I don't know Tobberoth. This is just my impression. I feel like if I empty my mind and let the meanings enter by themselves instead of hunting them, I understand japanese with less effort.

With this post, I feel like a fool giving advice to someone far above his level, but still, I can't understand how you could have trouble to understand audio from media.

mentat_kgs Wrote:I don't know Tobberoth. This is just my impression. I feel like if I empty my mind and let the meanings enter by themselves instead of hunting them, I understand japanese with less effort.

With this post, I feel like a fool giving advice to someone far above his level, but still, I can't understand how you could have trouble to understand audio from media.

It's not that I don't understand audio from media, it's more that I want techniques on how to learn words from it since there's such an insane amount of words I've never heard said every minute of a game show. Seems that most people seem to be of the impression that you more or less can't learn words like that... you just have to learn them, then you will know them when they are spoken.

I mean picking out sentences is really easy so I don't really know about Khazus list.. I've never had a problem doing that except possibly my first few weeks in Japan. The point is that picking out a sentence is meaningless if I don't understand the words in it And not understanding it makes it boring to watch. So I guess what I need to train the most is the technique of watching something and ignoring the stuff I don't understand yet being able to enjoy it.

^_^ yeah, it seems that's the right feeling. Enjoy it even without understanding much.

sutebun Wrote:4) Watch things that interest you so you can watch them over and over.

5) Repeat things even if you don't understand them. Try to imitate the characters. This is more fun with variety shows/comedian acts. They are typically short and have a lot of energy so it is fun to copy them. If the comedians are famous, you can also probably impress any Japanese friends if you get good at the act.

Repeat these two steps a lot. If you encounter a strange word repeat the sentence in your head immediately. Over time you will develop the ability to "look back" at the sentence just said and analyze it in your head even if you didn't understand it immediately.

This method is also useful to extract important information from what is being said. When you think a sentence contains important information (e.g. like the time of a meeting) repeat it in your head immediately and then scan it for the information you need.

I first used this method unconsciously when I actively studied English ~8-10 years ago. Two years ago I spent some time in China and successfully used this method to write out the pinyin of sentences I heard even though my knowledge of Chinese was limited to ~150 words or less.

migge Wrote:Repeat these two steps a lot. If you encounter a strange word repeat the sentence in your head immediately. Over time you will develop the ability to "look back" at the sentence just said and analyze it in your head even if you didn't understand it immediately.

This method is also useful to extract important information from what is being said. When you think a sentence contains important information (e.g. like the time of a meeting) repeat it in your head immediately and then scan it for the information you need.

I first used this method unconsciously when I actively studied English ~8-10 years ago. Two years ago I spent some time in China and successfully used this method to write out the pinyin of sentences I heard even though my knowledge of Chinese was limited to ~150 words or less.

Personally I've always been of the opinion that this should be avoided at all costs. During the time you replay sentences in your mind and analyze them, the show keeps going. Instead of listening to 5 sentences and understanding 4 of them, you get stuck on that one sentence you didn't understand so you miss all of them.

I'm more of the type that thinks:

Listening is listening.
Reading is reading.
Writing is writing.
Speaking is speaking.

Basically, for me, TV is strictly for listening.
Learn vocab from books, articles, manga, light novels, etc since the words will
never leave the page..... :-p

Transcribing TV is just painful slow. Over time, if you read enough, you'll notice more words that come up in the drama. SO just read, read, read and TV will get easier in time.

Another option is to download the scripts/closed captions and review the words before watching the drama.

http://jdrama.cc is great for closed captions of current dramas.

The Dramanote site is http://dramanote.seesaa.net

Nukemarine Wrote:Heck, there may be a tool that lets you "time mark" video on your computer (activated by the space bar or something) so you can go back a see parts you don't get.

With KMPlayer you can do exactly that by pressing "P". Then, you can access your bookmarks through the contextual menu.

chamcham Wrote:http://jdrama.cc is great for closed captions of current dramas.

The Dramanote site is http://dramanote.seesaa.net

Unfortunately, the jdrama site appears to have closed, but the dramanote one is still up and running. Thanks chamcham!

tokyostyle Wrote:Tobberoth,

Do you have the option of watching it with a native speaker? I find that using the pause button and asking for an explanation of something I didn't understand is superior to every other method I've heard of.

On the other hand the "get a girlfriend" method might not be an option if you aren't still in Japan.

Nah my korean girlfriend is fluent in Japanese... but it just becomes really boring to watch anything if I have to pause it constantly, especially for her. She's my girlfriend, not my teacher

Tobberoth Wrote:Personally I've always been of the opinion that this should be avoided at all costs. During the time you replay sentences in your mind and analyze them, the show keeps going. Instead of listening to 5 sentences and understanding 4 of them, you get stuck on that one sentence you didn't understand so you miss all of them.

For me that works in a parallel way. Maybe because the ratio of things said vs. important information is small. The point is of course to miss less information.

just being curious about his for a while, what is aprox mine level if i can walk to the kitchen and keep understanding the broad idea what is being talked about in anime, but i cant do this with dorama.
also about reading manga i can understand most manga for about 50% if i spend mine sweet time on it.

mine pro`s are kanji reconision, mostly due to to heisig and i estimate mine voculbary at around 750 words, mine big negative factor is having big trouble with grammar.

on a note about this topic:

i notice now and then when i rewatch a show i can understand words that where "background noise" before, so in that respect i think learning words trough books is beter then trough television.