egoplant wrote:

Thanks for even more replies. Since I didn't want to create another topic, I thought I would just ask here. How do you "listen" without subtitles? I'm still stuck at the stage of only recognizing nouns. Most of the time nothing makes sense because I can't understand the different parts of a sentence. It's like reading a wall of Hiragana without spaces. It's hard to break down anything into grammar aside from desu and masu. So should I just keep listening and eventually I'll get it? Everyone says this but it's hard when I see little to no progress.

Maybe it is an issue of vocabulary, maybe it is an issue in respect to grammar; probably it's both. Well, that is to say in my experience the more grammatical patterns, etc. I study, the more "structured" Japanese sounds (as in not just a mess of phonics) and the more vocab I acquire increases the overall understanding of these structures.

This is a little how my listening without subtitles has been.

Before actively studying Japanese:

rfgiubiugsnpvdiugdfgvdlfnhhoisfjpoqrfgiubiugsnpvdiugdrfgiubiugsnpvdiugdfgvdlfnhhoisfjpoqewjmasodnfawoiufhawconhwfhwca8ofgvdlfnhhoisfjpoqewjmasodnfawoiufhawconrfgiubiugsnpvdiugdfgvdlfnhhoisfjpoqewjmasodnfawoiufhawconhwfhwca8ohwfhwca8oewjasodnfawoiufhawconhwfhwca8o

After listening for many years, growing accustomed to the sounds a little and picking up a few words here and there:

rfgiub iug snpvdiug. dfgvdlfnhhoisfjpoqrfgiubiugSAN  snp vdiugd  rfgiub  iugs npvdiugdfg vdlfnhhoisf jpoqewjmas odnfawoiufha wconhwfhwca8oCUTE!fgvd lfnhhoisfjpoqe wjmasodnfawoiufh awconrfgiubiugs npvdiugdfgvd lfnhhoisfjpoqe wjmasodnfawoiufhaTEACHER wconhwfhwca8ohSTUPID wfhwca8oewja sodnfawoiufhawconh wfhwca8o

Now that I'm actively studying grammar and vocabulary:

rfgiub iug really? I didn't really... it was a mistake. vdlf and nhhbecause of oisfjpotest qrfg also difficult iubiugSAN  snp vdiugd  rfgiub  iugs That over there npvdiugdfg vdlfnhhoisf jpoqewjmas odnfawoiufha wcIt's so hot today, isn't it? onhwf tired? About 12 hours of sleep. 12 hours... :Shwca8oCUTE!fgvd lfgs npvdiugdfgvd lfnhhoisfjpoqe wjm he wouldn't say that sort of thing to a teacher, I wonder wconhwfhwca8ohSTUPID See you tomorrow~. Goodnight~.

As you can see, it slowly becomes less fuzzy and more understandable over time. You can keep listening but unless there is enough active study/reading, etc. going on, it is hard to speed up the process when the input isn't comprehensible. In respect to "break down anything into grammar", a lot of those issues, I have found, tend to be resolved not be simply further listening, but actively studying grammatical patterns (with cloze-delete cards in Anki, it becomes a simple matter of making sure you are getting grammatical descriptions and examples from decent sources) and reading. You'd be surprised at how many phrases, etc. fall into certain patterns that you probably weren't even aware were being spoken- then you read over them, study them, and like some bizarro world, you tend to start noticing them a lot in speech and in reading.

Manga is probably an excellent source for getting used to dialogue/conversational Japanese reading. Once you get used to reading those patterns of speech, your brain starts to expect them in certain ways and the process of listening becomes a lot easier.


IMO

Regarding the "listen" without subtitles thing, find your inner child and watch stuff like Pokemon, Pretty Cure, Ginga e Kickoff. Stuff that you could almost follow the storyline without audio.

You can also watch stuff you have previously watched (dubbed or subbed) and enjoy enough to watch again raw. You won't be lost with what is going on and you can just focus on the dialog.

I think if you do RTK and anki and read occasionally... anyone can learn to read japanese. it's the listening and speaking that require time and lots of comprehensible exposure. listening to podcasts you dont care about over and over again wont help.

I suggest 3 things for listening.

1.read basic manga.
it's very conversational and breaks down the way contractions in everyday spoken japanese work.

2.watch anime/movies with japanese subs, at least once, and then rip the audio and listen to that for your immersion.
you have to like the media for this to work...
since you know what's going on in the story you have an idea what's being said... and it's like watching the media again but without the images, which actually helps one focus on the sounds.

3.use subs2srs flashcards for your favorite media.
breaking down every element of conversational speech into words that you can study methodically is a gift that language learners haven't had until very recently. this is super useful for grammar and the common strangeness of spoken japanese vs. the written text you probably understand better.

also hearing those clips of audio gets it into your head in a funny way. I still quote lines from lucky star in the shower sometimes by accident. it's fine because I love that media, but after a year Subs2SRS will really stick those japanese lines deep inside your head.

p.s. having a native conversation partner is surprisingly so much better than any of this... everything seems very inefficient once you simply start talking with people, and things instantly become much clearer. of course no native speaker is going to want to talk to you until you've gotten the ability to hold a basic conversation, which is actually quite far down the path. the language learner's paradox...

Last edited by dtcamero (2013 April 28, 11:57 am)

^That seems like a good method. Unless you are a beginner. You dont even really need a transcript or anything.

Listening to 5 minutes of NHK news and typing what you hear is a piece of cake compared to writing it out by hand so that's why he suggests a pen and paper.

^Some people may find building proficiency in writing to have psychological benefits, perhaps such as confidence, etc. There are often aspects of learning something which can have positive attributes to certain individuals in an indirect manner.

SomeCallMeChris wrote:

Crispy wrote:

Listening to 5 minutes of NHK news and typing what you hear is a piece of cake compared to writing it out by hand so that's why he suggests a pen and paper.

Being harder doesn't make it a better learning experience.  Also his example languages were German first and Korean second, both of which use phonetic alphabets (although Korean does have a kanji-like alternative that is not quite dead.) Anyway, the point being, 'kanji-practice' elements aren't relevant to the essay, and in pure phonetic writing, I see no advantage to tracing lines over pressing keys.

Well if you see no advantage then it's fair enough you don't wanna do it.

Another good option for ear training are the 新完全マスター books for the JLPT. The 聴解 books are great, and the exercises scan the gauntlet from formal announcements and newscasts to informal conversations between family and friends.

Re: pen and paper - I think there's a huge benefit to writing Japanese by hand vs. the computer, but I don't necessarily think the paper/computer distinction helps with listening comprehension. At best, you're killing two birds w/ one stone, i.e., practicing listening comprehension and kanji production simultaneously.

captal wrote:

Progress can be difficult to see, but continue to listen, and surround yourself with Japanese. Think about how much more you know now than a few months ago- it's hard to see the day to day changes, but they build up over the months.

If you look at yourself in the mirror every day, you don't really notice your hair growing, but grow it does

Just had to quote you. Love the analogy between learning and hair. Both are subtle changes but eventually growth occurs. Sometimes it sneaks up on you! I know it does for me with both xD  /offtopic

egoplant wrote:

I've been using Japanese subtitles and they seem to help a decent amount with comprehension, and the way I see it, it is also somewhat like reading practise too, however I'm wondering if using them will hurt me in the future. Will they become a dependance? Will it be a hard transition or a smooth one into not using subtitles anymore? If anyone has any experience with this, please share.

Japanese subtitles clearly help you understand more of the show, but the impact on your actual Japanese listening ability is very low, in my opinion. This is more a form of fast reading than anything, and it will mainly improve your reading speed and comprehension% with other shows (of course) and manga, since the language style is essentially the same (i.e. conversational, short sentences, slangish)...

I have near to zero experience using Japanese subs (see after). However after years of watching American TV shows and movies with English subtitles all the time (and of course "perfect comprehension"), I recently discovered, horrified, that were I to remove the English subtitles, I would barely understand 70% of what is said. However I can listen to a standard radio program with 95%+ comprehension... The huge difference in understanding between these medias comes from how the dialogue is scripted, stylized and more subtle in American movies and TV shows. The same phenomenon appears in Japanese but a lot more for anime (see after).

So my answer to your first question is : that won't cause any dependance, it will make the transition to raw listening slightly easier over the years, but you will waste time doing actual raw listening. It doesn't make your listening worse (obviously) but won't make it better; "scaffolding", as yudantaiteki said. That's a huge handicap on the long term. If your comprehension level is lower than 50/60%, use subtitles for now; but you should also find other media where you comprehension level is above 60/70% and listen to them raw.

egoplant wrote:

Thanks for even more replies. Since I didn't want to create another topic, I thought I would just ask here. How do you "listen" without subtitles? I'm still stuck at the stage of only recognizing nouns. Most of the time nothing makes sense because I can't understand the different parts of a sentence. It's like reading a wall of Hiragana without spaces. It's hard to break down anything into grammar aside from desu and masu. So should I just keep listening and eventually I'll get it? Everyone says this but it's hard when I see little to no progress.

So yeah, how the hell can you get to the stage of (decent) raw listening. Here's my take on this : it's essentially a matter of vocabulary. In this very thread people have posted the usual methods to make raw listening more accessible : kids/easier shows, use subtitles the 1st time and rewatch the show or even repeat the audio on your MP3 player. While these are all intelligent methods, I never did this, because I find it boring and I wasn't that impatient to put to use my Japanese. "My" method for studying Japanese comes straight from this forum (and I'm grateful to everyone who put all the data, programs and ideas together), but contrary to many other learners, I've kept it extremely simple and it worked just fine. After RtK, just do Core, all of it (the 10k sentences). And when you're done, add even more sentences. After 6k, start reading stuff to your level (manga and light novel, probably), and add all the vocabulary until you're bored for the day. Rinse, repeat. The more I did this, the more I marveled at how I could easily read books, and (our topic here) even understand anime and dramas. This seemed a bit f*cked up at first, because I never actively tried to improve my listening ability... Of course I was very happy about this side-effect of sentence mining (don't forget that Core10k has audio, that must have had a huge effect on my listening ability), and that's why I almost never had to use Japanese subtitles.
Hence my conclusion that it's all about vocabulary. And even after that, adding more sentences to Anki directly upped my listening comprehension % (you probably need 1k words each time to feel the difference). I'm at 15k+ vocab and I see every day how that remains true even at that stage...

Now I am somewhere between 70 and 90% comprehension depending on the show (which is enough to enjoy the material, but is still way too low in my opinion), so I spend a lot more time actively doing raw listening. What I found is that, sure, it does make you progress, but... It's reaaally slow. This is not a structured method. I'm trying to measure what I'm actually learning while watching anime and drama, and I feel like it's only a few new words per episodes (probably because they are repeated several times). I think the remaining words and sentences I don't get are just wasted, they don't magically make me better at listening...

And yeah, the thing about anime and drama. In general, anime is harder, for reasons similar to what I mentioned for American shows. It's entirely scripted; fortunately it's way less elliptic/suggestive than American dialogue, but on the other hand it uses a lot of written words (think : kanji compounds/Chinese words here), and those are a bitch. The other day watching Accel World, there was stuff like 無論 or 強奪の快感. Those are the "few new words per episode" that I actually learn : of course I have no problem reading them, but it's my first time hearing them, and it really feels like a fluke that I actually recognized them. But this very episode was probably filled with other words that I couldn't recognize phonetically only.
In drama, the language will be way more natural, with few kanjis compounds, and when you don't understand something, it will be either (1) kanji compounds (same problem as in animes), (2) really fast speaking, bad pronunciation, (3) verb compounds (stuff like 引っこ抜く : you get the 抜く part and are thinking "what the hell was that other word before??", except it's not another word...).

In my opinion, it's well worth it doing sentence mining the hardcore way (1k/month if you can). I perfectly understand that it's a little boring/exhausting (a lot less than RtK though, at least it's actual Japanese...), it certainly was for me. But the very fact that it's exhausting means there's actually a mental burden on your brain. You really ARE learning those thousands of pronunciations, words and patterns. And what kept me motivated all along the way is telling myself "Wow, that's the thing, it's just about vocab. I can almost see my Japanese ability improving. I've just found a crazy hack and I'm sure gonna use it to the fullest". When it's too boring for the day (the week), relax yourself, with English stuff if you want. But I strongly advise using Anki as the core of your method (at least that's measurable progress), and the more you progress, the more you should consume native material to "smooth it out" (that's very important).

Just my 2円, though I would have given a lot more to have someone show me Anki and this method when I was in junior high school. Would have been so much more meaningful than these thousands of wasted hours playing video games.

Last edited by Warp2243 (2013 May 01, 8:07 am)

It may sound odd, but I try to only watch Japanese media that has Japanese subtitles because with raw audio I'd mostly be wasting my time.

I might have made a post about this before - raw listening is great for practicing listening comprehension of known vocab but pretty ineffective for new vocab acquisition. There's a filter in your head that will make you gloss over unknown words to help your brain extract comprehensible meaning. You could be hearing the same vocab over and over and never recognizing it. When you learn a new word and suddenly start hearing it everywhere - that's because it can now pass through the "helpful" filter in your brain.

NOT using Japanese subs may handicap you (slow down your learning), not the other way around. Getting comprehensible input through reading books or using Japanese subtitles helps your learn new words much quicker.