K so I notice that most of my study materials are for a fairly clean cut version of Japanese where every sentence gets finished and nothing is hardout casual.

From the get go i've always had a little trouble understanding bits and pieces of casual speech. It's almost like it has its own grammar... or something like that.

What's the best way to get up to speed on this? Cos it's really starting to bug me.

I started out with Japanese the Manga Way for basic grammar; that had plenty of casual speech in the examples, so when finished one had familiarity with the politeness levels (Mangajin too, they both tag sentences w/ PL2, PL3, et cetera).

Just get into casual Japanese. It's not really this whole different thing, so basic exposure gets you familiar with it. I also learned to understand the basic Kansai stuff this way. It's just, neither of these things require concerted study. It's still Japanese, so if you know Japanese, you just pick it up.

simple, go to real Japanese, you know media that's made for Japanese people.

Yeah I have plenty of that. But I can see the same little thing over and over again and still get kinda confused as to the exact meaning being conveyed. Granted, the more I pick up the easier it is to work this stuff out but still... theres gotta be something that can fast track me.

Stay away from the news?

Watch lots of anime(or drama, or whatever you like that has lots of casual speech). The slang and contractions sound similar enough to the non-slang version that I think you will be able to catch on. I think it's easier to learn slang by listening rather than reading. Then, when you read it in manga and such, it'll already be familiar.

Use sbs2srs for Crows Zero.

I swear it will work wonders. Every character mumbles EVERYTHING and contracts everything. You'll like it.

The subs can be found on this site, but I forgot which topic. Its a megaupload link.

Erubey Wrote:Use sbs2srs for Crows Zero.

I swear it will work wonders. Every character mumbles EVERYTHING and contracts everything. You'll like it.

The subs can be found on this site, but I forgot which topic. Its a megaupload link.

I might just have to check it out then

Also the Gokusen 3 series deck
http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Sub2srs_decks

All the students talk well...like high schoolers. Though a little bit cheesy.

Hmm, I was going to do Gokusen 3 but it did seem cheezy.

For casual I have Hana Yori Dango and Around 40 lined up. Can't sound like a high schooler when I'm almost 35 now, can I.

Did I mention how much I love subs2srs? Anyone do a Donation drive thread for him yet?