| Besides the basics of the basics like Baka, do you now understand some japanese? I only studied a bit with main focus on Hiragana, Katana and Kanji, but most of my knowledge came from listening and reading the subtitels. After a few years I am now at a point where I can half understand whats happening without subtitels, especially the uncomplicated sentences are quit easy to understand. For those who've watched many years, maybe even a decade, do you now understand some japanese? |
ApfelMyNameOct 25, 2025 4:27 AM
on 
| Since starting to watch anime serially, three years passed before I got the courage to watch unsubbed anime. That first time, I think I get the gist of what's going on. Now, I watch unsubbed if I don't like the translation style. |
| No i don't understand japanese, i know some words here and there but nothing useful in conversation, i only know words used in porn/jav search results. |
| Sometimes I stop watching anime for months, but then out of a sudden I go berserk and do nothing but to watch anime. It feels like I can understand daily conversations when I feel like latter. It makes sense from my point of view since I'm being imposed to the language by only hearing it but it's volatile since I did not learn anything systematically. Also Japanese is closer to my native language both gramatically and phonetically. |
xshiraoriOct 22, 2025 3:49 PM
| Watashi've learned iroiro Nihongo words by kokoro just from watching. |
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| Sadly ore don't know shit about it. :\ |
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ApfelMyName said: After a few years I am now at a point where I can half understand whats happening without subtitels I envy you. Watching subs (combined with some lazy Duolingo and random YouTube videos explaining grammar) only got me to understand a tiny portion of what's being said. 10% maybe? Watched Hyakuemu without subs a few days ago. It had extended, clearly-enunciated dialogue (of course it did, it's based on the manga by the Orb author) set in the real world, so I thought it'd be as easy as I could hope for. It was overall a frustrating experience. While I vaguely understood what they were talking about, it was unclear what exactly was being said. I know there was a conversation about motivation and commitment, but what did the characters say, exactly?! I think I should be 1) actually studying some grammar to understand sentence structures, instead of just recognizing words and canned phrases, and 2) watching anime line-by-line, pausing and deciphering the lines in full, ideally with Japanese subs. But even that's a lot of effort.. |
| Not really other than a few words here and there. |
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| A tiny little bit, yeah. Few words, phrases, signs, or suffixes. Really basic stuff. |
AdnashOct 22, 2025 5:13 PM
| Yes some bits of, thanks to detective conan I can recognize dialects Japanese people use for example kansai dialect is only used in osaka and is very different to that of the dialect that is used in tokyo. |
| Greatest shitposter under the heavens. Greatest anime tourist on the planet earth. |
| Yeah, I do understand a fair bit of the language after watching for a couple decades. Enough to understand the basics of a simple plot without subtitles, but not enough for a complex plot. |
| "The name's Gambit. Remember it." -Gambit "X-Men '97"  |
| Yes, I can watch anime without subtitles, I just won't understand a thing |
| If you're a fanboy, please don't waste my time. Watch more movies, please. Perhaps, this is hell. |
| I have learned some Japanese, particuarly basic words, suffixes, and numbers. I can sometimes hear when the subtitles are incorrect or not the best possible translation. Occasionally, when subtitles are missing, I can have a basic understanding of what a sentence or phrase is saying. And yes, I do know enough to hear that localizers often mistranslate subtitles, without even getting something close to the correct meaning. |
ForgotEyeWasHereOct 22, 2025 6:25 PM
| I know. All of Hiragana. All of Katakana. Over 100 Kanji. I'm guessing around 2000 words. |
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| Listening yes , now i can watch anime without sub. This is probably because I love mystery anime , some of them have lot of dialog. I can Speak Japanese too but only little, since I never do any conversation using Japanese. Reading and writing no XD |
| I learned my Japanese through anime and I landed a job as a Japanese translator. |
"Nobody could laugh at someone who's trying their hardest" -Machio- |
| I do know some Japanese, yes. I learned the basics of katakana from anime, and some Japanese words. Then I went off from there. Though most of my Japanese knowledge comes from my Japanese class I took in my first year of college. Sadly, I had to stop after one semester because I had to prioritize transfer requirements. But, the university I am transferring to provides so many Japanese classes (far beyond the language) and you can even study abroad in Japan (for privacy reasons, I won't disclose where specifically). So I will definitely continue my Japanese journey. |
| If I had to choose between One Piece and a girlfriend...I think I'll go with One Piece |
Reply to Yuu_Kanzaki
I learned my Japanese through anime and I landed a job as a Japanese translator.
| @Yuu_Kanzaki I can only respect that! |
| Do you now undetand a little Japanese? No, besides a few words and some little phrases such as "Yamete kudasai" or "Daijoubu desu ka?", I don't understand anything. |
| My partner is studying Japanese so I learning a little bit along side her but nothing to where I can have a proper conversation in Japanese. I might learn it eventually just need to put in the time, which I don't have currently. |
| Go read Sousou no Frieren and One Piece they're the best thing ever |
| Just the basic words that everybody knows from watching anime subtitles I guess. |
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Do you now undetand a little Japanese I understand some individual words and a few phrases, but not enough to understand whole sentences without subtitles. |
*kappa* |
| Yes, once I have a drama cd/audio series phase. Even if something was hard for me to understand, next scenes would help me understand what happen. I also watched a lot seiyuu events, performances (ex AD live), and listen to radio shows. I used to watch some series as raws, because I couldn't wait for fansubs 😂 Now it happens sometimes, but these are few exceptional cases like random episode of series I really like or subtitles are not available 😂 Also some manga I prefer read them in japanese using translator, so I can listen and read it in romanji ❤️😆 |
| Yes, I passed JLPT N3 many years back but then I got a job and stopped learning, I've done fan-translations and prefer to read manga in Japanese only but I've still got a long way to go to be fluent in the language. |
| Yeah, I obviously can’t understand everything since I haven’t learned Japanese yet, but I can catch a few words here and there but I can't understand the full sentence. Though I think it’s pretty common, if you watch a lot of anime with subtitles, you naturally start remembering some words over time. |
HumanTrash69Oct 23, 2025 7:47 AM
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| I've been watching for 60 years now, although I only switched to subtitled about 35 years ago. I recognize some of the most common Japanese words and phrases, but am still pretty lost most of the time. I understand nothing of the writing system. I guess the best way to describe it is, I understand enough to know when the subtitles are fucked up. And those seem to get worse every year, And I tend to learn lanbuages fairly easily. I was conversational in German once upon a time. Can speak and read a little French and Spanish too. Japanese is way different though. Sometime I have a hard time wrapping my head around things like grammar. |
joemaamahOct 23, 2025 7:27 AM
| I have learned a lot of Japanese words from anime,but I can't speak or write them myself,and I don't understand everything they say. |
| I'm well-versed in Japanese pronunciation thanks to anime, but as for vocabulary I mostly owe that to Jisho.org, comments on NicoNico videos, and the Japanese side of Twitter. |
Some of you never watched Bakugan Battle Brawlers on TeleToon in 2008 and it shows. |
| Not enough to speak it but i can recognize about 12-15 words. Common words and other anime type words like insults. |
| My waifu is the most wonderful waifu. Mai Valentine. We're freaking out that we're running out of time, but to do what? Should i stop and think of that? Is there something i could do to slow it down? Live in a day for once, instead of watch it sprinting by |
| Yes but my skills are a bit rusty as its been hard for me to keep up with my studies recently. Im trying to rewrite all my langauge notes but my home environment isnt very conducive to my independent studies. Im hoping i can by this time next year get through at least one of the 2 textbooks i have |
This post is brought to you by your local transfem gamer goblin. Will not tolerate bigotry and will fight against "anti-woke" sentiment to make the anime community a safer place.   |
| I've learned a couple scattered words, but not nearly enough to understand most sentences. And honestly, that was mostly from me actually studying Japanese, rather than from just watching. I've picked up embarrassingly little from anime itself lol. I need to expand my vocabulary. I can detect when a character is using a polite tone tho, so that's neat. |
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| I can make out a sentence here or there, or pick out individual words, but otherwise, no. |
| I understand, I studied Japanese at school but dropped out of studying it. |
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| Well I sure do know what oppai means. |
| I pick up some sentences, and if the story is simple then I can somewhat understand what's going on without subs - tho I only done this with Japanese drama. I think I mostly improved from watching Japanese idols' activities like variety shows or livestreams and reading manga in Japanese, not really from watching anime. I'm not that great in picking up languages from watching shows. Same with English - I used to watch American shows and movies with my younger brother growing up, and his English improved a lot from that but I couldn't. I only improved after going to formal classes and actually using it in daily conversation. |
| Enough that I can have something on in the background and know whats being said for the most part. Still need to look up roughly 1/2 the kanji when reading. |
| Gomenesorry, ore only understand a few basic words, like beddo, and boku need to yamate kudestop before ore say something baka. |
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧May the winds of change transform you entirely.*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ |
| Contextually I can understand some simple stuff and I've actually never studied the language For example we were on a boat and there were some older japanese people behind us in line and I understood what they were wondering about when looking at items etc. More context than language but I got some details down by hearing a few words they said. Felt weird as I can't do that with like other asian languages or even european ones |
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| As much as I like anime I don't have the slightest interest in learning Japanese. |
| Imagine how boring this world would be without Japan - a comment at youtube |
| hmmm.. about as much as I undetand this title of yours |
| If you reply back to me and I never respond, I lost interest and don't care. Sorry about that. |
| From learning anime, I learnt basically nothing, from studying Japanese in school and in my free time, I've learnt about 700 words and sentence structures are now easy for me to understand mostly. It's mostly just I've gotta learn a ton of words now 0_0 |
Reply to Spast1c
From learning anime, I learnt basically nothing, from studying Japanese in school and in my free time, I've learnt about 700 words and sentence structures are now easy for me to understand mostly. It's mostly just I've gotta learn a ton of words now 0_0
| @Spast1c But shouldn't you now be able to learn new words from anime? |
| I understand some fairly easy sentences, and words. But that's about it. |
Protect the smile!  |
| I can get some small easy words, but thats all, I sadly dont consider this "understand" Japanese tho, more like knowing how to ask for the bathroom in other language. |
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Reply to ApfelMyName
@Spast1c But shouldn't you now be able to learn new words from anime?
| @ApfelMyName I mean I guess? I don't really pick them up to be honest |
| I’ve taken a few beginner level classes eons ago. For what’s worth, I can watch and understand the anime I enjoy, which are relatively easy to understand anyway. Sometimes I listen to the episode audio only in bed. I also watch the news, listen to anime radio from time to time and I spent the last few days listening to the first volume of Ascendance of a Bookworm Japanese audio book. My comprehension varies a lot. Sometimes I understand a lot, other times I have some trouble. My very rough guesstimate is that I understood around 70 to 80% of the audio book as a whole. The audio book is actually not that bad, especially when compared to something like the Yomiuri Shinbun podcast. |
| You can buy lossless digital music from your favorite Japanese artists on https://ototoy.jp/. The songs are all DRM-free and you can re-download your purchased albums as you wish. Show your support to your favorite artist if you can! ps. if you are looking for Japanese albums, you have to search it in Japanese (not romaji). Just copy and paste the name. For those who want to learn Japanese through anime Resources for learning the language |
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