Beginner's plan of attack for learning J-dramas

Index » The Japanese language

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Reply #1 - 2010 February 07, 12:05 pm
KumoriLite New member
From: Beijing Registered: 2008-11-20 Posts: 2

Hello!

Could I ask you for some advice...?

I would like to begin watching Japanese drama and hearing and understanding authentic spoken Japanese as quickly as possible.  I would love to learn just enough grammar, just enough vocabulary, and just enough Kanji to allow me to begin fighting my way through a J-drama episode.  I'm not picky, could be any ol' drama --just the idea of watching a drama in Japanese, taking it scene by scene, seems so exhilarating to me!  I want to get myself in this position as quickly as possible....

Before I begin KanjiLite, I'd love to have at least the outlines of plan in place that will lead me to the goal of learning from J-dramas as quickly as possible.  What are the prerequisite resources I should study before jumping into using j-drama as my primary learning tool?  Would anyone be so kind as to develop a road map that would take me from the very beginning all the way to the point where I could effectively use dramas?

Sorry for being so wordy with this, and I'm sure you probably get a billion of these kinds of threads everyday.

...I hope that I'm not trying your patience too much -_-”

Reply #2 - 2010 February 07, 12:21 pm
Squintox Member
From: Toronto, Canada Registered: 2008-07-27 Posts: 292 Website

I just watched a lot of J-dramas and it got easier and easier as I watched more. I probably only knew 3,000 words and my grammar was still beginner (never used grammar guides, learnt grammar the AJATT way). I didn't understand 100%, but I got the gist of the dramas and could enjoy them.

But that was back in early-mid-2009, back in my days there were no subtitles tongue There are subtitles now, so you can use them with subs2srs and learn every sentence in a drama. So it's much easier.

Last edited by Squintox (2010 February 07, 12:22 pm)

Reply #3 - 2010 February 07, 1:46 pm
shirokuro Member
From: Canada Registered: 2009-10-13 Posts: 193

You can start using J-dramas to learn from really early on. I think you really just need to be able to read kana to start using them. I think having worked through some basic grammar would help a lot, too, but you can pick up more as you go along, so don't worry when you're just starting out. I do pretty much all of my studying from them, and I'm still at a really low level. Just get Japanese subtitles from D-Addicts or use the transcripts/summaries at DramaNote and mine sentences that you like and can understand.

Good luck. You can always ask on here if you have any questions. smile

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Reply #4 - 2010 February 07, 2:38 pm
TheVinster Member
From: Illinois Registered: 2009-07-15 Posts: 985

You can use Subs2SRS for dramas, granted you find both the English and Japanese subtitles. I just started using this three days ago, and it's pretty fun. My only problem is I'm such an idiot, and my Japanese is so weak, that I have to search everything. Plus it's all in kanji with no furigana, because it's ripped directly from the show. I imagine (which is what I might do today) that you could go through a sentence, and if you think the words are fairly useful you could maybe use that sentence in a separate Anki deck complete with furigana for the kanji, and definitions.

To summarize:
-Kanji Lite
-Maybe some Tae Kim? I'm using this, because it's helpful.
-Get Anki and use Subs2SRS.
-Find a good drama, make it into a Subs2SRS deck, and go through it slowly but surely.
-Mine sentences with words worth remembering from the Subs2SRS deck (at your skill level, so maybe not anything too difficult yet) and put them into a separate deck with the sentence, the furigana, and definitions.

Maybe this way you can be happy by learning your favorite dramas concurrently with studying. Like I said, my Japanese is so shitty after 8 months that I feel pretty disappointed in myself, but I hope I can change that. I only just started using Subs2SRS, and I think it could be awesome and provide more motivation to study.

If anybody who has been studying Japanese for longer can tell me if my method sounds good, please say so. I'd really like to make sure my plan is right, because I'll be using this too.

Reply #5 - 2010 February 07, 2:45 pm
cb4960 Member
From: Los Angeles Registered: 2007-06-22 Posts: 917

TheVinster,

For furigana, just install the Japanese Support Plugin for Anki.

Reply #6 - 2010 February 07, 2:48 pm
TheVinster Member
From: Illinois Registered: 2009-07-15 Posts: 985

cb4960 wrote:

TheVinster,

For furigana, just install the Japanese Support Plugin for Anki.

Cb, you know I love you more every day?

Reply #7 - 2010 February 07, 2:57 pm
pm215 Member
From: UK Registered: 2008-01-26 Posts: 1354

TheVinster: my first thought looking at that plan is that it looks a bit light on 'grammar'. (I guess you could use your drama watching to 'drive' your grammar study, but don't neglect it completely.) Also if you're having to look everything up then you definitely want to try to find the simplest most clearly spoken drama you can; I think it's likely to be (a) more useful and (b) more motivating to watch something where you aren't looking stuff up in every sentence. (I'm afraid I don't really watch much drama so can't give recommendations, though. I suspect anime might have a wider range of easier-to-comprehend stuff, though.)

Reply #8 - 2010 February 07, 3:02 pm
TheVinster Member
From: Illinois Registered: 2009-07-15 Posts: 985

pm215 wrote:

TheVinster: my first thought looking at that plan is that it looks a bit light on 'grammar'. (I guess you could use your drama watching to 'drive' your grammar study, but don't neglect it completely.) Also if you're having to look everything up then you definitely want to try to find the simplest most clearly spoken drama you can; I think it's likely to be (a) more useful and (b) more motivating to watch something where you aren't looking stuff up in every sentence. (I'm afraid I don't really watch much drama so can't give recommendations, though. I suspect anime might have a wider range of easier-to-comprehend stuff, though.)

So do you recommend anything else for my grammar? I'm going through Core 2,000 sentences from Smart.FM right now. I guess I should be mining sentences from natural sources, huh? I'm never sure about mining sentences without exact translations, because I keep thinking I'm getting the wrong meaning.

Reply #9 - 2010 February 07, 3:27 pm
mezbup Member
From: sausage lip Registered: 2008-09-18 Posts: 1681 Website

I'd recommend definitely doing tae Kim and definitely doing something like core2000 as a bare minimum. I think sometime in the future studying up to JLPT2 grammar would be  useful.

Aside from that, one thing I'm going to suggest is, if in the drama you find 1 or 2 sentences that you fully understand and like and want to be able to say then specifically create an output card for those (there's no need to learn the lines to an entire drama, just what's useful to you).

Perhaps you could even experiment with a new method or two? Maybe, get the subtitle file and read through it putting any vocab you don't know into a list and then drilling that list quickly until you think you've got it down then watch the show and see how much it helps with comprehension. Stuff like that... It's just an idea.

Reply #10 - 2010 February 07, 3:35 pm
shirokuro Member
From: Canada Registered: 2009-10-13 Posts: 193

I think that IceCream makes really good suggestions for how to approach this in this post: http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?pid=84427#p84427

Reply #11 - 2010 February 07, 3:44 pm
fightswumbrellas Member
From: california Registered: 2009-05-26 Posts: 20

KumoriLite wrote:

...I hope that I'm not trying your patience too much -_-”

nah, you’ll be fine as long as you don’t start asking everyone for certifications to prove that they know what they're doing wink 

I’m focusing mainly on understanding written materials first so I can’t give you an outline of how to get quick verbal understanding but I can point you to a few threads that will make it easier. Ice cream has kindly rated dramas by difficulty in these threads:
Autumn 2009 Drama Rankings

http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=4662

Winter 2010 Drama Rankings

http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=5065

So to start off My girl is your best bet [Japanese subtitles for all the episodes are available at the D-addicts link shirokuro posted]. Also, you can start listening to dramas  while you’re working on your grammar/vocab ect. (just doing tons of listening isn't going to make you magically understand of course but it DOES help).

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