Great talk, and good to hear from both speakers on the things that helped them and their experiences. I'm beginning to suspect that every N2 level JET alumnus has a photo of themselves in front of Dogo Onsen because I have yet to meet a single one who doesn't 🤣 Can we make it an official requirement? Regarding the first question from the Q&A - use as many different types of study material as possible! The more, the better! Specifically on anime and using it as a study material - be very careful about this as a beginner and don't use it exclusively. It is fine for listening and getting used to the sounds of the language, as well as picking up certain phrases and vocabulary, *but* you need to have some understanding of how the language works, and ideally how translation works if you're using subs (which most people will be). Having studied translation, I can assure that using translation to learn a language is not the best way to go about it. You simply cannot just translate a sentence, or even a word without _context_ . And context can and will completely change how a word is translated. So please be aware that when you hear a sentence in anime and read the subtitles, you cannot simply write them both down and study that, like you would a phrasebook. Because the same line in a different situation, in a different anime, _will_ be translated differently. This is related to the "nuances" Melanie and David talked about and is not at all unique to Japanese. It is the same in every other language, yes, including English. The key issue is that the nuances can be _different_ for each language, this is what makes it difficult for us to learn another language, especially one which is not related to the ones we already speak. So for beginners, you can watch subbed anime and pick things up, but please double-check before you commit "許さない=I won't forgive you" to memory because in many circumstances, that is not what it actually means. Use dictionaries, not google translate, and if you can, ask a teacher or Japanese native speaker. For intermediate and advanced learners, you should be trying as much as possible to move your learning from an English/other language environment to a Japanese ones. Stop looking up words in J-E dictionaries unless absolutely necessary and start using monolingual Japanese dictionaries to get a Japanese language definition. Yes, it's hard, it really hurts at first and you will tire yourself out faster _but_ it is so worth it in the long run. When you learn something and want to write it down, maybe for flashcards or whatever, do it in Japanese. Write out your own simple definition rather than just putting down 2 or 3 English words. If you're still taking classes or lessons at this point, go for ones where Japanese is used almost exclusively. Immersion, immersion immersion! If nobody else will speak Japanese to you, speak to yourself in Japanese! Whatever it takes!!
Great talk, and good to hear from both speakers on the things that helped them and their experiences. I'm beginning to suspect that every N2 level JET alumnus has a photo of themselves in front of Dogo Onsen because I have yet to meet a single one who doesn't 🤣 Can we make it an official requirement?
Regarding the first question from the Q&A - use as many different types of study material as possible! The more, the better!
Specifically on anime and using it as a study material - be very careful about this as a beginner and don't use it exclusively. It is fine for listening and getting used to the sounds of the language, as well as picking up certain phrases and vocabulary, *but* you need to have some understanding of how the language works, and ideally how translation works if you're using subs (which most people will be).
Having studied translation, I can assure that using translation to learn a language is not the best way to go about it. You simply cannot just translate a sentence, or even a word without _context_ . And context can and will completely change how a word is translated. So please be aware that when you hear a sentence in anime and read the subtitles, you cannot simply write them both down and study that, like you would a phrasebook. Because the same line in a different situation, in a different anime, _will_ be translated differently.
This is related to the "nuances" Melanie and David talked about and is not at all unique to Japanese. It is the same in every other language, yes, including English. The key issue is that the nuances can be _different_ for each language, this is what makes it difficult for us to learn another language, especially one which is not related to the ones we already speak.
So for beginners, you can watch subbed anime and pick things up, but please double-check before you commit "許さない=I won't forgive you" to memory because in many circumstances, that is not what it actually means. Use dictionaries, not google translate, and if you can, ask a teacher or Japanese native speaker.
For intermediate and advanced learners, you should be trying as much as possible to move your learning from an English/other language environment to a Japanese ones. Stop looking up words in J-E dictionaries unless absolutely necessary and start using monolingual Japanese dictionaries to get a Japanese language definition. Yes, it's hard, it really hurts at first and you will tire yourself out faster _but_ it is so worth it in the long run. When you learn something and want to write it down, maybe for flashcards or whatever, do it in Japanese. Write out your own simple definition rather than just putting down 2 or 3 English words. If you're still taking classes or lessons at this point, go for ones where Japanese is used almost exclusively. Immersion, immersion immersion! If nobody else will speak Japanese to you, speak to yourself in Japanese! Whatever it takes!!
Thank you for all the valuable tips!