Hey folks,

I promptly followed the advice of Nukemarine, he gave here (http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=3666&page=1) and just srsed one episode of Nihongo no shiranai nihonjin and could follow the first episode after reviewing it without subtitles while watching it and hope to get more successes like that when continueing doing the Subs2SRS thing with the series in future on a regular and daily basis.

I wonder if there are other users who had problems/still have problems with listening comprehension and could report such a success (mainly by Subs2SRS as proposed by Nukemarine in the topic above! Any other stories are naturally welcome).

This said, my listening comprehension is still bad, but I have the feeling that this is the right way "getting used" to the language called japanese by Dramas (this one is especially fun. I first did the recommended "nobody knows", which was really boring to me doing, so i dumped it and started something fun after aphasiac, a user, pointed out this drama so kindly, yeha!).

Cheers! \o

So how is this not AJATT? AJATT is a myth really. It's not anything a site full of nothingness but awesome nothingness. Khatz says to watch a drama a pause it all the time and listen to the word and add it to an srs deck just like that. khatzu supports Subs2SRS. Khatzu is smart if you read his site at least once or know what it is and you do anything in japanese for an extended period of time boom your doing AJATT and he gets all the credit.

Listening & Comprehension
What I do is listen and watch old Anime, trying to understand as much as i can. Depending on the Anime, i can understand many things quite well, while sometimes i don't understand anything at all. That can be because i don't know the words, or there is a grammar point in use, which i havent been learning up to now. Most of those Anime don't come with subtitles. And those who do, i prefer the Japanese-Subs, making it relatively easy to follow, and to look up words etc.

Old Anime seem to be great in using, what i would call "natural language," depending on the genre. For instance トラップ一家物語 has helped me understanding 敬語 a bit better. スプーンおばさん comes with Japanese subtitles, which really is needed, for the actors do tend to speak in natural speed. So many things just would get lost in translation. ;-) And then there are Anime like 秘密のアッコちゃん, which is just watch, and can understand quite well, most of the time. I also watch those old Miyazaki Anime, some of which are about everday life, using natural language. Just listening and trying to understand really helps me most.

I seem to be way beyond the "getting used to" phase. When i was starting watching Anime for instance, no matter which one, i was not able to do it for more than an hour. When i did, i was just passively listening, because i could not understand anything. And when i was watching, only with English subs, which made me read English subs. Now i can watch Anime hours on end, without getting a headache, and i can actually understand what is going on.

Subs-2-SRS, i was thinking of using it, subs-2-srsing one episode of　花丸幼稚園 or モッケ. This didn't turn out very well, so i stopped it, keeping word lists while watching, and notes on grammar points, is working better for me.

So, just listen for as long as you can, to anything you like. Drama, Anime, you name it. And with listening, i mean not letting anything run in the background, while doing other things - active listening.

AJATT
It's a great source for getting inspiration, as is Antimoon, and some other motivational websites. I was reading both, to some extend at least, to get some ideas for things i can incorporate in my own learning process. There is nothing new there, that was invented by those guys, that wasn't there before. Listening, for an extended period of time, translating, use of material to improve the process, and things of that nature. But that is not to be expected. And if it is done by individuals it is not "AJATT did it for me," but the effort taken by the individual who wants to learn. Having an open mind, an eye for inspiration, and the will to give seemingly crazy ideas a chance, is all that is needed. In the end it comes down to the individual what he or she does with it.

At first I read this post, and was confused because I couldn't find the part where you said it didn't work for you. Then I read the original post and I understood...

I've always found listening comprehension to be a difficult thing to bring up on your own, but that you'll find one day you look back on things you used to watch and all of a sudden understand it...

For the brief time I used subs2srs, i was just putting single, individual lines with words I didn't understand into my vocab deck. The audio would come out of nowhere, it was distracting, and I didn't really like it too much. I was treating them like vocab cards...
I put them in a separate subs2srs deck, but still treated them like vocab cards. I didn't like that either. I think watching the episode, subs2srsing/decoding/iPodding it, and going back to it later would be effective. Maybe even find someone to discuss it with, so you can bounce back and forth and perhaps bring up places that you didn't realize that you misunderstood? That's what we did in class and I feel it was effective.

AJATT

Quote:AJATT is a myth really. It's not anything a site full of nothingness
...
you do anything in japanese for an extended period of time boom your doing AJATT and he gets all the credit.

This is how I've felt about the AJATT "method" the whole time. As an inspirational blog, sure I guess it's OK, but there's lots of those. While he does have his own opinions and experiences, putting a blanket title on things that any serious language learner/teacher will tell you doesn't really count as really coming up with a 'method' in my book...

re: AJATT: For a show site about nothing, it's pretty good!

People complain sometimes that slice of life shows are apparently "about nothing."

Why can't I / How do I use strikethrough on this forum? Feature request?


I'm not surprised you were able to follow the episode after having looked up / studied the unknown words. Looking up / studying the unknown words greatly increases comprehension, I find.

You'll find that when you watch the second episode, you're a little less confused than when you watched the first episode, but still almost as confused. I'm not really sure where this gain comes from. My guess is understanding the setting and characters improves your ability to guess the meaning, and maybe a little on top of that through character catchphrases or common words the scriptwriter likes to use.

I make subtitle tracks for Suite Precure. You can get them on Kitsunekko. They are formatted such that they are compatible with subtitled releases. I'm very late on doing the latest episode, though. I'm also negligent on actually studying their content.

I really tried to do it with Tsuki no Koibito, but the subtitles were off and I couldn't rip it properly with Subs2Srs. I didn't want to re-time it myself, so I'm trying to think of some other way to get listening practice...

Personal Experience:
# 2 anime
# 3 songs

Time Done:
3-4 weeks at 1 hour or less per day.

Outcome:
With proper preparation of the cards you can make massive strides in your hearing skill and listening comphrension, which affects your overall understanding.

Successes:
# Increasing my understanding of words when I hear them due to learning them from hearing rather than reading.
# Learned 20 or so grammar points I didn't know.
# Estimated improvement: 5% (up from 35%)

Challenges:
# Going back to sentences was hard.
# Getting the process right was hard.
# Sometimes you get stuff that isn't very useful or is outdated (ex. Aizen in Bleach uses a lot of grammar and vocabulary that you won't find in the dictionary. He is 1000s of years old, I think.)

Pro Tips:
# Have audio and video on your card.
# Kanji with no furigana on front is best. Furigana on back for checking. (Trust your ears.)
# Have an English translation if you are not intermediate or above!
# Have a picture on the front of the scene (super simple to do and no extra effort).
# Do your test gloss first. Don't look up new words unless you have to when repping - this is a part of the production stage. Use 'Translator Aggregater' for faster results.
# Pad the video so you can see the whole picture of how it fits in.

Process them like this:
1) Video x1;
2) Audio + sentence (until you can hear the words and follow the Kanji);
3) Check back (furigana, meanings, etc.);
4) Rate as needed.
ー Additional step: Record unknown word in your word book (see below).

Notes:
A book you have words with sentences that you read when you have time - it's more useful than an SRS in that there's no spacing and you avoid double entries as your subs2sr deck has this vocab in a VASTLY better format than having another deck would. You can also rub things out when you start to feel comfortable with them in your deck (computers can't really do everything).

kainzero Wrote:I really tried to do it with Tsuki no Koibito, but the subtitles were off and I couldn't rip it properly with Subs2Srs. I didn't want to re-time it myself, so I'm trying to think of some other way to get listening practice...

Dude, Subs2srs is honestly the way to go for listening. Why not try it as below? Even a high beginner can process an anime using the speed settings on Windows Media Player.

# Use Mylyrics and Windows Media Player.
１）Set WMP to half speed (Enhancements>Media Speed)
２）Listen for end of sentence pauses.
３）Mark point.
４）Speed up as needed.

*A 30 minute anime will take 45-60 minutes tops.

Wink!
red

@Cranks: What kind of Doramas/Anime's did you SRS already? Perhaps we could share the decks I'm doing "nihongo no shiranai nihonjin" and I must say it's really fun watching it as a foreigner learning actually Japanese. I learnt keigo by watching the second episode, haha. And you learn how to speak like a man and not like a textbook.

To be honest my method is a bit different: I actually watch the whole series IN Anki, so I skip the cards and try to understand as much as possible, having the japanese readings and the english translation* in front of my eye at the same time and listening not to "chopped" up audio but to "one-line" audio - and I do this for like 50 cards 3 times. Every day.

* when one picks a drama for srs, it is important to have convenient subtitle formats for both Jp/Eng subs (if one needs Eng as a beginner f.e.) of the drama one wants to srs (or pick a drama you like and have subs for, nothing else), because .sub files are inconvenient and blow up your deck size (+ takes long loading the database -> crashes on slow computers.).


My deck looks like this so far:

Question: Image of the Scene|Audio|Expression (the sentence being said, without Furigana)
Answer: Reading of the sentence (regenerated automatically; furigana)|Translation|Lookup words (vocabulary used I don't understand)|Defintions (in Japanese.. This is on "trial". I try getting the J-J stuff into my anki decks slowly. An experiment, therefore an extra field. If it does not work out and confuses me more than it helps me I will prolly delete it. Since I have just srsed one show, I have to see further.)

With me it's like that, I do the Genki 2 workbook listening comprehension. When I start the first track I understand like 10% of what's said (if I read the dialogue written I skip it and understand basically 100% lol Compared to my reading skills - thanks to Anki (~4000 vocabs) - my listening comprehension one's are pretty odd), but when I replay the track for the second, the third and the forth time I get more and more every time I replay it; I pick up more words - and it seems to make sense to me. Also I listen to the dialogues of the Chapters more than once and really do the "repeat the phrases" task, which seemed ridiculous first, but is really effective doing.

Therefore I'd really like to continue the textbook work (Asriel, I've sent you a PM. *offtopic*)

hey, tori, good you started on that! it's a funny drama and has a good mix of japanese politeness levels. Also I find their stereotypical set of students at the Japanese language school pretty accurate compared to the learners I've met IRL (businessman, bored housewife, anime obsessive, chinese exchange student, german girl who's amazing at languages, cool black dude who wants to hit on J-chicks).

I'm wondering though, how do you find the grammar? It was soo tough for me - so many contractions, missing particles, slang, new grammar structures i've never seen before. Actually tae kim didn't come in useful so much, and I had to google alot! Plus they all take so fast - Native media a world apart from pre-made sentences!

For example, I remember one sentence early on, where the subs say:

おばあちゃんは黙っといて。

I couldn't work out what っといて meant, until googling made me realise っといて = contraction of ておいて = te form of ておく

so sentence means "old woman, be quiet (in preparation for what I'm about to say / do)". the scary thing is though, I'm not 100% sure if I'm correct alot of the time!

Also I found the language school principle impossible to follow! What he says doesn't seem to match the japanese subs *at all*. Either he's talking stupidly fast, or he's speaking with a weird accent...either way I had to suspend all his sentences lol

Nothing major, but Tae Kim mentions ????,???. Or at least now it does.

(since I will have my driving test tomorrow, just briefly)

@aphasiac: Concerning the grammar problem you mentioned. When I get to see the subtitles it's virtually no problem, but once it comes to hearing and interpreting the sentence being said aloud and fast (slangy), it gets really difficult. Only after srsing an episode watching the episode (.avi) without subtitles was comprehensible (about 100%).

-teoku gets contracted to -toku (-toite is the te-form then).
There is a nice chapter summarising stuff like slang/contractions in "Japanese with Manga 2 (or was it 3?)", if you are interested.

NoSleepTilFluent Wrote:So how is this not AJATT? AJATT is a myth really. It's not anything a site full of nothingness but awesome nothingness. Khatz says to watch a drama a pause it all the time and listen to the word and add it to an srs deck just like that. khatzu supports Subs2SRS. Khatzu is smart if you read his site at least once or know what it is and you do anything in japanese for an extended period of time boom your doing AJATT and he gets all the credit.

lol. Khatz even says on his site: "Don't trust me, do what you want to do". That's how language learning is, you learn from what results give you. Results=direction

aphasiac Wrote:Also I found the language school principle impossible to follow! What he says doesn't seem to match the japanese subs *at all*. Either he's talking stupidly fast, or he's speaking with a weird accent...either way I had to suspend all his sentences lol

I find that あたし is always 私 or わたし in the subs for Precure. Maybe it's something deaf people can't understand or not important for them to understand.

For videogames the text boxes don't exactly match the dialogue. The only exceptions I have found so far are additional and/or different sentence ending particles.

Tori-kun Wrote:Hey folks,



This said, my listening comprehension is still bad, but I have the feeling that this is the right way "getting used" to the language called japanese by Dramas (this one is especially fun. I first did the recommended "nobody knows", which was really boring to me doing, so i dumped it and started something fun after aphasiac, a user, pointed out this drama so kindly, yeha!).

Cheers! \o

If your listening comprehension is bad, the only way to improve is to listen more and more and more and more.

I recommend listening to Manzai or Rakugo if you REALLY want to improve your listening. I love dramas and anime too but....actors and seiyuus speak way too clearly (they have to pronounce words perfectly). They're like newscasters in the way they speak. A lot of people say how Japanese news is hard to understand, I don't understand this notion since newscasters all speak CRYSTAL-CLEAR Japanese.

So when you listen to something like Manzai, those guys speak fast and just slur their speech like crazy.

At first you will understand next to nothing. But listen to it more and more and I promise you that you will improve.

Tori-kun - Is your Nihongo no shiranai nihonjin deck available anywhere?

I like icecream's subs2srs deck, especially for highlighting weak points in my Japanese but couldn't work the actual programme (on mac).

So if you could share your deck it would be sweet

Realism Wrote:I recommend listening to Manzai or Rakugo if you REALLY want to improve your listening. I love dramas and anime too but....actors and seiyuus speak way too clearly (they have to pronounce words perfectly). They're like newscasters in the way they speak.

A fair few actors don't speak that clearly in dorama imo, depends on the actor / character. Same with anime. If you REALLY want to improve your listening I'd recommend listening to a variety of stuff

caivano Wrote:

Realism Wrote:I recommend listening to Manzai or Rakugo if you REALLY want to improve your listening. I love dramas and anime too but....actors and seiyuus speak way too clearly (they have to pronounce words perfectly). They're like newscasters in the way they speak.

A fair few actors don't speak that clearly in dorama imo, depends on the actor / character. Same with anime. If you REALLY want to improve your listening I'd recommend listening to a variety of stuff

I know where your coming from. On the otherhand, I was watching Basara last night and had 0% idea what they were on about. I watched MariaHolic (a golden anime - totally hilarious!) and had about 70% or so. I totally depends on the anime.

I have to 100% say that I am behind your statement here: "If you REALLY want to improve your listening I'd recommend listening to a variety of stuff." I really think this is the honest truth.

jcdietz03 Wrote:I find that あたし is always 私 or わたし in the subs for Precure. Maybe it's something deaf people can't understand or not important for them to understand.

It's not those words though - it's everything he says!

jcdietz03 Wrote:For videogames the text boxes don't exactly match the dialogue. The only exceptions I have found so far are additional and/or different sentence ending particles.

The subs do exactly match the dialogue for this show. And they're very exact, as in they even show pauses and slangy contractions - it's just this one characters dialogue is utterly incomprehensible!

It's so strange - also odd that tori-kun hasn't had the same issue. maybe it's just me? I'll break open the deck and find an example later.

caivano Wrote:Tori-kun - Is your Nihongo no shiranai nihonjin deck available anywhere?

I like icecream's subs2srs deck, especially for highlighting weak points in my Japanese but couldn't work the actual programme (on mac).

So if you could share your deck it would be sweet

x2

caivano Wrote:Tori-kun - Is your Nihongo no shiranai nihonjin deck available anywhere?

I like icecream's subs2srs deck, especially for highlighting weak points in my Japanese but couldn't work the actual programme (on mac).

So if you could share your deck it would be sweet

Of course I can share it. I just recovered it, as my computer crashed. Unfortunately 400 cards of my "Misc." anki deck are lost and can't be recovered
I have just the first two Episodes of Nihonjin no Shiranai Nihongo in the deck, so if you would like to add the rest - keeping the tag system etc. - I'm willing to upload it also public. Here is the link: http://www.multiupload.com/CECOSDASO9
Have fun

Cool thanks a lot!!

Re your pc crashing, anki usually keeps lots of backups (with default settings anyway), have you tried there?

Erm, (unfortunately) I already deleted everything formt he harddisk (formated it) and now I'm running under Windows 7. No chance getting the "backup" files anki made. Currently thinking about gettin' DropBox (as Asriel suggested.. Btw, didn't you want to send me something, As? ) in order to upload at least the anki-files daily.
If you are interested in my progress have a look at my blog.

Quote:Btw, didn't you want to send me something, As?

Aah! Crap, I totally forgot about that, sorry.

Actually, I can only get a physical pen/paper version of it, I don't see any convenient way of getting it on my computer :/

Asriel Wrote:

Quote:Btw, didn't you want to send me something, As?

Aah! Crap, I totally forgot about that, sorry.
Actually, I can only get a physical pen/paper version of it, I don't see any convenient way of getting it on my computer :/

That's indeed a pity.. I can't imagine my parents will be too happy if you send it to my house, hm. Perhaps anyone could scan it??? I really need it~