learn japanese with anime?
 

would you use anime as a way to learn japanese?

i've picked up some words here and there, and thought it may be worth a try.

i've seen books where they use manga to teach japanese phrases and culture too.

any thoughts/suggestions?

I would only use Anime as a source to learn Japanese for greetings/goodbyes/formal speaking/etc. But not exactly for entire sentences in Japanese because the translations can differ with each translator. Or maybe they are close, but not exactly on the mark with what they actually said.

Not a recommended way to say the least. But it can be used to supplement your knowledge and it helps you enjoy the process :)

If you are rather serious about learning through anime though, then you should first pick up the basics from elsewhere then do the translations for the anime yourself. Play a short scene in the raw, translate it the best you can and then compare with a good translation. Rinse and repeat. Write down the words they say - IN JAPANESE - and correct yourself every time. Don't go for full length episodes because learning requires focus. It's imperative that you know Hiragana, Katakana and some Kanji before you start with anime and that you know the basic grammar. Anime helps a lot with vocabulary and such and like I said, helps you enjoy the process, but without rigor, you won't be learning much, if anything ;)

No.

Of course, exposure to any language is going to lead to you learning bits and pieces, phrases and words, but you're not going to be become a proficient speaker of Japanese from watching anime alone. That's just a pipe-dream.

The thing with this question is that the replies never answer the question, "Is it possible for me to learn Japanese from anime?" The replies all answer the question, "Am I going to be able to follow through and actually study the language, or will I just end up a loser Japanophile with a lexicon of 20 words?"

Which is not necessarily a bad way to reply, because 99% of people who ask if they can learn Japanese from anime do in fact end up learning a few dozen words, minimal grammar, and call that progress. These are the people who walk around going "kawaii day-soo nay" and "sugooooy" at everything.

The short answer to "is it possible" is yes. The short answer to "is it practical" is no. The short answer to "is it practical with some supplementary material" is yes if you actually like the language. No if you are just doing it for anime.

Case study: myself.

Two years of self-study using internet grammar resources, attempting to translate songs, and watching tons of anime. After that I walked into the Japanese department at my college, took the placement exam, and started taking third-year courses.

BUT. I love the Japanese language. Once I started, I was hooked by its beauty, structure, and complexity. If you don't actually like the language, and if this is just an extension of your interest in anime, then STOP while you're still ahead.

That's all I have to say.

Personally (from someone that has lived in Japan years ago and has spoken the language (tho I suck at it)), I wouldn't use anime, manga, TV shows, movies or literature to study Japanese, since English and Japanese grammar varies so much and there's usually a bunch of terms that would be no use to any normal Japanese person.

It's like learning English by watching Friends or learning Italian by watching some mafia show. It just doesn't work well.

Though not quite the same, you can pick up some decent pronunciation skills from reading a few japanese literature books in english. Some books give a quick intro to pronunciation in the beginning of the story. Watching ending and opening themes in both english and japanese subtitles kinda helps too. Of course, this doesn't substitute for "proper" learning that others have suggested.

If you know what you're doing, sure why not. Any immersion helps.

The problem is you need to know what you're doing in the first place. You need to know when a character is using extremely casual language, when it's slang, when it's just a quirk, and there's also the way that voice acting does not sound like real conversation. Just like Western cartoons don't sound like real conversation.

And of course it's rather on the useless side for teaching the basic skills in reading, writing, and the all-important kanji study. Helps with hearing and comprehending though.

What Raiga posted for Great Truth.

I've been a fan of Japanese culture and history for 40-some odd years, sadly they did not offer Japanese during my high school/college years. Most places have some sort of instruction now -- do that.

Anime as a *supplement*, is just fine (oh, I understand almost half of what was said!!!). It will only get you in trouble if you use it as a primary source because about 3/4 of what you hear is incredibly rude when said to anyone but your closest friends.

Japanese 100% learned from anime; Chibi shojo kawaii desu!!!!!

Oh wait....

Learning Japanese from anime now that impossible but picking up some words at less that some thing you can get from anime

Using anime as a complement to learning is good, but I wouldn't use it as the sole source for learning.

The best medium to use as a complement for learning is Visual Novels though. You both learn to read and pronounce the words. But you have to learn at least basic grammar, katakana, Hiragana and like 2000 kanji before you actually start to learn something by reading them.

thanks everyone,

yeah, i was thinking more on the lines of using anime clips to supplement some other main source, like a class or a book/online text.

i just thought that a lot of examples they give in books aren't so obvious how the vocab gets used in real life, and if there were some associated anime clips, that would help reinforce the vocab a lot. and definitely make it more interesting and motivating too

Yeah. Just remember that a lot of what gets said in anime isn't reflective of real life conversations either, and of course, as Vexx pointed out, a lot of it would be considered inappropriate if said to anyone but your close friends.

I don't think you could learn Japanese from anime if you don't know any Japanese but if you have the basics down then maybe.

As many people have pointed out, using Anime as a supplement is a very viable method to learn Japanese. This is my personal story:

I started to watch non-dubbed anime around sophomore year of high school, and watched them feverishly until the end of high school (well, I still do..) When I entered college and started my beginner's Japanese class, I still practically had no prior knowledge of Japanese. The mass anime watching had not helped at all. But, by the time I was in second year Japanese class, I started to catch some words, phrases, grammar points, etc in anime. And by the time I was in third year Japanese class, I was miles ahead of my classmates in terms of my knowledge of vocabulary, fluidity of my sentences, listening ability, etc. This was the point when I was able to understand ~70% of anime Japanese. Again, let me emphasize that I watched alot of anime throughout all this, and I had also listened to a lot of Japanese music since I started college.

So, to sum it up, have a basic knowledge of Japanese first, and then, anime is a great resource to help you learn Japanese.

One thing I want to mention though, is that this method will not help you learn kanji (chinese characters), the most difficult aspect of Japanese in my opinion. Currently I can easily read a raw manga that have furigana (the readings for kanji) because I know the spoken word, but I have a hard time reading light novels as they don't have furigana for most of the kanji's, and thus I can't read them. Now, this is where visual novels come in, but I'll leave it at that., Also, the fact that I already knew Korean beforehand helped me tons in learning Japanese, so I'm not sure exactly how much anime will help for others. I know it really helped for me, though.

Not sure if this has been mentioned before, VN's are good for picking up vocab since you both get to hear someone say it and see it as text.

Though that fact means it is a very good supplement, since from my experience at least, most Japanese courses teach you how to talk more respectfully far earlier than they teach you how to talk casually.

Me and some college mates are about to try if anime and other medias can be used to help teaching japanese language through a mini-course we offered in our college.

We will try the sequence: Movie > Anime > Visual Novel > Manga > Text (Light Novel, Mukashibanashi) > Music, in a progressive sequence of difficulty. We are planning to use RAW medias and/or kana/kanji subs.

The idea is to immerse the students in the japanese language and making them stop relying on others translations.

But there are some points to be noted:
- our students are already japanese language students;
- our focus is on vocabulary rather than grammar.

Our intention is something Vexx already pointed out: using anime and other medias as a supplement to learning japanese. We believe they are useful to make japanese words and structures more familiar and to practice the already learned grammar/vocabulary. It's a complement for the textbooks/teacher's lessons and a way to keep learning through some entertainment. And serves the purpose to make students lose the fear of being confronted by the language.

Do manga before VN's, there is furigana in almost all of them which makes them more easier to read than VN's.