I'm thinking of getting and using subs2srs and wanted to know what dramas are good for beginners.

On a related note, I'm a big fan of Dragon Ball/Z and thought it might be fun to try watching it in Japanese but I can't find any videos with Japanese subtitles. The voices are either too fast or too hard to accurately figure out the syllables they're saying. Does anyone know if there's a place that has scripts for anime in Japanese?

I just finished watching 私が恋愛できない理由　（わたしがれんあいできないりゆう）
It's kind of a girl story but I found it really fun to watch. The overall drama was really easy to understand, maybe you will like it. Make sure to get the Japanese subs, they have it on d-addicts.

http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Watashi_ga_Ren...inai_Riyuu

*You're probably going to have to torrent. I don't think you will find a lot of videos with japanese subs without doing so.

[s0apgun]

+ 1 for Watashi ga Renai Dekinai Riyuu
Yuusha Yoshihiko to Maou no Shiro [The Hero Yoshihiko and the Demon King's Castle]
Yuusha Yoshihiko to Akuryou no Kagi [The Hero Yoshihiko and the Evil Key]
G.T.O. - Great Teacher Onizuka (Although this one was hardsubbed not sure if you could sub2srs it :/]

You can find Japanese subtitles for anime at http://kitsunekko.net/subtitles/japanese/

I started watching 日本人の知らない日本語 with Japanese subs but it was taking me well over 2 hours to get through a single 30 min episode so I stopped (plus I got thoroughly sick of the non-natives in it, not to mention the deliberately obscure language).

I tried an anime and that was much easier, but it still felt like a pretty inefficient use of the time study-wise compared to just reading (at my stage).

s0apgun Wrote:+ 1 for Watashi ga Renai Dekinai Riyuu
Yuusha Yoshihiko to Maou no Shiro [The Hero Yoshihiko and the Demon King's Castle]
Yuusha Yoshihiko to Akuryou no Kagi [The Hero Yoshihiko and the Evil Key]
G.T.O. - Great Teacher Onizuka (Although this one was hardsubbed not sure if you could sub2srs it :/]

You can find Japanese subtitles for anime at http://kitsunekko.net/subtitles/japanese/

Hmm only DB Kai... Oh well I can try that. How do you open the files though?

There's a high chance that the subs you find on kitsunekko.net are incorrectly timed, which makes using them for just watching more trouble that it's worth because you need to retime (with Aegisub, probably) them. Worthwhile if you subs2srs them though.
To use them with the video file you can just tell your video player where to find them if your video player supports that kind of subtitles (most should). Or if you just want the script you can open them in a subtitle viewer/editor such as Subtitle Edit.

Aikynaro Wrote:There's a high chance that the subs you find on kitsunekko.net are incorrectly timed, which makes using them for just watching more trouble that it's worth because you need to retime (with Aegisub, probably) them. Worthwhile if you subs2srs them though.
To use them with the video file you can just tell your video player where to find them if your video player supports that kind of subtitles (most should). Or if you just want the script you can open them in a subtitle viewer/editor such as Subtitle Edit.

Anyway to view them without the video? Like can I open the .ass file in notepad or something?

@OP: The best dramas for beginners are the various high school, adolescence dramas because they have everyday language and the crossover of textbook vocabulary is high.

If you end up watching one of the boy-meets-girl-someone-gets-sick-and-dies variety you might want to read up the disease in English so that you can ignore the parts that explain the disease. (The explanations can be very terse and very fast and filled with minor medical jargon, however all you actually need to know is the symptom progression.)

JALUP has a very extensive drama media guide and anything with a single star should be appropriate for beginners. (The stars are the level of Japanese in the drama.)

I would select a drama based on the availability of Japanese subs so that you can subs2srs it immediately after watching and so that future watchings contain the subs.

learningkanji Wrote:

Aikynaro Wrote:There's a high chance that the subs you find on kitsunekko.net are incorrectly timed, which makes using them for just watching more trouble that it's worth because you need to retime (with Aegisub, probably) them. Worthwhile if you subs2srs them though.
To use them with the video file you can just tell your video player where to find them if your video player supports that kind of subtitles (most should). Or if you just want the script you can open them in a subtitle viewer/editor such as Subtitle Edit.

Anyway to view them without the video? Like can I open the .ass file in notepad or something?

Sub files are just txt files, so yes, you can open them up in Notepad or Notepad++.

Here's a blog post I wrote recently about how to use SubtitleEdit to convert subs to a text file that's a little cleaner than the standard file format. It strips out a lot of the crap (formatting and other data) and leaves just the timings and Japanese subtitles.

http://bit.ly/1j1wRPT

I keep the file open Notepad++, and only resort to referencing the subtitles when I need to. I prefer this to messing around with re-timings, and it works great for watching anime or drama on subscriptions sites like Crunchyroll and Netflix. The less time I have to spend dicking around with tools and files, the more time I have for studying.

If you can endure the recommendation of 私が恋愛できない理由 then I applaud you. That's one of those dramas where middle-aged women don't know what sex is. The innocence of women in many Japanese dramas is ridiculously overplayed.

Anyway as for my recommendation if you want to get probably the best one this season I'm guessing it'll be 失恋ショコラティエ. Of the season premiers I've watched it seems the most promising. Whereas many dramas play the innocence angle, this drama has Ishihara Satomi playing a fairly dumb and oblivious girl. Also it's her eating chocolate in slow motion for several minutes which is my kind of thing. Whether or not it's accessible I wasn't paying attention to when I first watched it, but it is one of those "everyday dramas" (read: no special terminology such as a medical drama).

When I find a drama I wanna use, how do I find subtitles for that drama? And do I have to download the episode for subs2srs?

learningkanji Wrote:When I find a drama I wanna use, how do I find subtitles for that drama? And do I have to download the episode for subs2srs?

The main two resources are the Drama Addicts Subtitle Index and the J-Subbers site. Also you should look for the subs first as there are many dramas where the Japanese subtitles are not available.

Having the episode is optional but without it you can't get video snaps, audio clips or video clips. Having the audio that matches the subtitles is really the meat of the feature set of subs2srs.

I watch movies/videos/anime only once (but I choose to watch just those that have Japanese and English subtitles available). After that this what I do:
- with ffmepg, convert video to mp3
- in LibreOffice create a parallel version of the subtitles (English to the left, Japanese to the right)
- when studying, listen to the mp3 while reading the subtitles until I understand/follow the dialogs/text without subtitles
- once in a while, listen to the mp3 on a way to work or when I'm away from my computer

BTW, does anybody happen to have Japanese subtitles for Samurai Champloo? They don’t seem to exist on kitsunekko.

Sorry for the bump, but I had a question for anyone who tried using Watashi ga Renai Dekinai Riyuu for subs2srs.

I've encountered a problem almost immediately, and I'm not completely sure what it is. I figure it's either:
A) My listening ability is simply not yet up to the task
B) The subtitles don't match the spoken dialog

After using a sound program to slow down one of the lines and meticulously checking every syllable, I'm fairly convinced it's both, but mostly the latter. The syllables just aren't there. Or am I wrong?

Of course even on the ones that look correct, I think I'm still doing it wrong.. I find myself spending too much time adding notes, effectively attempting to poorly retranslate the sentences to a more literal meaning compared to the original English subtitle file. Am I supposed to avoid doing this, and just try to remember the English translation? I feel the way I'm doing it is inefficient, as it doesn't seem helpful trying to learn more than a few words/phrases with each card. But then the English translation given in many cases seems very loose and poorly suited for learning, so I don't quite know what to do.

Shiro kuma café.
It's aimed at both kids and adults, with jokes for both. The voices are all easy to understand, and you don't need to be fluent to watch it.

Anyone know any good romantic comedies that have come out in the past year or two? If you search the internet, you can find lists for some older shows but I haven't seen a recent compendium.

anotherjohn Wrote:I started watching 日本人の知らない日本語 with Japanese subs but it was taking me well over 2 hours to get through a single 30 min episode so I stopped (plus I got thoroughly sick of the non-natives in it, not to mention the deliberately obscure language).

I tried an anime and that was much easier, but it still felt like a pretty inefficient use of the time study-wise compared to just reading (at my stage).

日本人の知らない日本語

Grammar question: could they have also said 日本人が知らない日本語? The use of "の" in these situations always kind of throws me....

Thanks.

You wouldn't call Hamlet, "The Sad Story about the King of Denmark's Son" or Jaws "Mandibles"

The title is the title.

PotbellyPig Wrote:Anyone know any good romantic comedies that have come out in the past year or two? If you search the internet, you can find lists for some older shows but I haven't seen a recent compendium.

I liked Saikou No Rikon. It's not good for a first drama thou because there is a fair amount of fast talking in parts.

yogert909 Wrote:

PotbellyPig Wrote:Anyone know any good romantic comedies that have come out in the past year or two? If you search the internet, you can find lists for some older shows but I haven't seen a recent compendium.

I liked Saikou No Rikon. It's not good for a first drama thou because there is a fair amount of fast talking in parts.

Thanks. I'm not concerned about difficulty right now if I can get Japanese subtitles. If you know of any others, please let me know.

PotbellyPig Wrote:

yogert909 Wrote:

PotbellyPig Wrote:Anyone know any good romantic comedies that have come out in the past year or two? If you search the internet, you can find lists for some older shows but I haven't seen a recent compendium.

I liked Saikou No Rikon. It's not good for a first drama thou because there is a fair amount of fast talking in parts.

Thanks. I'm not concerned about difficulty right now if I can get Japanese subtitles. If you know of any others, please let me know.

Pretty much all dramas with Eita are quite good.