My way of studying is browsing Japanese pages with Rikaikun turned on, and while reading it I move the cursor on unknown vocabulary to learn both it's reading and meaning in English, sometimes adding interesting or important ones to Anki. I make alright progress with this.

But I've been thinking maybe studying both reading and meaning at the same time could be dragging me a little.
Now I'm thinking maybe it could work out better if for now on, when I read Japanese (or listen to), I simply just read it, and not think or worry about meaning to any of the new vocabulary/kanji I come across, so therefor when I'm surfing the net I could set Rikaikun to only display reading and not meaning of words with kanji, being able to read everything. I do have the other 2 alphabets completely memorized. If I kept at it, and read a whole lot of Japanese all the time, I should be able to remember the reading of words eventually, and figure out what they mean through media, news etc when I hear familiar words.

Obviously, native speakers have to learn it that kind of way, but for an English speaker, would this work just as well or would it make the learning process slower than getting English meaning and translating-to-self involved? If anybody has attempted immersing in Japanese this way, I would like to know how it worked for you. Which of these two ways of learning would you prefer?

Well, I tried that with modern Greek and it didn't work. Reading a passage without looking up the words I didn't know simply meant that in the end I didn't know those particular words. "Figuring out" the meaning wasn't happening.

I think you'd be doing a psychological favor by learning direct translations. Of course they'll often require some fine tuning to match the real intended meanings, but you'll be in the ballpark. By going "by immersion", without looking up meanings, you'll be left without an anchor point, lost in the sea of words ;P I think it's worth having something to swim with, no matter how shabby.

Also, for having tried to focus on readings before, I started to develop the feeling that Japanese words had vague meanings, or that Japanese itself was open to interpretation.

What you're talking about doing is extensive reading. To be able to learn words from context you need to know 98-99% of the words in a given text, the longer the text the better. Studies have shown that extensive reading is a fantastic way to acquire vocabulary, so if you want to do this keep in mind the 98-99% rule; if you find yourself not knowing more than 2-3 words per page, the thing your reading is too difficult for extensive reading; you need to find something easier.

Just reading without looking stuff up is great, but it's not study. It's just reading. If your intent is to study you should probably have some way of looking things up. I have read a great deal of things while looking up nothing and certainly I learnt words, but less than I do with my current strategy of reading then checking/looking up stuff later.

ありがとう　for the replies

Aikynaro Wrote:Just reading without looking stuff up is great, but it's not study. It's just reading. If your intent is to study you should probably have some way of looking things up. I have read a great deal of things while looking up nothing and certainly I learnt words, but less than I do with my current strategy of reading then checking/looking up stuff later.

So your saying you memorize just the reading of the vocabulary you come across at the moment when reading, and then wait until after to research their meanings, instead of both at the same time?
With Rikaikun I've been doing both at the same time, but maybe that's the part I need to change. Reading first, meaning after.

vrada501 Wrote:My way of studying is browsing Japanese pages with Rikaikun turned on, and while reading it I move the cursor on unknown vocabulary to learn both it's reading and meaning in English, sometimes adding interesting or important ones to Anki. I make alright progress with this.

But I've been thinking maybe studying both reading and meaning at the same time could be dragging me a little.
Now I'm thinking maybe it could work out better if for now on, when I read Japanese (or listen to), I simply just read it, and not think or worry about meaning to any of the new vocabulary/kanji I come across, so therefor when I'm surfing the net I could set Rikaikun to only display reading and not meaning of words with kanji, being able to read everything. I do have the other 2 alphabets completely memorized. If I kept at it, and read a whole lot of Japanese all the time, I should be able to remember the reading of words eventually, and figure out what they mean through media, news etc when I hear familiar words.

Obviously, native speakers have to learn it that kind of way, but for an English speaker, would this work just as well or would it make the learning process slower than getting English meaning and translating-to-self involved? If anybody has attempted immersing in Japanese this way, I would like to know how it worked for you. Which of these two ways of learning would you prefer?

So you "read" without understanding the text you're reading? Sounds torturous.

When I use Anki to learn vocab, I prefer to only worry about the reading of the words too, but I generally have an idea of the meaning of the words I'm studying. Sometimes I don't, but I mostly do.

And I don't do that much vocab study anyway anymore, because I decided to focus mainly on the spoken language (and manga that have furigana) for now. Then, once I am good enough at understanding spoken Japanese/reading furigana, I will be able to do what you are describing: start reading stuff with Rikaichan set to only display the readings. Maybe supplement it with some Anki drills that do the same, if I want to make some quick progress.

To answer your last question: yes, trying to learn the meaning of words from media alone will be a very slow process, especially for a beginner or low intermediate. I've been using Anki sentences to speed it up, with the audio playing in the question. It's been doing wonders for my ability to follow along with native media.

In conclusion, the key to language learning through immersion is comprehensible input. Maybe I misunderstood your post, but you seem to be suggesting the exact opposite. Not gonna work.

vrada501 Wrote:would this work just as well or would it make the learning process slower than getting English meaning and translating-to-self involved?

Consider that if you learn 'like a native', it will take you 10 years to understand the language like an advanced grade schooler and twenty years to understand the language like an adult.
(Technically you can't learn a new language like your native language because the language parts of your brain are already developed, but, you can go read up on that if you really care about the technical details. Google up Stephen Krashen.)

Anyway, a more practical approach is needed. If you're trying to avoid textbooks and flash cards and simply learn by reading then I think you should learn about the L-R method. There's a long thread centered around it here,
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=6840

But the information buried in there is easier to go through from this summary page:
http://users.bestweb.net/~siom/martian_m...ssages.htm

Be forewarned that learning by 'reading' instead of by 'drilling' doesn't actually mean learning without effort or study, it's just a different kind of effort and study.

vrada501 Wrote:ありがとう　for the replies

Aikynaro Wrote:Just reading without looking stuff up is great, but it's not study. It's just reading. If your intent is to study you should probably have some way of looking things up. I have read a great deal of things while looking up nothing and certainly I learnt words, but less than I do with my current strategy of reading then checking/looking up stuff later.

So your saying you memorize just the reading of the vocabulary you come across at the moment when reading, and then wait until after to research their meanings, instead of both at the same time?
With Rikaikun I've been doing both at the same time, but maybe that's the part I need to change. Reading first, meaning after.

Well, yeah, that's right. I might have misread you before. And yes, I think reading first and looking up later is the best way to go.
Though note that I read with physical books mostly, so it's vastly easier to put a sticky note next to a word and go back later than it is to look it up immediately. I'm not sure how well the principle applies to reading online. But sure - in general I think that reading and studying should be separated to make reading more enjoyable.

Though it also depends on how many words you don't know. If there are enough words on the page that you don't know that the whole thing makes no sense, you'll be wasting your time without the lookups. If it's just a few words every so often then reading first and looking up later is good, I think.

(oh, and I don't 'memorise' the reading of the vocab when reading - I just read it. Who wants to stop and memorise stuff?)

A lot depends on your level. If you don't know a lot of words, there are probably better ways to acquire vocabulary than reading a lot. I basically agree with what Stansfield123 and SomeCallMeChris are saying about learning methods at lower levels. How good are you at Japanese, broadly speaking?