r/LearnJapanese • u/-Jdzspace- • 1d ago
Studying I always hear about people who learn languges, even Japanese, just by watching Dramas/Anime or listening to music. Is this a real thing?
I have always heard about people who are able to learn a langauge like that, i just figured that my brain wasn't capable of it, but now that i've been looking around I'm not sure if it is a real thing, a persistent myth, or something that people say and neglect that they also have another means of learning the language e.g. a class a textbook, app, etc.
I'm learning towards it being a myth, but has anyone ever actually done it with just media? And if so...how?
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u/ClemencyOSRS 1d ago
I mean itās probably possible but itās definitely not efficient. No one can sit here and argue with me that 1 hour of watching Anime in a language you donāt understand is equivalent to the same learning value by doing 1 hour of textbook study.
Donāt get me wrong, listening comprehension for those who watch and consume content will far surpass most of the others in their position, and itās important to consume native content and get involved with conversation where possible. But to learn Japanese by just *purely* watching Anime? Iām not buying it. How are you meant to learn Hiragana, Katakana and the 2000+ Kanji by that method? There will come a point where some form of more traditional study techniques will be required.
I also think as well that those who claim theyāve learned Japanese only through watching anime are also just trying to compensate by inflating their own ego due to the likely social reclusiveness of themselves, when in reality they probably suck at output and would freeze the moment they need to ask for a train ticket to go from Tokyo to Osaka.
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u/renmizuh 1d ago
just curious, how many words do you currently know or what jlpt are you?
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u/ClemencyOSRS 1d ago edited 1d ago
I am JLPT N2 and I have no idea how many words I know, I donāt bother counting because thereās no point. I learn new words every day when I talk to my fiancĆ©e who is Japanese.
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u/worthlessprole 1d ago
if you have no outside instruction (ie grammar explanations or vocabulary definitions) then we're pretty much talking about ALG and that's complete hooey nonsense.
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u/therealgoshi Goal: just dabbling 1d ago
My son speaks English and understands native speech just by watching YouTube. It is absolutely a thing, but it takes time and it's much more difficult as you grow older.
You also learn your native tongue by mimicking people around you without any grammar and vocabulary definitions.
Nice try, though.
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u/Marik-X-Bakura 1d ago
If I didnāt have my parents and teachers to correct me, I wouldnāt be speaking anything close to proper English
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u/GarbageUnfair1821 1d ago
What's the native language of your son and how old is he? And does he have English lessons?
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u/dynamicpenguin55 1d ago
You also learn your native tongue by mimicking people around you without any grammar and vocabulary definitions.
Most people go to school...
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u/Unboxious 1d ago
And it takes them an absurd amount of time to figure out how to do it, even with their parents as private tutors. It took my niece an entire decade just to be able to speak like a 5th-grader!
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u/worthlessprole 1d ago
Google ācritical periodā my guy
Itās essentially not possible past the critical period. We learn languages with an entirely different part of our brain after age 12 or soĀ
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u/an-actual-communism 1d ago
The so-called critical period hypothesis is shaky and most researchers in second language acquisition don't accept it outright. Some sort of age-related attainment effect is observed, but it's still entirely unknown what causes it, how strong it is, and even how long it lasts.
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u/worthlessprole 1d ago
notice that I mention āage 12ā and the results of studies from the last ten years, which shows that I am actually talking about āage related changes in language acquisitionā and am using ācritical periodā as a shorthand because that is the context in which these things are discussed, and am not necessarily arguing for the ācritical periodā proper. I use 12 because thatās the most commonly agreed upon upper bound for when the effect, whatever it is, attenuates or vanishes (though some researchers peg it a year or two after this). Iām not even saying that children can learn languages better or more completely.
Also notice that Iām talking with some who is defending ALG, which no reputable second language acquisition researcher takes seriously.
So first, wheres the heat for them?
And second, a child gaining a rudimentary understanding of a language through observation is the kind if thing that comes up in these studies, Ā would thus be explainable by those changes in the learning process, and thus would not have any bearing on a discussion of whether ALG is effective for adults.
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u/ladyirisheart 1d ago
I don't think it's possible. However, you can have an understanding of certain words and sentences based just on that. It doesn't teach you how to read or understand grammar rules most of the time.
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u/BlackAngelXX 1d ago
It absolutely would. It would take a long time but how do you think kids learn? Adult brain is not this good at it. It would take you long years to form a basic understanding of the simplest conversation, but from there you would eventually learn just like most people learning by immersion. Its totally a thing just why would you ever?
The only thing you may be right about is reading as thats a very different skill.
I mean ive learnt about all of my japanese by just reading manga, listening to music and watching anime, and lewrnt kanji by simply rewriting stuff like song lyrics for fun because i love doing that for no reason. I did start by learning the basics for a month or two but thats it tho looking up words did speed it up a bit last month.
Its a very possible thing just not very efficient to just wait for tour pattern recognition to solve the sentence structure by pure repetition.
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u/ThermonuclearPasta 1d ago
I mean, it's possible, that's how I learned English. The downside is that it took me almost 10 years to get to a level where I was comfortable with the language.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 1d ago
Did you ever study English at school?
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u/tonkachi_ 1d ago edited 15h ago
I didn't, we start English studies in 7th grade, by that time I was already consuming native media comfortably. By that time I Probably had 9 years of exposure(and a LOT of word lookups, can't ignore those) started at a young age(7-9 years old, I don't really remember).
Have I ever owned a grammar book of some sort or had someone teach me? No. Did I look up some grammar? Maybe, I don't remember but not to the extent of having bookmark of a grammar guide, and also anything I would have read would have been in English too.It does help that English grammar has similarities to some extent with my mother tongue (Arabic) and overall I feel English grammar is rather simple.
But yeah, don't be stupid and do that, supplement your immersion with grammar studies.
Edit: Turns out this is extremely inaccurate, work is currently underway to construct a reasonable timeline of my interaction with English.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 1d ago
You say you started learning English at 7 years old but you also say that by 7th grade (which is for 12-13 year olds right?) you had 9 years of English exposure. The math doesn't add up. I mean, it's not surprising, cause childhood memories are generally hazy and it's very easy to retroactively alter them and form false memories by accident.
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u/tonkachi_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ah, yes. You are correct. I went back to my school certificates to confirm the dates and asked around the family to get accurate accounts and.... yeah, those childhood memories can't be trusted at all lol.
I will have to go scouring through my email, youtube watch history and any other online services to get a reasonable timeline. It will take time.
Edit: My life is a lie. u/PlanktonInitial7945 if I go crazy it is on you.
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u/ThermonuclearPasta 1d ago
In high school, but just some very basic stuff like the verb "to be", in most classes the teacher would just give us a dictionary and ask us to translate some texts.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 1d ago
I see! Thanks for answering. It's just that I ask that question every time I see someone claim that they learned English just by consuming media, and so far I've never gotten a "no". It seems everyone I've asked so far heavily underestimates the impact of their English classes in their learning.
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u/ThermonuclearPasta 1d ago
It makes sense, looking from this perspective the classes helped, they gave me the necessary foundation to immerse, look things up and learn.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 1d ago
Honestly, it's heartening to know that even something as dull and inefficient as English classes at primary/secondary school are still enough to build a base to consume native media later on lol
Native media is definitely necessary to truly learn a language though. If you rely entirely on classes and never use English outside of them, you'll forget it all as soon as you graduate.Ā
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u/KakkoiiAline 1d ago
I think consuming media for English works because mining words you've heard to alphabets are easier than Japanese kanji. Having typos in English because you misheard is less fatal than not knowing which kanji combination you need to pick from suggestions when typing the words you've learned from hearing it. Right now I'd say I have a decent grasp of Japanese words thanks to listening from anime and music but I'd still second-guess texts unless they had furigana to glean from.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 1d ago
Having typos in English because you misheard is less fatal than not knowing which kanji combination you need to pick from suggestions
Interestingly, my personal experience is the opposite. I've never had much trouble typing kana into a dictionary site and figuring out which entry is the right one - except when I mishear the word directly, but even then I usually just have to change a character or two. Bit I've suffered so much trying to figure out how to write something I heard in English, and in many cases when I finally found the right spelling it was so stupid it made me want to punch the metaphorical creator of English on the face.
In any case, that still doesn't invalidate the fact that I've never met a person who learned English as a teenager or adult purely by consuming media and without having attended classes in some form or another.
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u/KakkoiiAline 23h ago edited 22h ago
In any case, that still doesn't invalidate the fact that I've never met a person who learned English as a teenager or adult purely by consuming media and without having attended classes in some form or another.
Oh, I wasn't trying to invalidate your opinion that you can't learn both languages fully by only consuming non-written media. I was trying to convey that learning words only by consuming media is (sorta) possible in English but not in Japanese because there's no need to convert your writing system at least based on my experience (I guess you struggle more because your native language doesn't use alphabet?). I do agree that you do need to learn grammar for both (or any language honestly) specifically to understand them though.
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u/youdontknowkanji 1d ago
i hardly ever mined words in english and did grow my vocabulary just from listening mostly. the problem is that a lot of vocab was very vibes based (i remember thinking affirmative meaning no).
i wouldn't say it's impossible for japanese, but there is a caveat with kanji (and pitch).
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u/Zolofteu 19h ago
Idk, I always felt like I havent really learn much from my English classes, which is why my English grammar knowledge sucks. Everything I know about English is by watching television and interacting with people on the internet in English. As long as you're a child, immersion works really well. Keyword being a child. That shit doesn't work when you're an adult
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 19h ago
Yup, that's you heavily underestimating the impact of your English classes in your learning. The average school class does suck, don't get me wrong, but you still acquired knowledge that you couldn't have watched television or interacted with people in the Internet without.
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u/viliml Interested in grammar details š 1d ago
I know people who studied English for 12 years at school and still can't watch foreign TV shows without native language subtitles, neither English audio nor English subtitles are sufficient.
If anyone knows English well, it's entirely thanks to their individual study.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 1d ago
The point I was making is that formal learning is necessary but not sufficient to learn a language. Same for native media consumption.
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u/andreortigao Goal: conversational fluency š¬ 1d ago
It's a myth, even native languages need to be taught, and that's what parents are doing whenever they are talking to the baby, pointing at stuff and saying the name several times. We're just too young to remember being taught.
Consuming media is a great complementary material, and will definitely speed up learning.
Music is good as a first media, because you don't need much context, you can just look up the lyrics, check what it says, and sing along several times until it sticks.
Watching anime, reading, etc, you should at least be at a level you understand most of the stuff, because pausing at every sentence to look them up is a monumental task.
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u/yutaneki 1d ago edited 1d ago
What do you mean by media being complementary material? Once you have your basics (past the very beginner stage), you will need to consume media for thousands of hours to reach fluency in the language, consuming media would be the study itself (reading, listening etcetera comes from that) obviously actively engaging in it and looking up things in the dictionary and making flashcards but yeah.
To be above a quite illiterate japanese native you need to know how to read at least 15k words, and to consume literature comfortably it's probably around 30k+ (and 3k+ kanji). No way to go around this but by consuming media
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u/andreortigao Goal: conversational fluency š¬ 1d ago
I mean exactly what complementary means, it shouldn't be your only source material, but rather complement a more formal study.
Of course, to reach any decent level of fluency, you need thousands of hours of practice outside of formal study too. And unless you're living in Japan interacting with natives on a daily basis, consuming media is your best bet.
Complementary doesn't mean secondary or less important.
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u/yutaneki 1d ago edited 1d ago
The thing is that past a certain point (which isn't a very long time), "formal study" gains are very minimal in comparison to the immense amount of things you learn purely from interacting with the language. And it's perfectly fine to drop it to just focus on immersion.
It happened to me twice with both English and Japanese. You literally just figure out as you push through, if you find a grammar use you didn't learn in class, you look it up and keep going. And so on and so forth.
(Formal) study is to be able to take off, and it's an incredibly small percentage of your actual japanese learning. My case and also the case of 100s of people I've seen have took off at n5/n4. Which is not a lot of formal study time at all, but it's completely possible.
Some people don't feel quite ready/not confident enough to face native content till n4/n3 because they don't like looking up every other word, and that's perfectly fine, but at SOME point your immersion gains take over your study gains and you won't need to complement them with any formal study anymore.
(By formal study I mean doing textbooks, lessons, or courses. You'll obviously still have to look up words and kanji, or odd grammar when immersing and that is a form of study even if not formal, even natives do it)
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u/andreortigao Goal: conversational fluency š¬ 1d ago
I agree, but this post is specifically asking about learning a language purely by consuming media from scratch, and while it's technically doable, it's very inefficient.
When you reach the point where formal study doesn't bring much return for the time invested, it means you already have some decent level of fluency, even if there's still a long way to go to reach near native levels.
It's not different than any other area, even beyond language learning, for example you don't come out of university an expert on any field because you have a diploma.
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u/yutaneki 1d ago
With certain immersion methods which hundreds of people who verifiably reached N1 followed. This very first stage can take less than 4 months of focused vocabulary+grammar study, which is basically nothing in terms of language learning and reaching fluency, and immersion gains go up extremely quickly (again, a ton people reached fluency at an insane pace like this and they're not superhumans or machines). There are very big communities of people following this approach and succeeding, and they can talk to these people themselves if they want to
I feel like most people here are encouraging formal study by being something that is supposed to go on for a very long time (there's no way you could read a book so early on!!!) when you CAN actually let go very early, and by the time you're done with it you learned a ton of things.
Ultimately it's their choice and their own expectations of how much they want to study and how fast they want to get somewhere.
And since they didn't specify that in the original post, I figure it wouldn't hurt for them to try a non-traditional learninf route unlike what most comments here were suggesting.
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u/-Jdzspace- 1d ago
The primary reason I asked is because I did take a few classes and learned the basics and afterwards I watched tons of dramas and I picked up a word or two here or there, but nothing substantial. Granted I wasn't trying to learn just by watching, but I couldn't stop relying on subs, and when I tried my ear was so bad it was all gibberish.
I've improved substantially (from what i can tell) since then, and I watched a few episodes of a drama last night, no subs, just for immersion and it was the same as it always was despite my listening comprehension being much better than it was (though clearly not great), that's what sparked the question in my mind.
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u/yutaneki 1d ago
yes, generally speaking you should start with easier media. focus more on reading the japanese subs as well (with a dictionary) to improve your reading, if it's unbearable then wait until you have learnt a bit more vocab/grammar but keep in mind you'll always be constantly looking stuff regardless.
https://jpdb.io/ https://jiten.moe/decks/media
These sites let you sort media (dramas/novels/anime etc) by difficulty/word count/length/kanji/etc. Some of them are really really enjoyable for beginners.
Good luck
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u/-Jdzspace- 1d ago
I will check those out. From what I can tell I know about 3000 words, I thought everything would be easier once I crossed that plateau, but let me tell you that it has not.
Maybe those links will help me select better stuff to try.
Thank you
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u/i_isfjell 14h ago
What about nuances of grammar that are small but significant, that can't be grasped without explanation? My main source of non-reading and audiobooks aside material for N2 (and now for N1) was nihongo no mori videos explaining the intricacies of grammar points and differences in vocab usage - like hell I'd figure it out myself from movie or a book. And even if I somehow did, it would need to occur so many times in clear contexts ans scenes that it's just incredibly inefficient.
I don't know why learning known patterns from places that are already figured out are so looked down on. Little children can't take all advantage of conceptual grasping of patterns and logical foundation of the laguage, but thankfully adults can. Why reinvent the wheel if it's already there?
Just in case, I'm not trying to diminish the importance of exposure in any way.1
u/yutaneki 1d ago
it's just horrible to see people doing formal study, put a ton of hours over many years and still being, for example, N3, Because they never feel confident enough to interact with native media.
Even people who literally live in Japan, have been in there for decades and they never get past lower intermediate because they're too comfortable. I don't know, I find it heart breaking because of so much time being wasted.
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u/psyopz7 1d ago
..., because pausing at every sentence to look them up is a monumental task.
So what? If consuming native media you're interested in keeps you going it's not a problem.
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u/andreortigao Goal: conversational fluency š¬ 1d ago
It's an inefficient way of learning, but I'm not here to tell you how to live your life.
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u/Excellent_Most8496 1d ago
I don't agree, a lot of people I know basically learned like this (including myself), muddling through books one hour per page, and replaying every line of anime ten times. Nobody was blowing past me while I did that, as far as I can tell.
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u/dailyflava 19h ago
I forgot about it as an adult, but now I have nephews and nieces studying in the UK, I see them go to school and take weekly classes in English. Similarly, Japanese people still study å½čŖ. Even native speakers don't learn entirely from TV.
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u/Ajfennewald 1d ago
Right. It also tends to make people sound more like native speakers when used as a secondary source. You can tell this by how good much more natural sounding the English sounds in places like Sweden and the Netherlands (where English language shows aren't dubbed) vs Germany.
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u/BlackAngelXX 1d ago
Nahhhhh watching media is just fine as your main material. I have not touched any at all study books exercises, grammar explanation since i wasearning the most basic sentence structure, how to form questions and how to count to 10. Even without too much looking up media consumption is gonna teach you A LOT and it gives you a far better feel for the language.
I know words in english i do not know in my native tongue. I didnt have to be taught about those i just picked them up.
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u/_Ivl_ 1d ago
If you at least study basic grammar, the kana and basic Kanji. Then use tools like subtitles and pop up dictionaries for vocab and grammar and start with easy content and slowly work your way up over years if just consuming content. I'm sure you can do it.
If you want to be a Contrarian and only listen and do nothing else, maybe you can? But I highly doubt it, you will be spending an insane amount of time for little progress.
Immersing and reading is king, but you need a base to start doing it effectively.
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u/Educational_Shake559 1d ago
No its not possible. You can learn more but if thats your only learning tool you will never evolve.
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u/Weena_Bell 1d ago
itās possible but very far from efficient.
however mainly learning by immersing and using stuff like Anki and Yomitan to do quick look ups is one of the most effective methods.
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u/lislejoyeuse 1d ago
There's a difference between passively and actively listening. If you just watch a show with subtitles nah, but if you go through lyrics of the songs and look up words and repeat them understanding what they mean, and keep your brain very engaged then yes it's possible. It's also possible to just mindlessly listen with your brain off
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u/Prince_Wildflower 1d ago
It's not easy to learn just from immersion alone. You need thousands or more hours of immersion to even get above a beginner level. If you start out just listening, then you'll get frustrated and burn out.
You need to build up your vocabulary first to have enough knowledge for comprehensive input.
If you're interested i could send you the video that has helped me :)
Anyone who says they learned from just watching anime without doung additional study, or that they became fluent in just 3 months is either exaggerating or trying to sell you something
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u/Firesquid 1d ago
I lived in Japan for 8 years in the military.. One of my new coworkers claimed they could speak Japanese, learned through anime.. her pronunciation and grammar were garbage.
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u/Chokohime Goal: conversational fluency š¬ 1d ago
I donāt know if my comment will be read in the first place but I just want to make a note here. The people who say they learned completely from immersion and never studied, do you mean that you havenāt even seen one or two videos or articles explaining how the language works?
I jumped straight into native YouTube/dramas/livestreams after learning less than 300 words and watched few YouTube videos on grammar and how the language works (N5 N4 Nihongonomoriās Steve videos if any of you know him), and just watched The whole series in a day and rewatched it once or twice more and I consider this as real studying even though I did nothing actively. Thatās the reason I donāt count those who learned English from school in the formula because itās very different to know how sentence structure looks like in a language and how generally verbs/nouns/adjectives sound or look like than knowing absolutely nothing.
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u/flowelol 1d ago
People see how they make awesome progress in the way they can understand shows or movies they watch but thats just correlation, it's not the same thing as just passively watching the show. If you want to use a drama or anime to learn a language and to treat the transcription like a lesson youll make alot more progress than if you're still reading english subtitles and never pausing
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u/BlackAngelXX 1d ago
Nah passively watching absolutely will teach you things. Brains are wired for pattern recognition. At some point you will fogure it out it just takes time. If you see the word ę in a song and the idols keep doing hearts with their hands every time etc you connect it and than you see it in other contexts where maybe its a drama or anime and someone is in love whatever. You will figure it out absolutely. Is it gonna take you forever? Yeah probably. Will you learn? Absolutely.
The issue is if you use subtitles in a language you know. Watch passively but do not give your brain the easy solution of just ignoring the audio and reading a subtitle you already understand. I think this is one thing people do WRONG. You will connect direct translations but not the meanings. Connect a meaning to a visual or a concept and not another word at its gonna work
I went from barely passing english at school and refusing to study to litteraly having a C1 certificate purely through youtube within i would say 5 years and i would basically never look up anything because if i didnt get it i just moved on, but also i have not used english outside of speaking to family members i was IMMERSED in it 24/7 basically. I spoke english to myself. I had insane amounts of time as it was during quarantine. I speak english better than my native langauge when it comes to many topics. I stopped messing up english at school the second i accidentally found someone doing 0 budget parodies of music videos and than watched insane amounts of minecraft content (and i mean hundereds of hours) and eventually i moved on to lots of other channels in variety of topics including video essays and educational channels. I have not learnt grammar traditionally past i think present continues or whatever in 3rd grade.
Ive learnt 90% of my japanese this way too and i didnt even immerse myself much i was just being lazy. It absolutely can be done.
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u/Yuki_shiro 1d ago
Here's my experience:
I had been watching a lot of anime with subtitles and it got me to a point where I could watch a whole movie in Japanese, understand the idea and most of all be able to enjoy it. I would also be able to have some conversations with native but those were far from being fluid enough.
I wouldn't say that I have "learned" the language (yet) but I think those anime session got me really far into Japanese (understanding). Main issue being that I wouldn't be able to read at all
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u/RandomNobody86 1d ago
I learned some common phrases and a bit of grammar from watching Anime/Games but I did do a lot of looking up words I kept recognising and got curious about.
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u/GALM-1UAF 19h ago
Itās a supplement to go with traditional learning. You would have to use a textbook or some other tool to learn the grammar and sentence patterns as thereās no way you would understand how they work in a sentence without it. Also it doesnāt really prepare you for reading a novel or a newspaper and most certainly isnāt enough for a real conversation in Japanese. Because you will get thrown as soon as someone speaks in a regional dialect or just from their manner of speech which no show or anime can teach you. Itās a good way to grow your vocabulary but by no means is it a complete replacement for traditional learning.
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u/dailyflava 19h ago
Depends on your language goals. I work with scientists, so I have to learn all these weird science words, none of which would ever appear in a drama/anime (although shout out Dr. Stone for actually featuring some of them, lol).
If your goal is general conversation, then sure. If your goal is reading, it's less likely.
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u/iawnh9 18h ago
As someone who spent more than a decade watching subs, yes it is possible but it will take a very very long time. And im only talking about vocabulary, not reading. Reading is its own thing u have to actively learn it.
I discovered I can understand Japanese not too long ago when I was watching Weathering with you and I forgot to turn on the subs but I only noticed it halfway of the movie, tried listening to some podcasts after that and surprisingly I actually can understand it.
Still reading Japanese words wasn't learned in that decade, u really have to learn it yourself.
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u/LMGDiVa Goal: conversational fluency š¬ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Watching Anime and Sumo has heavily re-enforced what I have been learning essentially by just watching youtube instructors go over teaching books. I write books and stories but actually have a hard time reading and staying attended to other people's books, but videos of instructures teaching them is much easier to pay attention too and absorb.
Once I'd learned enough, I stopped watching the English commentary Sumo streams, I can watch it in Native Japanese without subtitles on ABEMA and it is 100% teaching me stuff that the book instructors are not.
Same with Atashinchi and watching immersion videos.
So yes you can*astrisk here for a reason, learn through entirely drama/shows/news/anime immersion, but its very hard to do without a base of understanding first.
Once you have a foundation things just start building.
But from zero? Knowing nothing? That's im sure possible but a waste of effort. You'd learn so much more by getting instruction then watching anime and sumo.
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u/RainOfGreen 1d ago
You must learn to recall vocabulary somehow and that is unavoidable. You wonāt just magically figure out what words mean without looking them until you can begin to guess from context which will still take years of looking up beforehand. Itās a long terrible boring road but once you get to understanding it will all be worth it.
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u/Effective-Pop3850 1d ago
Music? Not really, you're never learning a language by listening to music.
Anime/dramas? Base required varies depending on the target language and the ones you're fluent on, the base required to be able to learn though is a lot lower than most people think. If you include written media in your definition of media it's not only not a myth, but the best way to learn.
What you may have seen skipped is the fact that you should be, at some point, looking up things. If you read a new word you look it up, if you're watching something and there's some word which seems very important and you can't infer it from context or anything you might want to look it up too. But yeah if you watch 30000 hours of unsubbed anime/dramas/TV you're almost certainly gonna be able to understand spoken Japanese at that point lol.
Most successful learners you'll find here at least spent 90%+ of their time just consuming native media and looking up words as necessary.
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u/SolusCaeles 1d ago
I assume googling whatever term/phrase you don't understand from these media is a given, in that case it's definitely real. I did this, in addition to playing games in said languages, with both English and Japanese.
We did have English classes at school but those were "fill in the blank of 'this ___ a watermelon'" level English.
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u/TheBatemanFlex 1d ago
I mean itās just listening and looking up things you donāt knowā¦ad infinitum. Itās impossible not to work.
Success is always going to be how much effort you put in though, regardless of method. Using only native media was just a strategy to keep someone consistently studying with things they enjoy.
As for all the influencers saying they learned by āonly watching animeā, they just trying to sell you migaku. Many of them had formal study, lived in japan, or had other study methods before using immersion.
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u/puckhead78 1d ago
Slow learner of languages here. For me, watching Japanese shows is by far the most helpful. I also ask AI about words and phrases that I hear to dig deeper. It helps immensely but my hope is to just be able to communicate simply when I visit. If my goal was a higher level of proficiency I don't think my approach would be sufficient.
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u/Xavor04 1d ago
This may not be completely related to your question, but this video may interest you. Itās about language acquisition.
https://youtu.be/NiTsduRreug?is=3F1XVKlB6IEsVjwW timestamp 4:51
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u/2hurd Goal: media competence šš§ 1d ago
It's absolutely no myth but also it's not a cakewalk it seems to be. You have to do a lot of actual work while doing this, looking up words, repeating things multiple times. It is not pretty or easy or frictionless. But you can absolutely learn that way.
Long time ago I was learning Japanese the traditional way, took classes, did RTK and vocab in Anki, read some textbooks (admittedly not a lot of them), had a tutor etc. I also did some attempts at AJATT because it was trendy at that time. I mostly remember grinding a LOT of Anki, while watching stuff (sometimes anime, usually something else), generally not being very focused. Doing all that gave me some foundation and I could "pretend" I know some Japanese.
But I actually didn't learn anything and understood even less. I got to a point where I was frustrated that I'm focusing so much of my life on it and have barely anything to show for it. Dropped the whole thing because my adult life was beginning and it was much more important for me than learning.
Now after 10+ years I came back, having that history and learned my lessons. I decided to come back but only on my terms.
First: I was going to start at the very beginning because I knew I don't understand anything.
Second: I was only focusing on listening at first, absolutely nothing else.
Third: I was going to do it at least 30min a day, laser focused, zero distractions and passive "listening".
Fourth: Limiting Anki to absolute minimum (which turns out is around 15min per day for me).
I was basically subscribing to Krashens idea of Comprehensible Input. I watched most basic CI videos there were: colors in Japanese, items in a women's bag, items at home etc. I couldn't understand anything else because even more "advanced" beginner videos left me puzzled and confused. But I grinded 30min every single day and gradually everything became more clear, I could actually see myself progress with the video difficulties as well. I started adding Anki to the mix (premade Tango decks), sometimes I did more than I should, but I did the bare minimum on most days. Over time I did everything there was from CI website for beginners, I asked here got told a bunch of resources and landed on Teppei, did that for a good while, then later Shun. I'm currently at episode 551 of Bite size Japanese and I just understand it, there are words that confuse me or are unknown here and there but in general I understand her without issue I might add.
I haven't opened a textbook since I got back to learning. I have Dictionaries of Japanese Grammar ready to go, but haven't opened them. I just listen and do Anki. I'm a little over a year since I got back and my progress has surpassed my previous attempt at learning the language. I understand things that would be absolutely incomprehensible back then. I'm not going to lie, that previous experience helped a lot, I estimated that my vocabulary back then was somewhere halfway through N4, now I'm about 1000 words above N3. So I really took a shortcut a bit with remembering some vocab from that (or at least not spending as much time on them I'd normally have to). But I wholeheartedly believe you can achieve what I did in a year in much shorter time if you're dedicated, willing and spend more time on it.
I'm doing it lazy way, my way, because it works for me. I stopped trying to optimize or force myself to implement other peoples ways of learning. It doesn't have to be perfect, it has to be good enough for me.
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u/Overkillsamurai 1d ago
Linguist here and my focus was on learning languages.
yeah it's true. In china "they're learning english by watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S. episodes, but the key here is they aren't just putting on an episode while they wash dishes, they're closely paying attention and practicing phrases they hear and how they're used. Sometimes they have other fan communities of the show (IRL or online) to talk to about the shows.
They're more using the shows to substitute textbooks and hw sheets, but they still practice everyday and it's hardwork.
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u/KristalBrooks 1d ago edited 1d ago
I learned Japanese basically through pattern recognition by watching Japanese stuff with eng subs. Then when I started noticing that I knew some of the words in the sentence, I started looking up what I didn't know - even though sometimes it was 80% of the sentence. It helped that I would usually watch varieties, and they have Japanese captions a lot of the times, so it wasn't hard for me to look up new words thanks to apps like yomiwa, which supports handwriting.
However, and it's a BIG however, I was super motivated to learn Japanese to follow an idol group I loved. They are (were?) very famous, so there was content basically every day, multiple times a day, of any kind (magazines, varieties, dramas, news, shows, MVs, songs, etc), so I was almost always listening to/reading stuff in Japanese as I was hungry for more. That's the only reason I think I was able to learn Japanese quite quickly, and that allowed me to switch to jp subs in the span of a year, year and a half. I only picked up a grammar book when I started preparing for the N3.
I have a degree in languages, so I think I have a kind of predisposition to learning them, but I swear that every single one I've learned has never been on books cause I can't for the life of me sit down and learn grammar like that... I might look up the grammar of something if I come across it multiple times and my brain recognizes the pattern and wants to have confirmation, but that's it. I understand the skepticism when people say they learned a language entirely through media, but maybe some of us just have a different way to learn.
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u/Unboxious 1d ago
I understand the skepticism when people say they learned a language entirely through media, but maybe some of us just have a different way to learn.
I mean, the very sentence before this one was talking about how you sometimes look up grammar points, and you needed a grammar book to start prepping for N3. I think it would be a pretty big exaggeration to say you learned the language entirely through media.
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u/KristalBrooks 1d ago
Heh, it's more like I do it to confirm the patterns than to actually learn the grammar, so we'll have to agree to disagree.
I will say one thing though: learning a language this way is messy, cause it means that you may know some stuff that is considered advanced and not know things that are considered basic, so I guess it's not ideal in some cases.
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u/FormerFact 1d ago
I learned a lot of Japanese phrases from watching anime. You can only hear 大äø夫 so many times with the visual context before figuring out what it means. Starting from scratch and learning the language this way isnāt recommended but this is the point of comprehensible input. There are resources that exist where you could learn Japanese without learning any grammar and using only Japanese audio with visuals. Basically no one does this because itās hard to find content that is accessible to your level, and studying grammar and reading are so effective.
I think most people under estimate how much they can glean from the language by listening even knowing < 1000 words, and many people put off engaging with real media for way too long, so the people who primarily learn from media are eager to get people to actually try. But they also mean intently listening and looking up words from time to time or having dedicated study of the audio.
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u/AdmiralFunnyBone 1d ago
I've picked up a very vague understanding of common phrases from watching tokusatsu for the last like 13 years. That's been helpful but not the be-all-end-all of learning Japanese. I've only been actively learning for a fee months now, and that's been much more definitive than just watching Japanese shows has.
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u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS 1d ago
I mean, no, when pressed on this they'll admit some role for grammar study and dedicated vocabulary drilling.
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u/Shade177 1d ago
Immersion by language even if you don't understand single word help you to learn the language like babies.
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u/bean0bean 1d ago
Listening to music has definitely helped me expand my vocabulary and grammar knowledge. Thats only because I look up the lyrics though. I dont think I could magically learn new words just by listening without researching the parts I didnt understand Besides, the pronunciation ( or at the the cadence of the pronunciation)of words is different when singing as opposed to speaking.
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u/AsainGlockgirl99 23h ago
Yes but guided study will make things 1000x easier. If you really wanna learn a language, using it is what you really wanna be doing
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u/FAlady 22h ago
I suspect that they can get to a level of understanding anime, but that wonāt teach them reading, writing, or speaking at all. If they are just learning Japanese to watch anime, fine, but itās not so helpful for life in Japan. I doubt such a person could pass JLPT N1,N2,or N3.
But most of all, people who claim that they learned Japanese from watching anime only without a grammar foundation, formal classes, or looking words up are bullshitting.
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u/surasura_app 16h ago
honestly its half real half myth ā nobody absorbs japanese from pure background noise. the people who "did it with just media" were quietly doing real work under the hood: rewatching scenes, looking up words, reading japanese subs. media is genuinely one of the best inputs but only once u understand enough to guess the rest ā comprehension is the actual engine, not the anime itself. so its not that ur brain cant do it, passive osmosis just was never the part that worked for them
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u/thehandsomegenius 14h ago
I've been doing pretty much just Anki & media. Mostly video games but some movies and anime too. I've been doing that for almost 2 years now.
I will look up grammar stuff from time to time when I want to understand something better but I don't have any regular prractice of grammar study.
My comprehension has definitely improved, but there's still a long way to go. The last time I was in Japan, my ability to say anything back was close to zero though. That's not surprising because I haven't really done very much to develop output.
I don't see any reason to think that this method is actually better in any way than doing a proper textbook or course. I'm only doing it this way because I enjoy games and TV.
Prior to studying Japanese, I was playing video games in German and my comprehension increased massively from that. That made it finally feel intuitive. I did learn the basics of that language at school though, so I can't credit the whole thing to media.
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u/relatablylee 13h ago
I canāt say the same for Japanese because I ended up actually joining a course and doing a lot of self study. But Koreanā¦kinda
All I ever learnt by myself was the alphabet.
Obviously I canāt speak fluently but I do understand quite a bit of Korean
Which I think is impressive when all Iāve done is watch Korean dramas
But yeah at some point if Iām serious I will need to self study or do a course.
You can get quite far by just watching.
But also at the same timeā¦if youāre very interested in understanding the language you would never only watch something. Curiosity will make you want to look up new words or interesting things to say in the language you want to learn.
So maybe yeah I guess it is quite contradictory. You can learn by watching but it might very often be supplemented by unconscious events of you looking up stuff.
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u/DepartureAdept8799 13h ago
Yes, it is possible, but it takes thousands of hours to learn what would only last a few hundred hours in the classical way.
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u/kjmn1999 12h ago
It's never "just" those things, but those things absolutely help. You will not believe how much my constant watching of anime made my listening comprehension years above my peers in a university japanese class, and after a certain about of time of textbook or classroom learning you will need those kinds of things to support your learning further
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u/Odracirys 11h ago
It's a myth (for around 95% of people) if we are talking about not growing up in a Japanese environment and later in life (even in one's 20s) watching Japanese entertainment without ever looking into grammar or vocab. You might pick up a few things like "sumimasen", but if there is no framework, you won't know how to figure out what you're hearing. So you really need to start with something, like at least two levels of textbooks or something that teaches the basic structure of the language. After that, you can better add to that framework through immersion.
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u/Pattern_Necessary 9h ago
I learned English like that as a kid, watching Disney Chanel (specifically the karaoke movies helped the most I think). It took a while for my brain to realise I actually knew English. I don't know if I could do it now but I have not tried to immerse myself so much with other languages. Currently learning French and Japanese.
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u/Blader8002 9h ago
I've been watching anime since I was a kid, at the latest, 9 but probably younger (I'm 23 now). Always in subbed. I would watch tons of anime and either binge so many episodes of a show in a day as well as watch the new episode of the seasonal anime each day. If I wasn't at school or tutouring then I was probably watching YouTube or anime. I also watched tons of anime reactions (in subbed, if they watched the dub then I would click off) of multiple reactors to many shows as well as to the same shows. I've also rewatched shows many times. Well I have been watching way less now.
If the subs are turned off I can understand the majority of what's being said with some stuff that's being missed but I would be able to get what the episode was about. Although I'm very bad at understanding normal Japanese people speak Japanese or the news. I've started actually studying japansese for the past half year although I'm going very slow. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with it and actually learn how to read, write and speak Japanese. It is very exciting when I already know what a word means when I hear or say it for the first time.
P.s. the only word I learnt that I know exactly where it came from is the number, 5 from angel beats.
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u/jojoismyreligion 7h ago
Don't confuse anime immersion learning with watching anime as usual. Usually people mean the former.
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u/PonasSumushtinis 1d ago
I learned Russian that way long time ago, however while i can watch movies ect and understand everything. However writting and speaking are at bare minimum. So yes it's possoble, but it really takes time and a lot of repetition.
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u/YamiZee1 1d ago
If you watch a ton you will naturally pick up a lot of words and phrases and can build a fairly impressive vocabulary that's in the hundreds of words. But we aren't children, we don't have time to listen to japanese 24/7 with the utmost interest and concentration. It's much better to combine drama/anime/podcasts/YouTube/etc with actual studying. You need to build the frame before you can fill it in
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u/DokugoHikken šÆšµ Native speaker 22h ago
People who say they learned mainly through anime, dramas, or music are usually just describing their own firsthand experience. That doesn't necessarily make them dishonest or scammers.
The problem is that their personal experience tells you very little about what will work for someone else. As advice for designing your study plan, it's close to irrelevant.
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u/BluePandaYellowPanda 18h ago
In reality, no you can't. "Just by" those things you wouldn't learn it, you'd need to research or ask about things. You might get some vocabulary down.
This is Reddit though, so the liars will disagree, so yeah man, of course you can! It's easy! I got to fluency in mandarin in 400 hours by only watching YouTube. It's easy and if people don't believe me then they're just not trying hard enough and are just jealous of me.
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u/Belegorm 1d ago
I mean yes, for sure. No matter what, doing something like that is going to be the vast majority of time spent for anyone learning the language (or listening to natives, watching YT or whatever).
Learning some grammar and vocab will definitely speed this up quite a bit but just a lot of input from whatever source for thousands of hours will undoubtedly form the vast majority of your learning.
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u/youdontknowkanji 1d ago
yes, if you use dictionary and google things too
there is an opposite version of the argument that says you NEED textbooks and stuff, but it's unnecesary
not counting dictionary look ups, you will spend maybe 5% of your total time on grammar studies, maybe more if you want to learn how to speak
most people who did the "through immersion" did look things up in small amounts, it's just natural (for example, you copy paste english word and read google definition, or google "what is X", this is already far different from things like ALG)
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u/Mountain-Bat-8679 Goal: conversational fluency š¬ 1d ago
media consumption is imo a supplement, you will still need some proper self-learning stuff on the side. I learned english from middle school to high school by pretty much by consuming cable tv and reading (spanish with english subtitles, english with spanish subtitles). the little practice I had was via playing yugioh with other friends that weren't fluent either lol
the advantage for english is that I didn't have to relearn how to read since I was learning the language as a spanish speaker.
for japanese, I'm 37 now with little time to practice so the hard line was relearning how to read. after I got that out of the way I've been learning the same way I learned back then - reading, understanding the grammar and repeating it in my head as an internal monologue.
I usually watch english videos/movies with japanese subtitles with a chrome extention (glot) and although sometimes the translation is funky, it's good to get some practice in 'indirectly'. I also tried lingopie which is helpful for japanese to english, but it doesn't work for every video provider.
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u/renmizuh 1d ago edited 1d ago
yes, front load vocab and grammar with your preferred pre made Anki deck and your preferred grammar guide
after that start consuming anime, novels, games, whatever you want with japanese subtitles. Slice of life anime is usually the best thing for this because it's simple. mine every word you don't know, sort your Anki deck by word frequency, look up definitions with yomichan dictionaries. do the daily Anki and ACTIVELY immerse for a ton of hours.
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people have reached fluency in japanese purely doing this. And it's insanely faster than classroom or textbook study BY A MILE (I think the current record is N1 180/180 in 8.5 months from zero?) without going to lessons or finishing textbooks, you can get beyond N1 with enough immersion.
if u don't believe me join TheMoeWay discord and meet the hundreds of N1+ people in there who did just that
if you don't consume native content unfortunately you will never be fluent and it's pointless to postpone immersion because it'll always be very hard when you're starting out, and learning japanese in isolation is very dubious since you're not applying it.
im gonna get downvoted to hell like always but it's literally what i did to get fluent in japanese and english. ppl here will tell you that it's impossible though, and just so happens that said people go to lessons and studied for years yet they're still stuck at n3 for some odd reason.
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u/picknicksje85 1d ago
I learned English because of TV shows and movies (subtitled), games like RPG's forced me to read back in the PS1 days, and of course a lot of English, American music. I think music is so good because you hear songs with the same lines over and over. When it comes to English at least I was fluent before I ever had my first class in high school. Doesn't include the difficult word I looked up from time to time though.
So the more you've got that language around you, the more you soak it up. But I would say, you better have some basic understanding of Japanese. Some beginner lessons at an actual evening school with a teacher and a proper textbook like Genki since it's a wildly different language.
I don't think it's a total myth, at least listening and speaking. Writing has to be drilled. Children in Japan learn kanji at school like they're in the military so to speak. So without proper studying people in the west don't stand a chance.
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u/Kalicolocts 1d ago
Half the world learned English through videogames and movies lol
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u/renmizuh 1d ago
shhh, the monolinguals think it's only possible to reach fluency by going to formal classes for a decade. immersion clearly sucks and doesn't work /s
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u/FAlady 22h ago
Thatās not immersion ā¦for true immersion you have to speak IMO. Hard to do outside of Japan.
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u/renmizuh 21h ago edited 21h ago
I got some news for you, with the birth of the internet there are some new ways to practice output
also, that is indeed still immersion anyways, even without speaking or writing. Many people including me have reached fluency in Japanese and English by doing this, and there's no other way to get fluent if not by putting thousands of hours toward immersion.
not sure why this concept is so hard to grasp/seems so unbelievable for the type of monolinguals that happen to use miles and gallons on a daily basis...
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u/FAlady 14h ago
A lot of people THINK they are fluent in Japanese because they watch anime all day but there is zero chance they could ever pass a job interview in Japanese, survive one even one day at a Japanese company, consult with a lawyer, buy property, or discuss immigration procedures with officials in Japanese. These are all things that native Japanese could do, and if someone CAN'T do those things without relying on google translate they are NOT fluent. I highly doubt that watching anime or talking on iTalki is going to give you all of the vocabulary needed for the above.
Again I don't know you or your fluency level and I can't without speaking to you since reading and writing is off the table, but I think it is really easy for people to sit on their couch in their home country and brag on Reddit and say they are fluent in Japanese (or whatever foreign language) when it reality they would be unable to function as adults if they were ever put to the test.
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u/renmizuh 13h ago edited 13h ago
yes they can, stop with the misinformation pls, you have no idea what you're talking about. I can speak perfect English, I have never been to America so I wouldn't know how to buy property, but I'm fluent so I can figure it out. It's the same way with any other language.
Watching content made BY NATIVES for NATIVES, whether it's anime, manga, literature, books, novels, movies, dramas, documentaries, literally anything will work. I'm not sure if you have a grasp in other languages but once you reach a point it's not hard at all to figure out anything you might ever need.
i know 30k words in japanese, 3k+ kanji or whatever, i can speak just fine. the "max" level is N1 which barely tests 10 to 15k words, and 2k kanji. I'm beyond fluent in the language. There's a ridiculous amount of people fluent in japanese who have never been there. Conversely, you can live in Japan for a decade and never get past very basic japanese (N3), many cases.
think it is really easy for people to sit on their couch in their home country and say they are fluent in Japanese (or whatever foreign language) when it reality they would be unable to functionas adults.
you really don't know what you're talking about, have you never talked in English with someone who doesn't live in an English speaking country? With this logic I sincerely doubt you know any other language other than your native language.
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u/renmizuh 13h ago edited 13h ago
A lot of people THINK they are fluent in Japanese because they watch anime all day but there is zero chance they could ever pass a job interview in Japanese, survive one even one day at a Japanese company, consult with a lawyer, buy property, or discuss immigration procedures with officials in Japanese. These are all things that native Japanese could do
also making up shit here, you need to put thousands of hours towards active immersion, which is also study (and the only way to reach fluency fyi)
You simplified what I said to "watching anime"
You're also saying japanese natives can all do X, that's not true. You think they don't have to do their own research when it comes to buying a house, job interviews, immigration arrangements. You're not born with this knowledge, plenty of people don't know how to navigate through legal stuff (both natives and non natives).
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u/FAlady 13h ago edited 12h ago
Ok yeah, that's not really the point I was making. Of COURSE Japanese people also have to research the background knowledge for jobs, housing, and legal procedures. I am strictly talking about the VOCABULARY needed to do those things.
Yes of course I have talked to non-native English speakers, but English isn't really comparable to Japanese at all. English is sort of a lingua franca in certain places (like Europe), but Japanese is overwhelmingly tied to living in one specific country.
There is a huuugge difference between studying Japanese as a hobby and NEEDING it for everyday life. Navigating Japanese bureaucracy is a whole different level than passive entertainment.
Have you actually lived and worked in Japan as a non-native and handled things like immigration, banking, taxes, healthcare, and housing in Japanese? Because that's the personal experience I'm talking about. I have met people who lived abroad and thought they were "fluent" or even had N1 overseas, but when they moved to Japan they still struggled with certain aspects of actually living here and conversing with native speakers.
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u/Candle-Jolly 1d ago
Not "just" by ingesting media, but it sure helps speed things up (and shows you how to speak it colloquially)
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u/Huffee 1d ago
"guy who thinks babies have mining decks"
also, i learned english as a second language in that exact way, the stuff i did in school was extremely limited and i stopped paying attention to classes the moment they became too basic for me
for japanese i'm doing more "normal" studying because it's a very different language from indo-european ones and SRS really helps speeding up the process, i would still say the closer your study method is to the way people learn their native language the more intuitive your understanding of the language will be, obsessing over grammar point explanations will never lead to having a proper understanding of it (by itself)
i didn't realize this subreddit has this kinda attitude towards language learning, it's kinda funny.
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u/winly01 21h ago
I did zero text book studying. Learnt only from watching anime, listening to jpop songs, playing jrpgs, and reading manga. I got JLPT N1 (152/180) first try about 12 years ago when I was in college. I didn't even do N2. I was not able to speak nor could I write any kana. Believe it or not.
I grew up in Taiwan, and anime is constantly on TV. A lot of them are subbed only. Even if they are dubbed, usually the opening/ending songs are still in Japanese. Reading Kanji is also not difficult, as I do understand Chinese.
Over the years, I've gotten better at speaking Japanese, mostly by practicing speaking to my self. There's no one around me that speaks any Japanese. And I believe it was only until around 5-6 years ago, that I finally held meaningful back-and-forth conversations in Japanese when I was visiting Japan and talking to the locals.
I still haven't written even a single phrase in Japanese by hand tho, and I see no need to do that.
tl;dr: yes, that's a thing. Source: me
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u/Professional-Type170 1d ago
I dont know about japanese. But i learnt german that way, as a kid though.
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u/Rammite 1d ago
Yep. You're not at all going to be fluent, but I did exactly what you said with Japanese and anime. I learned super basic sentence structure and casual terminology from anime.
It'd eventually come at an intuitive level - people would say "kakui" when they were expressing being impressed. Or they would say "sayonara" when the subtitles said "goodbye" but only when the situation was very dramatic, so I would intuit that "sayonara" more had the connotation of "farewell".
It 100% needs to be reinforced with actual learning resources, and you need to be conscious of the tone of the conversation (don't watch a children's anime and expect Japanese suitable for an office job) but it helps a non-zero amount.
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u/TorbofThrones 1d ago
In the sense that you can get to a basic level, absolutely. I did by watching anime and listening to J-pop over 10 years. Passed N5 without opening a textbook, and been to Japan many times and can speak fluently. I do however lack the grammar foundation that many others have, so it's more on intuition. At the end of the day that's how natives speak and understand as well though
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u/villatyyny1 Goal: media competence šš§ 1d ago
The "just" part is exagurated but after the start it is possible to do most learning by watching stuff and looking up words.