that you'd better know your language well before engaging another). Plus, "romanization" was first created by Portuguese Priests so it follows our phonetic (sp?) structure.
Our course book is in English and I am amazed at the explanations they give some times. It's just so simple and they go all the way around to explain it in a different way. =p Sometimes I'm really glad that I was born here. xD xD

As for Anime... Anime really did not help my conversation skills. If teacher tries to engage a conversation with any of the... 5 anime freaks that are in class (wow, now that I count we're really just a few... Some of my colleagues have not even watched much more than Dragon Ball Z xD) we get really owned. Unless, of course, the conversation is about killing people with swords. Maybe I'm watching the wrong anime? =p On the other hand, Japanese classes really help me with anime. Now I basically listen and confirm I'm right with the subtitles. Of course that sometimes it's impossible (like Lelouch talking about the desire of power at full speed), but usually works and it's relieving. Especially with lagging mkv files. ^^

Now that I'm learning I have really taken a real liking for the language. I found it pretty in anime, but the grammar is just so perfect and appropriate to its culture that now I can't help but to love it. That, together with the need of knowing it for my scholarship, makes me want to learn more. (but having a great teacher also helps =p)

Sohei said:
^ By the way, by saying you're learning chinese im presuming you're learning Mandarin, right?

just wondering, as Cantonese is also widely spoken.

Foop said:
well, i find looking at subs pretty easy, so it wouldnt do a difference. but i want to learn japanese so badly

SweetMonia said:

Anime didn't help improving your conversation???, Is it because it's more concerned about specific topics, I don't really know, Specially by looking at your Anime list, You have watched a lot of Anime from various genres. ?_?

wannabescene said:
From what I can gather of the Japanese language, it doesn't have any (or at least very few) common aspects with the English language.

frodofork said:
Yes. My school doesn't teach Japanses though. -.-

SweetMonia said:


What do you think of "The more languages you learn!, The easiest it's to learn others"???, This is a rule I made but I am not sure how much it's true.

frodofork said:
Yes. My school doesn't teach Japanses though. -.-

ladyxzeus said:

I believe it depends on the languages you know.

For example, I'm fluent in 3 latin based languages and I find Japanese super easy. I also know that Russian, Romanian and similars all sound latin based and that people from those countries have no trouble at all learning.

On the other hand my stepbrother is fluent in 2 germanics and 2 latin based and has been thaught in German. He simply can't understand the simpliest grammar rule of Japanese or Russian (and he's quite good, it just does not fit in his head that grammar can be "this" instead of "that")

LolitaDecay said:

SweetMonia said:

Honestly, I don't know the different between Latin and Germanic languages, They looks the same for me

humhorse said:
I didn't actually learn Japanese until I moved there, and even then never formally - just from listening to, and then trying to participate in conversations.

So my Japanese is at times extremely rude and at times extremely feminine - usually a mixture of the two that makes people laugh. Gokigenyou is not a standard greeting :p

My main motivation was just to be able to communicate. Being able to watch raw anime was just an added bonus ^^ Having said that, manga is still a no-no as I never learned how to read or write kanji.

bubblehead said:
Really, manga isn't that hard even if you don't know much kanji. Just start with shoujo/shounen manga or Yotsuba&! etc., things that have the pronunciation as well (yay furigana). You'll start to be able to read kanji a bit after a while, though it won't help you much with writing 'em.

StackOverflow said:
I have 10 years to learn it... so I have full of time to learn it! ^^ The only good point about understanding RAW animes would be to not wait for a sub group to watch it, mostly for animes which sub groups are bad or very very slow!

Vespa said:
I actually did consider such a possibility a while back. I even decided to go study Japanology in our university. However, plans changed. Also, to be learning the language to only understand anime/manga is quite... Pathetic? Sure, it is easier to understand and you don't have to search for subbed episodes like crazy, but... I shall put it like this - easy come, easy go. Obsession with anime/manga goes away in time and so does the language. That is, of course, if you learned it only for this kind of use... This is just my opinion.

humhorse said:
For those of you who are serious about learning, go live there for a while. Get a job teaching English or something (that's what I did). You'll be surprised how much you pick up, even without taking lessons or having any prior knowledge. The average Japanese can barely speak ten words of English, so you pretty much have to learn to speak Japanese if you want to communicate.

Just avoid the "speak English when teaching, then only speak to your English-speaking fellow teachers outside of work" routine that can easily happen.

humhorse said:
For those of you who are serious about learning, go live there for a while. Get a job teaching English or something (that's what I did). You'll be surprised how much you pick up, even without taking lessons or having any prior knowledge. The average Japanese can barely speak ten words of English, so you pretty much have to learn to speak Japanese if you want to communicate.

Just avoid the "speak English when teaching, then only speak to your English-speaking fellow teachers outside of work" routine that can easily happen.

Saito said:


I've been thinking about this even though my English isn't perfect I still speak and write it 100 times better then the majority of the Japanese. But I just wonder... how do you teach someone foreign language without knowing the language they are speaking...

Saito said:
I've been thinking about this even though my English isn't perfect I still speak and write it 100 times better then the majority of the Japanese. But I just wonder... how do you teach someone foreign language without knowing the language they are speaking...