I highly recommend animelon, I started watching hxh what I did was I canceled the English subtitle and replace it with Japanese only. Bro once you connect something you love with learning Japanese, it becomes easier
People from other countries who speak English well can relate. We learned through a lot of input because there's so much English media available for us to immerse ourselves in, and we practiced speaking a lot (output) while playing games online with other English speakers. My English and accent have been almost fluent since I was 9, and I am often mistaken for being American online lol. This does work the same for Japanese and maybe even faster, because you have tools like Anki and more complex thinking as an older guy so input is more comprehensible than as a 6 year old that doesn't understand many concepts. Also a tip I would consider when learning Japanese (or anything for that matter) is to get adequate sleep. How much you need differs from person to person, but either way it will very simply directly contribute to how much information you can retain and make input more comprehensible because you can think clearly.
exactly! my english situation is pretty much the same; i wonder how japanese grammar's difficulty compares to that of my mother's tongue (polish), as i constantly find it easier to express myself in english than in polish
When my dad bought me an mp3 player back in high school, he chose the one without any screens to display video or play games. He didn't want me to play with it when I should study. Jokes on him, I was into American TV series in high school, so I extracted audio files from them and saved those .mp3 files in my device instead. I had to make my English skills good enough to listen and understand these ad hoc "radio series" of mine without subtitles, or waste time trying. He would never know why his son preparing for STEM in college had yeeted all Mathematics grades in the dumpster when English was the only subject with grades going to the moon😂
This. I had english classes in high school but they were kind of subpar. What really helped me was forgetting my mother tongue and diving into english through music, youtube videos and video games. It took some years, but it was worth it.
Cute penguin made me want to learn. I'm already in pain. I learned an...okay level of Spanish this way, but at LEAST I can bloody read Spanish. Thanks penguin man. See you in 5 years
LMAO, you broke me when you said "what did I do to fix my crippling video game addiction..... nothing, I still have a crippling video game addiction". I feel like a lot of people watching this are the same. Geeks, gamers, low attention span, but really want to learn Japanese. Thanks a lot for making these videos and fuelling our learning journey. Keep up the good work.
I'm glad you made the distinction between passive listening and background listening! That definitely saved me some time lol. I can't wait to try this!
I realized this a while ago, I'd listen to audiobooks and not remember a single thing or I'd have music on while playing a game and 10 minutes pass before I realized that it's been paused compared to while I'm listening during work or driving when I Don't have to focus so much I remember and notice the pause almost instantly
It's the difference between active listening and passive listening.. the title is just clickbait because the OP is suggesting active listening not passive(which he renamed to background) yeah.
@@George2647g i was wondering about this, since a lot of language youtubers i watch denounce passive approaches as almost useless, thus i was a bit confused by trenton's method, even though his explanations made a lot of sense. because if what he describes is "passive listening", then what would active listening even be? so i'm glad someone brought up this suspicion.
Vouch for "Nihongo Con Teppei", I have also listened for around a year now, and it's helped me tremendously! The feeling of finally having an episode where you understand the whole episode without having to look anything up, was the best feeling in the world.
I love Nihongo Con Teppei. When I was a beginner and severely lacking in the listening department, I always pull up one of those episodes. It’s such an amazing beginner podcast.
@@Yumi_ChanEZ Words become more memorable by hearing them all day, so if you add some time to study, sooner or later when you hear them it becomes easier to recognize them and assign their remembered meaning to each word you hear.
@@Yumi_ChanEZ I'll give you my break down of what I remember happening. In 2008, I started ripping audio from japanese sources; news, video game dialogue, TV shows, music, etc. I started listening for like 10+ hours while in college/working, and when I got home I'd just have more things playing in the background while I played video games, homework, housework and such. I got the idea of this from Khatzumoto who coined 'All Japanese All The Time', which is basically what the method in the video is describing. Anyways, I'd do whatever anki kanji flash cards I could a day and also took time to write the kanji on printer paper at my own pace, of course. I think around the 4-5 month mark, I realized at some point during the day my brain was trying to have a japanese conversation. I could understand the words being said, not like by definition because I definitely had no idea what they were saying but it suddenly stopped sounding like gibberish. I had a lot of moments like this where I could start repeating things in my brain that I had no idea what it meant. The more I did anki flash cards paired with the passive audio I started realizing what was being said little by little. I stuck with this method until around 2013 and yeah I get that's a long time but I was at a pretty decent understanding level probably sometime in 2011, plus I was finishing up my college requirements because I was in a state of I'm moving to Japan, so it's all or nothing. There was no choice for me at the time, so I kept it up. By 2013 I was finally confident enough to take the proper testing, interview, and requirements necessary to shuttle off to Japan. It was shocking how much I understood when I first arrived in Japan, honestly. Just by doing flashcards, and passively listening to Japanese, but I mean it was on all the time for 5+(ish) years. I've been out here for 10+ years now, and I've had 0 issues with understanding or communicating at all. It's never been an issue, besides culture shock. So the method does work very well, it just takes some dedication to just keep at it. You won't know how far you're getting until one day it just all seemingly starts making sense once you've given it enough time. It's not a matter of being smart either, it's purely a time issue and just learning the other stuff at your own pace such as grammar, the kanji, and such.
That video really helped me out man, I don't doubt this one will too. Thanks dude. I've been passive listening to Japanese ever since I watched your last video, and it's actually been really helpful I've been getting used to listening it and it's becoming like second nature listening to it
I'm currently in my 1st month and I'm like you. I have ADHD and if I don't understand 80%+ of what's going on, I switch off. So I listen to lessons in Japanese (Podcasts, YT videos) very often they say the word/sentence in English and then repeat it a bunch of times in Japanese. I also go for an hour walk a day where I use Tofugu to learn the Hiragana (I'm now done with that) and Katakana (70% done with that) I plan to repeat this with kanji and keep building my vocabulary over time. I'll also switch from learning single symbols (Hiragana/Katakana and their copulations etc) to constructing simple sentences. A few times a week (2-3) I have kids' books in Japanese and I work on translating 1-2 pages each time and learning any unfamiliar words (all of them almost at first)
I feel the same as someone with audhd, it took me 4 years to finally give up subtitles for anime and completely switch to my japanese only youtube account. A slight nit pick, do *not* translate, read like you understand the language, like how you read English and try to think about the meaning, do not try to impose what you're reading onto the English framework you already have. It's one reason I think it's better to first reach a good listening comprehension level before commiting more to reading, until then, which is probably like the first half a year to a year depending on how fast you acquire, you stick to reading small stuff like comments or whatever.
Thanks i also don't like reading that much so gonna focus on listening. One thing do i need to read to get good or if i need to read i can i can read less. @@vali69
Yuyu it’s amazing he was my actual teacher when he used to be a professor in Guadalajara (Mexico) , he was quite new to UA-cam im really happy he was able to pull it off he’s a great teacher
3:29 “I would’ve gotten better faster if I’d know some of the grammar” (loose quote). Yeah, exactly. My initial thought was, “Uhhmmm…” Because if you know none of it, you’ll never learn because, without any visual cues, it’ll just be sound. This is why comprehensible input is great. Get super easy stuff to build a foundation THEN get an ass-ton of hours. Great video. Definitely how I’m learning Spanish. 1,350 hours of listening, baybeeee! This works. You’re spot on.
You should also remember to sleep whenever you feel tired after immersing yourself because your brain actually mostly learns while sleeping, so the vast majority of your progress in language comprehension will happen suddenly out of nowhere over night. I remember taking a break from japanese listening after being frustrated and just played a video game for 2 weeks and when I came back my japanese was suddenly better than before, it freaked me out a lot. But really the brain even learns if you take breaks as long as you give it enough sleep. Also if you're insomniac try to learn to get comfortable laying down and just doze, just close your eyes, lying around doing nothing will mean the same, essentially your brain isn't busy with new input so it can sort through all the stuff you already took in and often you even fall asleep just doing that regardless. Just in general take enough time resting for language learning (or amy learning in general)
Ive been watching anime since around 2018 only sub. My attention was focused in the subtitles and I didnt really understand japanese back then nor do I intend to. Fast forward to 2020, I started watching Jp vtubers first through subtitled clips. After watching for a while I started tuning in to their streams. At that time I realized that I kinda understand what their saying even without subtitles. Everything just started to click, like the accumulation of the 2 years of consuming japanese media just unlocked. It blew my mind that something like that can happen so I wanted to share it.
Is watching gaming streams in Japanese good for complete beginners (less than 20 phrases I understand that I picked up from anime and Duolingo). If so what are the popular streamers?
These videos are amazing. You finally gave me the push to start learning Japanese with your last video and it was one of the best choices I've made in a while. It's genuinely been so much fun to learn a language for a culture who's media I consume on a regular basis.
hello, trenton! i started learning japanese since your first video, it really was the push i needed to start my journey. I am diagnosed with adhd and i get really distracted while trying to learn japanese, and passive listening is honestly helping me to recognize patterns and see how words that i learned on anki go in phrases. I can understand almost nothing from the podcasts and anime, but I will keep pushing as you said! thank you.❤
12:25 I think this is one of the more important parts of the video. You don't need to spend your whole day immersing yourself in Japanese to see significant gains. It's definitely worth mentioning that mental fatigue/exhaustion is 100% a thing and can actually be detrimental to your learning -- both in regards to your actual improvement but also in regards to your motivation for learning a language. 13:00 This is important as well. Podcasts and similar content are much, much better than watching anime because you get a lot more speaking content instead of a huge amount of visual (non verbal) content, and in general the speaking content from podcasts tend to have more useable Japanese, where-as most anime is filled with a lot of useless Japanese (unless your goal is to just say a bunch of cringe one liners).
@@Ohrami I'd argue that almost all shounen anime is filled with a lot of useless Japanese. Or are you going to tell me that Naruto's だってばよ is useful :') Part of the problem is that, for new learners, they might not know what is useless and what is useful, and then habits begin to form where they call everyone "omae" or say other rude things without knowing that it's not proper to use. FWIW, when saying that something is "filled with", it doesn't mean that it's 100% that thing, it just means that it's inundated with a lot of that thing.
@@KoutetsuSteel >Or are you going to tell me that Naruto's だってばよ is useful :') Yes. Why wouldn't it be? Certain kinds of characters ending their sentences with some random speech is a common theme seen in Japanese media. >Part of the problem is that, for new learners, they might not know what is useless and what is useful, and then habits begin to form where they call everyone "omae" or say other rude things without knowing that it's not proper to use. And then they learn that it's not proper to use in some situations. None of it is useless, and you never established that it is. Lacking knowledge of the word お前 and its use isn't a good thing.
@@Ohrami Learning random 語尾 that isn't used in actual Japanese isn't useful... and thus is useless. A lot of people who watch anime learn "omae" as the way to say "you" in Japanese, and then they have to /unlearn/ that it's not what you should be saying. If you learn usage for something and then have to unlearn it, I'd argue that learning it was useless. Also, not for nothing (and I think Trenton can confirm this as well), but a lot of people who learn "omae" from anime just... don't stop using it T_T It happens all too often in VRChat.
It's certainly better to be consistent rather than intense. For instance, if you do 8 hour days, but then you burnout for a while, you would've been better off doing 2 hour days without any burnout.
I must say, what I love about your videos is just how thoughtful they are and how they predict multiple queries in advance and address them. I say this as a Japanese-American who wasn’t interesting in learning Japanese until around middle school. I used to kick myself for “not learning the language when I was younger when I could acquire it naturally” but that was a thought trap as said last video. I also used to grind vocab, Genki, kanji, etc to brute force drill it, but was wondering why that didn’t work so well until you showed how ineffective that was last video compared to a ton of input. I also felt like I never had enough time to study Japanese because of other priorities, until you came and addressed that. And here, you give active suggestions that naturally solve many traps I had. For example, how you say you sometimes have to do a sink or swim situation to improve when you feel your skills are plateauing and to think of it as a marathon instead of a race. So yeah, I greatly appreciate the insightful videos because they provide so many magic bullet solutions and am looking forward to any future content you have in store!
I watched your last video when it released and have been passively listening to Japanese almost every day since. I've been listening to podcasts, light novel audiobooks, and watching anime and TV shows in Japanese without subtitles. I also started Japanese classes around the same time. While I do think listening will work over time, I had actually already signed up for the class and I think it's a good idea to help me learn. にほんごべんきょ！
I’ve been doing Duolingo for Japanese for almost 200 days because I’m going to Japan in October. I didn’t feel like I was making much progress, but I actually was. I know simple phrases, words, and the alphabets. I believe your advice with your two videos will help me a lot. I can easily listen to podcasts around 6+ hours a day, so I’ll definitely be using this to my advantage. Thank you for your helpful advice. I’ll gladly take it and keep you updated!
@ Unfortunately, Duolingo didn’t help as much as I thought, even though I was using it religiously. It taught me basic words and phrases, and I feel like I could’ve made much more progress if I quit Duolingo early on and used more immersion methods. To its credit, Duolingo made it easier to study the alphabets, but that’s pretty much the extent of what’s useful. If it taught you more than just, like, 1 kanji every 7490184 years, it would be more helpful, lol. As for constantly listening to podcasts, I lost motivation and stopped listening to them after, like, 2 weeks probably. I believe it was related to Duolingo, as I was trying to get a stupid achievement where you have to complete 200 lessons after 10:00 PM, which was way too late for me since my alarm was set to 6:00 AM, and most of the time I would not get a ton of sleep, so I must have associated Japanese with loss of sleep or something. Nevertheless, I have already went on my trip, and my motivation to learn Japanese has never been lower. I know what I need to do, and that’s study lots of kanji since reading would be incredibly useful. At least I know what my next step is…
Your videos really helped me a lot, as i tried learning japanese before and it felt so much harder than when i learned english. This whole immersion learning seems too obvious i cant believe i never thought of it that way
I had this same idea when I started to learn, but thought it was silly cause "how am I supposed to learn when I cant read any subtitles or see what is going on?" and none of the books and videos I was using would suggest this. But its been almost years learning on and off and I still haven't really picked up on as much as I would have liked. At most, I can apologize when I run into someone, and give them greetings and if I'm hot or cold. This renewed hope in my capabilities and I'm gonna try again
After the last video I've been just listening to a song I want to learn on repeat. I'm glad you made that distinction between passive and background because I noticed I learned a few of the verses by your definition of passively. Definitely motivates me to keep going.
Man, be thankful to yourself you didn't ride the Duolingo Streak into eternity. I spent an entire year on it before realizing my vocab is gonna go nowhere without a dedicated vocabulary trainer, which is when I found Anki. Duolingo is a great way to get started and build enough discipline to study daily but I recommend everyone to make the switch to Anki and listening exercises after the first year/ 1,5 years max. Started just like you in 2019 and I'm only now getting to a point where I understand enough to vaguely follow the news. (Though I should add that I had the great idea to also learn portuguese at the same time, which I guess also delayed my progress a bit). But yeah, Podcasts for passive listening are a complete game changer, 100% agree.
Duolingo is a 100% waste of time for Japanese, I went into that trap myself. Horrible regrets about that. Every other approach, every single one, including only listening to two minutes of weather forecast every day, is vastly more efficient than Duolingo.
These videos are so refreshing and real. I've learned a lot by watching subtitled anime for over a decade and listening to a bunch of Japanese music, so this is suuuper encouraging and validating. Thank you for the great tips!
what I liked about this video is about also learning how to tolerate ambiguity, since I'm one of those people who don't really like to be in a beginner position or is uncomfortable when I don't know a thing about what I'm studying/working/doing etc. I'm fully aware that it's necessary to be in that stage but it's also the point where I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to make it/reach my goal. I definitely learned a thing or two from this video, thank you :)
just checked out this channel today. watched every video u uploaded lmao. didnt realise how recent this video was till i say 1 day ago comments. keep it up dude!
This is cool. I haven't been actively trying to learn Japanese but I have consume a lot of content for native listeners for a few years and have picked up very little. I find it really hard to listen or watch something I am not interested in so i have never tried content meant for learning, but maybe I will. Right now, my favorite youtuber is Masaru-san. He cuts up fish and makes food, and most of his videos have subtitles. Plus he has a very enjoyable voice. I also find that watching streams and using websites in Japanese helps. It really is that immersion aspect.
After ive sawn ur first video i started to learn hiragana with the app u said is good for it for android, and im listening to j-pop for a longer time now and after learning a few signs ive recognized them in the lyrics and can from time to time even see complete words, ye i dont understand them but its a big booster for my confidence, so as soon as i know hiragana a bit better im starting to learn katakana and will start to listen to podcasts and stuff. Tysm u helped me a lot starting learning japanese. 😊
Another banger vid. I’ve been doing a ton of reading recently, and honestly I think I’d like to do a lot more listening since I’m slowly but surely trying to do more output.
if someone still doubt about immersion learning, believe me it really work. im an die hard weebs and before i found this videos i always watch or hear voice actress radio program or stream everyday for almost a year and from me who know nothing what are the talking about to the point when i can understand roughly what are they saying so try immertion learning it will really help you
Im assuming if you want to speak the language or even just understand it you would still need to learn at least some of the grammar somehow no? Or can you legit just passive learn it over time to the point that you don't even need to read anything lol
@@flixytip4571 if you want to understand roughly about japanese then just do immersion is working which is work for me, but if you want to understand more and to be able to speak japanese then it's better to learn other thing like from anki or any other media learning my recomendation is learn from other souce as well not just passive learning if you really want to learn japanese
@@flixytip4571i mean i think so but your language skills will be the equivalent of a toddler who can’t articulate their thoughts or words very well, basically cave man talk, but you can probably polish your broken language with some active learning from people or studying on your own.
Tip: Some anime on Netflix has an option for Japanese with audio description, basically having someone explain what's going on onscreen. This way you can follow the plot without watching the screen, and if you *do* choose to watch, it can help you learn vocabulary (especially actions and nouns) by forming associations between what's happening onscreen and the description of it. Sometimes I'll put on dungeon meshi with audio description while i do something else.
Yusuke from Yuyu nihongo was my teacher in a japanese language school in méxico. I find it funny how he became a big japanese teacher youtuber and podcaster but I'm also very happy for him.
I haven't had any fun lately, You bring me joy!I love the kind and generous heartwarming atmosphere that you create, your kind, easygoing, warm vibe. I like the essence how you live on. I need to be true to myself and find a job I am passionate about. I want to find a way to live as who I really am.
thank you so muchh for the recommendations, i was just looking up japanese podcasts to listen to after watching your first video a few days ago and then this video popped up! perfect timing!
I've tried to learn Japanese off and on for years with minimal success. I knew basic grammar and about 200 or so words, but I would struggle to read even basic sentences. Deciphering the meaning of any given sentence was very slow and tedious as I tried to put 2 and 2 together. I've tried learning with Japanese subtitles and comprehensible input, but the progress I was making didn't match the effort I was putting in. I would quit after a few days. You're video was the first time I was exposed to passive listening. I tried it for about 2 days, and the difference was HUGE. I didn't realize that that's what my study had been missing. Suddenly, reading exercises went much, much faster. I didn't have to sit there and pick apart the grammar, I just understood it intuitively. Comprehensible input became actually comprehensible. It's hard to describe. Before, reading Japanese felt like solving a math problem, and now, it's completely natural. I can easily read what I know, pick out what I don't, and learn from there, as opposed to stumbling my way through things that I've already been over time and time again. It didn't instantly make me fluent. I still have to keep up with my anki deck or watch Cure Dolly (rip) to learn grammar, but I actually feel like I have a handle on the language now. I have a (very) long way to go (I would fail the N5), but the progress I've seen in the last couple of days has been incomparable to my attempts at learning in the past, and the only real change I made was listening to Japanese podcasts instead of music at work. I'm very excited to see where I'll be a couple months from now, if I stay consistent with my habits. (Seriously check out Cure Dolly. No one teaches grammar like her. ua-cam.com/video/pSvH9vH60Ig/v-deo.html )
I guess I've been passive listening without even realizing it haha. If I'm every bored of listening to music I'll put on some Japan exploration videos that has you the viewer walking around various locations in Japan and listening to everyday conversations as they come by. I think it's a great way to familiarize yourself with daily conversations and even various various dialects that may come from certain regions. It may not be 100% effective as there may be prolong periods of silence/ambiance, but I think it might be nice for people who want a slice of daily Japanese life while still getting some passive listening experience. For a channel recommendation, I'd suggest Rambalac!
can you make another vid focusing more on how and where to build comprehension, what is the amount you want to be able to start so that you are actually making progress and not just learning without knowing absolutely anything. It would be beneficial to see where that line is
This came at the perfect time when I was just starting to feel discouraged and lost in my study. I currently have a deadline to learn as much Japanese as possible within less than a year with no experience. I've only recently started and keeping up my motivation while hardly being able to memorize words, let alone understanding those words in the context of my immersion, is an extremely difficult task. This video and your last one have really helped me to stay motivated and focused on what I need to be doing to accomplish my goal. You're helping me to remind myself that I won't realistically get very far within a year, but I'll make decent progress if I just stay consistent and keep putting in the hours whereever I can
@@blaltglalt If you're very new to learning Japanese, and need a good tutorial on how to use Anki, then you should watch Livakivi's 'How To Learn Japanese (The Ultimate Guide)' video, and if you need one for specifically Anki, then they've also made a video that goes more into depth about all the parts of Anki, and how to use them depending on your situation, and goals. Those videos helped me out a lot while first learning Japanese, and were a good motivator.
6:07 Look mom, I'm on TV! Thanks for a follow up video, it helped clear up a lot of the questions I had. It still seems so weird to me that just going in blind can work, but I just have to trust the process.
Woah...this is actually really great to hear. I had heard from other immersion advocates that passive listening is better than nothing but really you should be completely focused. I haven't been doing it as much lately because I wasn't really sure I was getting much from it. But now I'm thinking I need to step it up. I have plenty of down time during my day where passive listening could easily fill those spots and I can get some serious immersion in.
I literally watched last video like 5 hours ago lol and decided to actually give learning Japanese a serious shot, I am watching anime for like 7 to 8 years since I was 13 or 14 and I can already understand simple to kinda intermediate conversation without even trying to learn, I was starting to learn like 6 months ago but some bad irl stuff happened and I stopped, I wanted to get myself out of the gutter and I accidentally found your video, honestly its too early to say that your video "saved my life" lol but it certainly gave me a motivation to start seriously again, so I genuinely thank you for that 😁
I'm really thankful for your last video. I went from using only duolingo for months to using Anki flashcards, grammar textbooks(Tae kim, Genki) , Kanji(KKLC), and immersion through anime and Nihongo con Teppei for beginners( will switch to the original soon).
I'm french, and I began learning english 6 years ago by just listening. Now I'm 16, I'm in a english special class in highschool (tho the english level in france is really heartbreaking lmao), I think I've got pretty close to fluent. ngl, your stuff is really making me reconsider learning japanese. In france, we have a great teacher that did a online free course, but he says that to get a good understanding of japanese you have to learn to write first. But, given all you said in your videos, it's clearly not true. Back in the days, I gave up on japanese because of all the kanjis that french guy said I should learn. Your work and your results are showing me another way, even if I had already did it without realizing it. I would really love to be fluent in three languages tbh x) Thanks for the motivation, I'll try to find the discipline to make you proud bro love the penguin chibi btw, keep it up
Franchement ton niveau d'anglais est fort. J'apprécie toujours les français qui font l'effort d'apprendre l'anglais, la plupart de ma famille ne peuvent pas du tout. Force à toi, on se retrouve au Japon frérot 😎 ❤
@@newvoyageur En français ? J'ai envie de fast learn le japonais, tout comme toi j'ai un niveau pas mal en anglais, et j'ai vu + de 1000 animés donc j'ai déjà l'oreille très développé, j'ai start y'a 4 jours j'apprends déjà l'alphabet par coeur, dommage j'aurai espéré voir un mec un peu dans ma situation avoir bien progresser
Crazy how you are doing the same method as me. Been at it for the past 8 or so months. Thanks for the added motivation to keep going and thanks for letting me know that this method actually works. Thanks for taking the time to make this video.
Love how chill you treat every aspect of this stuff, seems like most of the time people do sound pretty hardcore about spend X amount of time doing this and memorize X words or you'll never get anywhere. I'm in my 3rd year of formal japanese study (minor at college), and these videos convinced me to really start doing more passive listening. Thanks man, this really seems like it'll help me go to the next level! Also your ability to read what people are thinking is pretty hilariously great, so many times on a subject you'd say "now youre probably thinking..." and I kept getting called out lmao
Thanks so much man, I've recently started learning so these video are coming out at just the right time for me! - You mentioned anime often has moments with little or no dialogue, but I wonder if being able to associate the words with visual cues still gives it some advantage over podcasts? - When it comes to watching anime for immersive learning, would you recommend watching in Japanese with no subtitles, or watching in Japanese with Japanese subtitles? - Any other tips you recommend for immersive learning with anime?
Not OP, so feel free to ignore this until he comments but I’d like to give my two cents on this topic. 1. Yes, the visual cues give more of an advantage than podcasts, since you’re able to understand some context even if you don’t understand what they’re saying. Podcasts are what’s considered pure listening, no visuals at all and it’s just audio. This is also why podcasts are considered more difficult than audiovisual content such as movies or TV. 2. I personally recommend using Japanese subtitles especially for beginners, since it will make the content even more comprehensible. Though, if you want to train your listening, no subtitles would be your best option. 3. If you don’t want to look up much words or mine, feel free to do freeflow immersion, which is a type of immersion where you just watch the anime and look up little to no words.
Tbh this actually works as someone who learned English using this method without knowing a single word or gramar rules (still don't know them at all), an approximate time of this can variate from person to person for me for English it took me six months to understand it almost everything and start making broken sentences but in my case is because i found a niche (vtubers) and spend all day watching them passively, actively or just having something in the background while i do other stuff, i highly recommend doing this method to learn languages :3
I understand where he is coming from. 'Background' listening isn't even really passive listening, as really it's just sound. His definition of 'passive' listening is a bit odd, but he's from from the angle of you not devoting your full attention to it, yet still actually listening to it. And from there, 'active' listening is devoting your whole attention to it, maybe taking notes and looking things up.
thank god, you have no idea how much you help us. Even for me who learns languages mostly through a secondary language (english is not my first language) because there aren't enough scources for my first language. thank you for making the only actually helpfull guide
worst part about the immersion learning is your own adhd and distraction you get from unknown language and information that wants you to switch to your native or language you know.
one way i recommend to get over this "FOMO" hump when consuming content is to imagine you actually know it lol. I know it sounds counterproductive, but even if you are starting day one and literally understand nothing, just pretending like you do by making up scenarios in your head will help you overcome this. And as you progress more and more the less you'll have to imagine.
Just echoing the guy above saying not to use it as an excuse. ADHD isn't some ancient magical curse. It's a very minor disorder compared to many out there. Just be glad you get distracted sometimes instead of having psychosis or hallucinations.
I’m going to Japan soon for a little trip for a couple weeks, I was never worried about the language barrier bc people said it’s not too bad over there, but I saw your videos and it’s actually inspiring me to learn. I have terrible ADHD and it’s super hard for me to keep doing something for more than a. Week, so hopefully I can at least try to learn Japanese
11:20 That's perfect! That's exactly what I was looking for! I had to cut down on watching anime because of this specific problem with the silences in between dialogues. It will definitely make for a more efficient listening input while making it enjoyable!
hi trenton. Since ur last video i was very interested in anki and i wanted to ask if u could make a little anki tutorial for how u did stuff and how u use it. Thanks for ur videos
A quick way to start learning: Watch a movie, show or anime in english first, familiarise with it. Then watch the same one in another language you want to learn. Your brain will start picking up correlations in language with what you remember from watching it the first time, rather than just watching everything the first time and trying to guess what it is being talked about. Same with reading, any book you are familiar with already, get the version in another language and read that while translating and writing down words you dont know the meaning of. Some people, like me, memorise things when they write it down by hand better.
Not so long ago, I've finally mustered up the courage to speak to a Japanese immigrant at a bar. It was super broken mind you, but after listening and writing down notes for 6 months I felt like I did something incredible. For listening all I'm doing is watching anime and vtubers, pausing and playing the sounds again to identify words. Same for japanese music too.
Very true. My father made me switch the language of the content I watched from my native language to English, and I started understanding and speaking English in no time lmao
man, you are awesome, thanks for posting! listening here with my dog to our first ever Japanese podcast. And getting ready for my second trip to Japan.
I listened to English songs a lot as a child, even before I studied it formally at school. At the time, I didn't even know what they were saying, but I realized later that it helped me so much in learning the rhythm of English.
Thank you for both videos! While I am not really motivated currently to go back to the level of mastery of Japanese I had 15 years ago when my whole life consisted of anime and games, it reminder me that I really need to find content in Dutch if I want to pass the exam next year. I've been falling behind my classmates in the last couple of years and it's been frustrating me to no end. If only the damn Dutch actually made interesting stuff to watch or listen to...
The hard truth has been spoken man. I found watching translations of animated stuff works a treat, especially ghibli, avatar the last airbender and disney movies. It may be a bit strange at first but man did it help my dutch a lot!
@@anvari255 Yeah, but that implies that the language is so void of culture that you have to go hunt for translated foreign material to be able to learn it. Which is true, and I have to learn the language for professional reasons, but still quite damning
@@elevulIndeed. I mean I live in the Netherlands now and need to speak it to get by. Believe me, there is some culture but it really doesn't lie in the media. They prefer their festivals and parties. The content they do make itself is rarely about their culture. Which I sort of get. My home country didn't really make a lot of good content in our langauge that wasn't just always the same thing in the same genre for the same age group and there was never translations so I learned english naturally almost natively at the same time as my native langauge as a result. As for dutch, there's a very big divide between young and old and the latter seems to be the large majority. They have a desperate issue with a lack of workers as a result. This could also be why their media is really lacking as the elderly wouldn't necessarily be spending their retirements making movies, right? But they might be watching them so.... Either way, its tough learning Dutch for business either way. Speaking from experience. I wish you the best of luck. I personally find it an even harder language to learn than Japanese and I'm natively Afrikaans (which has around 90% of the vocab already.) I'm sure you'll make good work of it!
Immersion/passive listening is basically how we all learn our (first) language anyways - we weren't born knowing, as we grew we picked up on the meanings of different things and how different sounds make up a word. So it's not surprising that the same applies when learning other languages when you're older, besides it being a bit more difficult
I did this exact thing when I taught myself Korean. I used passive and active listening for the first 2 years before moving to Korea. At that time, while in America, I had almost no exposure to Korean speakers so I was on my own and way back 10 years ago there was hardly any UA-cam Korean language content. So instead I watched Korean TV programs like Running Man and a ton of news and music from solo artists. When I later moved to Korea my speaking ability was very basic but my understanding was much much higher. Within my first year here in Korea I became the Korean to English translator for my college that I was working at (not a student). Now there is sooooooo much more learning materials available for just about any language. I have know been doing this same thing for Japanese for about the past 4 months and wow, learning much faster than I did my Korean just because there is so much more materials these days. Hang in there and if you stick to it for years.... yes YEARS not months, you will get there. Buuuuuuut for Japanese, definitely learn Kanji too. If you don't study any grammar at all, at least learn Kanji because you will need it.
Ive never been able to focus on class type work struggling through my entire school years. Jan this year I went to tokyo and absolutely jumped in the deepend for a month and by the end was able to communicate at groceries and stuff about short answer responses and answer and understand a little with my new-found friends I made. When I saw your immersion video I whole heartedly relate to this method and will try all these ways you suggest. Thanks a bunch!
You came to me at the right moment, I was studying the hiragana and katakana alphabet and some grammar particles and vocab at the start of the month, so this is quite helpful. Thank you so much for your suggestions! Greetings from Spain!
I'd love if you could talk about methods to get past that first vocab hurdle. You already mentioned Anki as a tool ofc, but talk about how to push yourself through a day where you don't remember anything, etc.
bro uploaded this in the middle of me watching the first video 😭
Real
Damn, same
Same
same here I just left a comment from the first video lolll
Same😂
thank you for kickstarting my japanese suffering
me to
me too
Welcome to the club. Persevere and you can suffer for months or maybe even years.
I highly recommend animelon, I started watching hxh what I did was I canceled the English subtitle and replace it with Japanese only. Bro once you connect something you love with learning Japanese, it becomes easier
It will get hard before it gets better. I'll see you in the promise land friend!
People from other countries who speak English well can relate. We learned through a lot of input because there's so much English media available for us to immerse ourselves in, and we practiced speaking a lot (output) while playing games online with other English speakers. My English and accent have been almost fluent since I was 9, and I am often mistaken for being American online lol. This does work the same for Japanese and maybe even faster, because you have tools like Anki and more complex thinking as an older guy so input is more comprehensible than as a 6 year old that doesn't understand many concepts. Also a tip I would consider when learning Japanese (or anything for that matter) is to get adequate sleep. How much you need differs from person to person, but either way it will very simply directly contribute to how much information you can retain and make input more comprehensible because you can think clearly.
exactly! my english situation is pretty much the same; i wonder how japanese grammar's difficulty compares to that of my mother's tongue (polish), as i constantly find it easier to express myself in english than in polish
The sleep thing is no joke it's literally the brain organizing everything you've learned through the day
So true and nicely explained
When my dad bought me an mp3 player back in high school, he chose the one without any screens to display video or play games. He didn't want me to play with it when I should study. Jokes on him, I was into American TV series in high school, so I extracted audio files from them and saved those .mp3 files in my device instead. I had to make my English skills good enough to listen and understand these ad hoc "radio series" of mine without subtitles, or waste time trying.
He would never know why his son preparing for STEM in college had yeeted all Mathematics grades in the dumpster when English was the only subject with grades going to the moon😂
This. I had english classes in high school but they were kind of subpar. What really helped me was forgetting my mother tongue and diving into english through music, youtube videos and video games. It took some years, but it was worth it.
Cute penguin made me want to learn. I'm already in pain. I learned an...okay level of Spanish this way, but at LEAST I can bloody read Spanish. Thanks penguin man. See you in 5 years
As a native Spanish Speaker I could tell you. I’m feeling your pain.
I feel you I'm in a similar spot
I was born in Spain and I understand you
As a native Spanish speaker, I would say reading is easily the hardest part, so if you're able to read a little I would consider that a victory
Bro dropped the hardest how to learn japanese video of the century and instantly became a youtuber the GOAT
This dude is new generation Matt vs Japan fr fr
No he didn't
@@arielp7582 He did. This is a one in a lifetime guide.
Look up Matt vs Japan's older videos, he used to talk about this back a lot
I actually learnt English that way… so it is not the hardest way!
LMAO, you broke me when you said "what did I do to fix my crippling video game addiction..... nothing, I still have a crippling video game addiction". I feel like a lot of people watching this are the same. Geeks, gamers, low attention span, but really want to learn Japanese. Thanks a lot for making these videos and fuelling our learning journey. Keep up the good work.
I'm glad you made the distinction between passive listening and background listening! That definitely saved me some time lol. I can't wait to try this!
I realized this a while ago, I'd listen to audiobooks and not remember a single thing or I'd have music on while playing a game and 10 minutes pass before I realized that it's been paused compared to while I'm listening during work or driving when I Don't have to focus so much I remember and notice the pause almost instantly
It's the difference between active listening and passive listening.. the title is just clickbait because the OP is suggesting active listening not passive(which he renamed to background) yeah.
@@George2647g i was wondering about this, since a lot of language youtubers i watch denounce passive approaches as almost useless, thus i was a bit confused by trenton's method, even though his explanations made a lot of sense. because if what he describes is "passive listening", then what would active listening even be? so i'm glad someone brought up this suspicion.
Vouch for "Nihongo Con Teppei", I have also listened for around a year now, and it's helped me tremendously!
The feeling of finally having an episode where you understand the whole episode without having to look anything up, was the best feeling in the world.
I love Nihongo Con Teppei. When I was a beginner and severely lacking in the listening department, I always pull up one of those episodes. It’s such an amazing beginner podcast.
It feels so unreal how your brain can just decipher things through simply listening long enough. The brain is weird and fascinating. Brains.
I have a question. Do you REALLY understand what they say after some time or does it just get easier to learn??😢
@@Yumi_ChanEZ I believe it gets easier to learn, tho there will be times when you'll recognize words
@@Yumi_ChanEZ Words become more memorable by hearing them all day, so if you add some time to study, sooner or later when you hear them it becomes easier to recognize them and assign their remembered meaning to each word you hear.
Why does that feel unreal? That's how the brain works. It notices patterns and attributes things to them.
@@Yumi_ChanEZ I'll give you my break down of what I remember happening. In 2008, I started ripping audio from japanese sources; news, video game dialogue, TV shows, music, etc. I started listening for like 10+ hours while in college/working, and when I got home I'd just have more things playing in the background while I played video games, homework, housework and such. I got the idea of this from Khatzumoto who coined 'All Japanese All The Time', which is basically what the method in the video is describing. Anyways, I'd do whatever anki kanji flash cards I could a day and also took time to write the kanji on printer paper at my own pace, of course.
I think around the 4-5 month mark, I realized at some point during the day my brain was trying to have a japanese conversation. I could understand the words being said, not like by definition because I definitely had no idea what they were saying but it suddenly stopped sounding like gibberish. I had a lot of moments like this where I could start repeating things in my brain that I had no idea what it meant. The more I did anki flash cards paired with the passive audio I started realizing what was being said little by little. I stuck with this method until around 2013 and yeah I get that's a long time but I was at a pretty decent understanding level probably sometime in 2011, plus I was finishing up my college requirements because I was in a state of I'm moving to Japan, so it's all or nothing. There was no choice for me at the time, so I kept it up.
By 2013 I was finally confident enough to take the proper testing, interview, and requirements necessary to shuttle off to Japan. It was shocking how much I understood when I first arrived in Japan, honestly. Just by doing flashcards, and passively listening to Japanese, but I mean it was on all the time for 5+(ish) years. I've been out here for 10+ years now, and I've had 0 issues with understanding or communicating at all. It's never been an issue, besides culture shock. So the method does work very well, it just takes some dedication to just keep at it. You won't know how far you're getting until one day it just all seemingly starts making sense once you've given it enough time. It's not a matter of being smart either, it's purely a time issue and just learning the other stuff at your own pace such as grammar, the kanji, and such.
That video really helped me out man, I don't doubt this one will too. Thanks dude. I've been passive listening to Japanese ever since I watched your last video, and it's actually been really helpful I've been getting used to listening it and it's becoming like second nature listening to it
have you seen alot of improvement?
@@alizster3186 I actually have, although I've been busy on and off again with listening to Japanese but yeah I'm getting used to it
がんばれ！
I'm currently in my 1st month and I'm like you. I have ADHD and if I don't understand 80%+ of what's going on, I switch off. So I listen to lessons in Japanese (Podcasts, YT videos) very often they say the word/sentence in English and then repeat it a bunch of times in Japanese.
I also go for an hour walk a day where I use Tofugu to learn the Hiragana (I'm now done with that) and Katakana (70% done with that)
I plan to repeat this with kanji and keep building my vocabulary over time.
I'll also switch from learning single symbols (Hiragana/Katakana and their copulations etc) to constructing simple sentences.
A few times a week (2-3) I have kids' books in Japanese and I work on translating 1-2 pages each time and learning any unfamiliar words (all of them almost at first)
I feel the same as someone with audhd, it took me 4 years to finally give up subtitles for anime and completely switch to my japanese only youtube account.
A slight nit pick, do *not* translate, read like you understand the language, like how you read English and try to think about the meaning, do not try to impose what you're reading onto the English framework you already have. It's one reason I think it's better to first reach a good listening comprehension level before commiting more to reading, until then, which is probably like the first half a year to a year depending on how fast you acquire, you stick to reading small stuff like comments or whatever.
@@vali69 ok good advice thank you!
Thanks i also don't like reading that much so gonna focus on listening. One thing do i need to read to get good or if i need to read i can i can read less. @@vali69
Yuyu it’s amazing he was my actual teacher when he used to be a professor in Guadalajara (Mexico) , he was quite new to UA-cam im really happy he was able to pull it off he’s a great teacher
3:29 “I would’ve gotten better faster if I’d know some of the grammar” (loose quote).
Yeah, exactly. My initial thought was, “Uhhmmm…” Because if you know none of it, you’ll never learn because, without any visual cues, it’ll just be sound.
This is why comprehensible input is great. Get super easy stuff to build a foundation THEN get an ass-ton of hours.
Great video. Definitely how I’m learning Spanish. 1,350 hours of listening, baybeeee! This works. You’re spot on.
What are the resources you are using to learn Spanish ? Could you share ?
0:10 omg it’s the happiest man on earth
im jealous ngl
You should also remember to sleep whenever you feel tired after immersing yourself because your brain actually mostly learns while sleeping, so the vast majority of your progress in language comprehension will happen suddenly out of nowhere over night.
I remember taking a break from japanese listening after being frustrated and just played a video game for 2 weeks and when I came back my japanese was suddenly better than before, it freaked me out a lot. But really the brain even learns if you take breaks as long as you give it enough sleep.
Also if you're insomniac try to learn to get comfortable laying down and just doze, just close your eyes, lying around doing nothing will mean the same, essentially your brain isn't busy with new input so it can sort through all the stuff you already took in and often you even fall asleep just doing that regardless. Just in general take enough time resting for language learning (or amy learning in general)
Ive been watching anime since around 2018 only sub. My attention was focused in the subtitles and I didnt really understand japanese back then nor do I intend to. Fast forward to 2020, I started watching Jp vtubers first through subtitled clips. After watching for a while I started tuning in to their streams. At that time I realized that I kinda understand what their saying even without subtitles. Everything just started to click, like the accumulation of the 2 years of consuming japanese media just unlocked. It blew my mind that something like that can happen so I wanted to share it.
Is watching gaming streams in Japanese good for complete beginners (less than 20 phrases I understand that I picked up from anime and Duolingo). If so what are the popular streamers?
@@EdigeSanatbek are you able to understand everything they say?
私はロシア人です。英語の勉強はあまりしていませんでしたが、たくさん英語のゲームをプレイしたり、UA-camを見たりしていたおかげで、あなたの動画を簡単に理解することができます。ありがとうございます。
These videos are amazing. You finally gave me the push to start learning Japanese with your last video and it was one of the best choices I've made in a while. It's genuinely been so much fun to learn a language for a culture who's media I consume on a regular basis.
hello, trenton! i started learning japanese since your first video, it really was the push i needed to start my journey. I am diagnosed with adhd and i get really distracted while trying to learn japanese, and passive listening is honestly helping me to recognize patterns and see how words that i learned on anki go in phrases. I can understand almost nothing from the podcasts and anime, but I will keep pushing as you said!
thank you.❤
12:25 I think this is one of the more important parts of the video. You don't need to spend your whole day immersing yourself in Japanese to see significant gains. It's definitely worth mentioning that mental fatigue/exhaustion is 100% a thing and can actually be detrimental to your learning -- both in regards to your actual improvement but also in regards to your motivation for learning a language.
13:00 This is important as well. Podcasts and similar content are much, much better than watching anime because you get a lot more speaking content instead of a huge amount of visual (non verbal) content, and in general the speaking content from podcasts tend to have more useable Japanese, where-as most anime is filled with a lot of useless Japanese (unless your goal is to just say a bunch of cringe one liners).
Anime is filled with a lot of useless Japanese? That's a massive stretch. I'd challenge you to present even one series like this.
@@Ohrami I'd argue that almost all shounen anime is filled with a lot of useless Japanese. Or are you going to tell me that Naruto's だってばよ is useful :') Part of the problem is that, for new learners, they might not know what is useless and what is useful, and then habits begin to form where they call everyone "omae" or say other rude things without knowing that it's not proper to use.
FWIW, when saying that something is "filled with", it doesn't mean that it's 100% that thing, it just means that it's inundated with a lot of that thing.
@@KoutetsuSteel >Or are you going to tell me that Naruto's だってばよ is useful :')
Yes. Why wouldn't it be? Certain kinds of characters ending their sentences with some random speech is a common theme seen in Japanese media.
>Part of the problem is that, for new learners, they might not know what is useless and what is useful, and then habits begin to form where they call everyone "omae" or say other rude things without knowing that it's not proper to use.
And then they learn that it's not proper to use in some situations. None of it is useless, and you never established that it is. Lacking knowledge of the word お前 and its use isn't a good thing.
@@Ohrami Learning random 語尾 that isn't used in actual Japanese isn't useful... and thus is useless.
A lot of people who watch anime learn "omae" as the way to say "you" in Japanese, and then they have to /unlearn/ that it's not what you should be saying. If you learn usage for something and then have to unlearn it, I'd argue that learning it was useless.
Also, not for nothing (and I think Trenton can confirm this as well), but a lot of people who learn "omae" from anime just... don't stop using it T_T It happens all too often in VRChat.
It's certainly better to be consistent rather than intense. For instance, if you do 8 hour days, but then you burnout for a while, you would've been better off doing 2 hour days without any burnout.
I must say, what I love about your videos is just how thoughtful they are and how they predict multiple queries in advance and address them.
I say this as a Japanese-American who wasn’t interesting in learning Japanese until around middle school. I used to kick myself for “not learning the language when I was younger when I could acquire it naturally” but that was a thought trap as said last video. I also used to grind vocab, Genki, kanji, etc to brute force drill it, but was wondering why that didn’t work so well until you showed how ineffective that was last video compared to a ton of input. I also felt like I never had enough time to study Japanese because of other priorities, until you came and addressed that.
And here, you give active suggestions that naturally solve many traps I had. For example, how you say you sometimes have to do a sink or swim situation to improve when you feel your skills are plateauing and to think of it as a marathon instead of a race.
So yeah, I greatly appreciate the insightful videos because they provide so many magic bullet solutions and am looking forward to any future content you have in store!
I watched your last video when it released and have been passively listening to Japanese almost every day since. I've been listening to podcasts, light novel audiobooks, and watching anime and TV shows in Japanese without subtitles. I also started Japanese classes around the same time. While I do think listening will work over time, I had actually already signed up for the class and I think it's a good idea to help me learn.
にほんごべんきょ！
0:55 Passive listening does help.. It helped alot when I listed to the OGs speaking, allowing me to relearn/learn new words from my own language.
You have by far been the most helpful of anyone I’ve watched
I’ve been doing Duolingo for Japanese for almost 200 days because I’m going to Japan in October. I didn’t feel like I was making much progress, but I actually was. I know simple phrases, words, and the alphabets. I believe your advice with your two videos will help me a lot. I can easily listen to podcasts around 6+ hours a day, so I’ll definitely be using this to my advantage.
Thank you for your helpful advice. I’ll gladly take it and keep you updated!
did it help?
@ Unfortunately, Duolingo didn’t help as much as I thought, even though I was using it religiously. It taught me basic words and phrases, and I feel like I could’ve made much more progress if I quit Duolingo early on and used more immersion methods. To its credit, Duolingo made it easier to study the alphabets, but that’s pretty much the extent of what’s useful. If it taught you more than just, like, 1 kanji every 7490184 years, it would be more helpful, lol.
As for constantly listening to podcasts, I lost motivation and stopped listening to them after, like, 2 weeks probably. I believe it was related to Duolingo, as I was trying to get a stupid achievement where you have to complete 200 lessons after 10:00 PM, which was way too late for me since my alarm was set to 6:00 AM, and most of the time I would not get a ton of sleep, so I must have associated Japanese with loss of sleep or something.
Nevertheless, I have already went on my trip, and my motivation to learn Japanese has never been lower. I know what I need to do, and that’s study lots of kanji since reading would be incredibly useful. At least I know what my next step is…
A vid about benefits of reading manga? Manga recommendations, when to start and so on
That would be really nice and probably help people
Your videos really helped me a lot, as i tried learning japanese before and it felt so much harder than when i learned english. This whole immersion learning seems too obvious i cant believe i never thought of it that way
Hi here is a Japanese doing English immersion learning with your video
ngl anki's flashcards is like a huge help so thx for recommending it:D
I had this same idea when I started to learn, but thought it was silly cause "how am I supposed to learn when I cant read any subtitles or see what is going on?" and none of the books and videos I was using would suggest this. But its been almost years learning on and off and I still haven't really picked up on as much as I would have liked. At most, I can apologize when I run into someone, and give them greetings and if I'm hot or cold. This renewed hope in my capabilities and I'm gonna try again
After the last video I've been just listening to a song I want to learn on repeat. I'm glad you made that distinction between passive and background because I noticed I learned a few of the verses by your definition of passively. Definitely motivates me to keep going.
Man, be thankful to yourself you didn't ride the Duolingo Streak into eternity. I spent an entire year on it before realizing my vocab is gonna go nowhere without a dedicated vocabulary trainer, which is when I found Anki. Duolingo is a great way to get started and build enough discipline to study daily but I recommend everyone to make the switch to Anki and listening exercises after the first year/ 1,5 years max. Started just like you in 2019 and I'm only now getting to a point where I understand enough to vaguely follow the news. (Though I should add that I had the great idea to also learn portuguese at the same time, which I guess also delayed my progress a bit). But yeah, Podcasts for passive listening are a complete game changer, 100% agree.
e ai, vc conseguiu aprender português ? 😁
Duolingo is a 100% waste of time for Japanese, I went into that trap myself. Horrible regrets about that. Every other approach, every single one, including only listening to two minutes of weather forecast every day, is vastly more efficient than Duolingo.
These videos are so refreshing and real.
I've learned a lot by watching subtitled anime for over a decade and listening to a bunch of Japanese music, so this is suuuper encouraging and validating. Thank you for the great tips!
what I liked about this video is about also learning how to tolerate ambiguity, since I'm one of those people who don't really like to be in a beginner position or is uncomfortable when I don't know a thing about what I'm studying/working/doing etc. I'm fully aware that it's necessary to be in that stage but it's also the point where I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to make it/reach my goal. I definitely learned a thing or two from this video, thank you :)
just checked out this channel today. watched every video u uploaded lmao. didnt realise how recent this video was till i say 1 day ago comments. keep it up dude!
Thank you for this follow up. Really valuable additions.
This is cool. I haven't been actively trying to learn Japanese but I have consume a lot of content for native listeners for a few years and have picked up very little. I find it really hard to listen or watch something I am not interested in so i have never tried content meant for learning, but maybe I will. Right now, my favorite youtuber is Masaru-san. He cuts up fish and makes food, and most of his videos have subtitles. Plus he has a very enjoyable voice. I also find that watching streams and using websites in Japanese helps. It really is that immersion aspect.
After ive sawn ur first video i started to learn hiragana with the app u said is good for it for android, and im listening to j-pop for a longer time now and after learning a few signs ive recognized them in the lyrics and can from time to time even see complete words, ye i dont understand them but its a big booster for my confidence, so as soon as i know hiragana a bit better im starting to learn katakana and will start to listen to podcasts and stuff. Tysm u helped me a lot starting learning japanese. 😊
Another banger vid. I’ve been doing a ton of reading recently, and honestly I think I’d like to do a lot more listening since I’m slowly but surely trying to do more output.
if someone still doubt about immersion learning, believe me it really work. im an die hard weebs and before i found this videos i always watch or hear voice actress radio program or stream everyday for almost a year and from me who know nothing what are the talking about to the point when i can understand roughly what are they saying
so try immertion learning it will really help you
Im assuming if you want to speak the language or even just understand it you would still need to learn at least some of the grammar somehow no? Or can you legit just passive learn it over time to the point that you don't even need to read anything lol
@@flixytip4571 if you want to understand roughly about japanese then just do immersion is working which is work for me, but if you want to understand more and to be able to speak japanese then it's better to learn other thing like from anki or any other media learning my recomendation is learn from other souce as well not just passive learning if you really want to learn japanese
@@flixytip4571i mean i think so but your language skills will be the equivalent of a toddler who can’t articulate their thoughts or words very well, basically cave man talk, but you can probably polish your broken language with some active learning from people or studying on your own.
Tip: Some anime on Netflix has an option for Japanese with audio description, basically having someone explain what's going on onscreen. This way you can follow the plot without watching the screen, and if you *do* choose to watch, it can help you learn vocabulary (especially actions and nouns) by forming associations between what's happening onscreen and the description of it. Sometimes I'll put on dungeon meshi with audio description while i do something else.
Yusuke from Yuyu nihongo was my teacher in a japanese language school in méxico. I find it funny how he became a big japanese teacher youtuber and podcaster but I'm also very happy for him.
passive listening is actually how i learn english i was just a middle schooler and watching minecraft vids
ありがとございます❗
I haven't had any fun lately, You bring me joy!I love the kind and generous heartwarming atmosphere that you create, your kind, easygoing, warm vibe. I like the essence how you live on. I need to be true to myself and find a job I am passionate about. I want to find a way to live as who I really am.
thank you so muchh for the recommendations, i was just looking up japanese podcasts to listen to after watching your first video a few days ago and then this video popped up! perfect timing!
I've tried to learn Japanese off and on for years with minimal success. I knew basic grammar and about 200 or so words, but I would struggle to read even basic sentences. Deciphering the meaning of any given sentence was very slow and tedious as I tried to put 2 and 2 together. I've tried learning with Japanese subtitles and comprehensible input, but the progress I was making didn't match the effort I was putting in. I would quit after a few days.
You're video was the first time I was exposed to passive listening. I tried it for about 2 days, and the difference was HUGE. I didn't realize that that's what my study had been missing. Suddenly, reading exercises went much, much faster. I didn't have to sit there and pick apart the grammar, I just understood it intuitively. Comprehensible input became actually comprehensible. It's hard to describe. Before, reading Japanese felt like solving a math problem, and now, it's completely natural. I can easily read what I know, pick out what I don't, and learn from there, as opposed to stumbling my way through things that I've already been over time and time again.
It didn't instantly make me fluent. I still have to keep up with my anki deck or watch Cure Dolly (rip) to learn grammar, but I actually feel like I have a handle on the language now. I have a (very) long way to go (I would fail the N5), but the progress I've seen in the last couple of days has been incomparable to my attempts at learning in the past, and the only real change I made was listening to Japanese podcasts instead of music at work. I'm very excited to see where I'll be a couple months from now, if I stay consistent with my habits.
(Seriously check out Cure Dolly. No one teaches grammar like her. ua-cam.com/video/pSvH9vH60Ig/v-deo.html )
I guess I've been passive listening without even realizing it haha. If I'm every bored of listening to music I'll put on some Japan exploration videos that has you the viewer walking around various locations in Japan and listening to everyday conversations as they come by. I think it's a great way to familiarize yourself with daily conversations and even various various dialects that may come from certain regions. It may not be 100% effective as there may be prolong periods of silence/ambiance, but I think it might be nice for people who want a slice of daily Japanese life while still getting some passive listening experience. For a channel recommendation, I'd suggest Rambalac!
can you make another vid focusing more on how and where to build comprehension, what is the amount you want to be able to start so that you are actually making progress and not just learning without knowing absolutely anything. It would be beneficial to see where that line is
This came at the perfect time when I was just starting to feel discouraged and lost in my study.
I currently have a deadline to learn as much Japanese as possible within less than a year with no experience. I've only recently started and keeping up my motivation while hardly being able to memorize words, let alone understanding those words in the context of my immersion, is an extremely difficult task. This video and your last one have really helped me to stay motivated and focused on what I need to be doing to accomplish my goal. You're helping me to remind myself that I won't realistically get very far within a year, but I'll make decent progress if I just stay consistent and keep putting in the hours whereever I can
In addition, I think a video I'd like to see from you is how to effectively use Anki in studies
Good luck. You got this!
@@blaltglalt If you're very new to learning Japanese, and need a good tutorial on how to use Anki, then you should watch Livakivi's 'How To Learn Japanese (The Ultimate Guide)' video, and if you need one for specifically Anki, then they've also made a video that goes more into depth about all the parts of Anki, and how to use them depending on your situation, and goals. Those videos helped me out a lot while first learning Japanese, and were a good motivator.
@@ASingleBlob I actually have seen that video lately. I'll prolly be taking another lookat it though. Thanks!
6:07 Look mom, I'm on TV! Thanks for a follow up video, it helped clear up a lot of the questions I had. It still seems so weird to me that just going in blind can work, but I just have to trust the process.
Please keep uploading language content! I love yours videos, they’re so informative and inspiring 🤧
Woah...this is actually really great to hear. I had heard from other immersion advocates that passive listening is better than nothing but really you should be completely focused. I haven't been doing it as much lately because I wasn't really sure I was getting much from it. But now I'm thinking I need to step it up. I have plenty of down time during my day where passive listening could easily fill those spots and I can get some serious immersion in.
I literally watched last video like 5 hours ago lol and decided to actually give learning Japanese a serious shot, I am watching anime for like 7 to 8 years since I was 13 or 14 and I can already understand simple to kinda intermediate conversation without even trying to learn, I was starting to learn like 6 months ago but some bad irl stuff happened and I stopped, I wanted to get myself out of the gutter and I accidentally found your video, honestly its too early to say that your video "saved my life" lol but it certainly gave me a motivation to start seriously again, so I genuinely thank you for that 😁
You're doing very well mate, keep going ❤ I just started few days ago with hiragana and katana, let's see how it goes 😂
hope your situation gets better now,and ofc your progress of learning too
I have already begun comprehensive input after watching the last video! About 7 hours of Spanish down.
Boy I was literally about to search for you, and you come in as first video suggestion wow, UA-cam is working wonderfuly now huh
I'm really thankful for your last video. I went from using only duolingo for months to using Anki flashcards, grammar textbooks(Tae kim, Genki) , Kanji(KKLC), and immersion through anime and Nihongo con Teppei for beginners( will switch to the original soon).
I've been watching anime and Japanese media for so long, I can understood even without subtitles so this is a pretty good way to learn
You motivated me to start learning again thanks
I'm french, and I began learning english 6 years ago by just listening. Now I'm 16, I'm in a english special class in highschool (tho the english level in france is really heartbreaking lmao), I think I've got pretty close to fluent. ngl, your stuff is really making me reconsider learning japanese. In france, we have a great teacher that did a online free course, but he says that to get a good understanding of japanese you have to learn to write first. But, given all you said in your videos, it's clearly not true.
Back in the days, I gave up on japanese because of all the kanjis that french guy said I should learn. Your work and your results are showing me another way, even if I had already did it without realizing it.
I would really love to be fluent in three languages tbh x) Thanks for the motivation, I'll try to find the discipline to make you proud bro
love the penguin chibi btw, keep it up
Your english is great broskie. Great job on your dedication and greetings from america
Franchement ton niveau d'anglais est fort. J'apprécie toujours les français qui font l'effort d'apprendre l'anglais, la plupart de ma famille ne peuvent pas du tout. Force à toi, on se retrouve au Japon frérot 😎 ❤
En 2 mois, des résultats ?
@@mmello6160 Non, mais je suis chanteur dans un groupe et je fais des concours de chant, alors ça me va.
@@newvoyageur En français ? J'ai envie de fast learn le japonais, tout comme toi j'ai un niveau pas mal en anglais, et j'ai vu + de 1000 animés donc j'ai déjà l'oreille très développé, j'ai start y'a 4 jours j'apprends déjà l'alphabet par coeur, dommage j'aurai espéré voir un mec un peu dans ma situation avoir bien progresser
5:10 passive listening key
1:19 lmao i need that clip asap
😅
You sure that you want to listen for an hour straight
滋賀の子の子の声したんたん
Crazy how you are doing the same method as me. Been at it for the past 8 or so months. Thanks for the added motivation to keep going and thanks for letting me know that this method actually works. Thanks for taking the time to make this video.
Bro deserves more then a 16:13 millions sub
Please put out more content like this that details the specifics around audio-only acquisition of Japanese
This guy is teaching us more than DUOLINGO,prove me wrong.
Can't prove wrong that which is objectively factual and true
Duolinguo is only good for romance languages
Duolingo helped me with learning hiragana and katakana I guess. Didn't use other features.
@@DelgaDude Good. It's the only useful feature in the whole app.
I can’t except
for the alphabets
(Hiragana&Katakana)
Love how chill you treat every aspect of this stuff, seems like most of the time people do sound pretty hardcore about spend X amount of time doing this and memorize X words or you'll never get anywhere. I'm in my 3rd year of formal japanese study (minor at college), and these videos convinced me to really start doing more passive listening. Thanks man, this really seems like it'll help me go to the next level! Also your ability to read what people are thinking is pretty hilariously great, so many times on a subject you'd say "now youre probably thinking..." and I kept getting called out lmao
Thanks so much man, I've recently started learning so these video are coming out at just the right time for me!
- You mentioned anime often has moments with little or no dialogue, but I wonder if being able to associate the words with visual cues still gives it some advantage over podcasts?
- When it comes to watching anime for immersive learning, would you recommend watching in Japanese with no subtitles, or watching in Japanese with Japanese subtitles?
- Any other tips you recommend for immersive learning with anime?
Not OP, so feel free to ignore this until he comments but I’d like to give my two cents on this topic.
1. Yes, the visual cues give more of an advantage than podcasts, since you’re able to understand some context even if you don’t understand what they’re saying. Podcasts are what’s considered pure listening, no visuals at all and it’s just audio. This is also why podcasts are considered more difficult than audiovisual content such as movies or TV.
2. I personally recommend using Japanese subtitles especially for beginners, since it will make the content even more comprehensible. Though, if you want to train your listening, no subtitles would be your best option.
3. If you don’t want to look up much words or mine, feel free to do freeflow immersion, which is a type of immersion where you just watch the anime and look up little to no words.
Tbh this actually works as someone who learned English using this method without knowing a single word or gramar rules (still don't know them at all), an approximate time of this can variate from person to person for me for English it took me six months to understand it almost everything and start making broken sentences but in my case is because i found a niche (vtubers) and spend all day watching them passively, actively or just having something in the background while i do other stuff, i highly recommend doing this method to learn languages :3
This isnt passive listening. This is active listening as you are paying attention.
Thank you! I thought no else would realize this. This is ACTIVE listening, so nothing new here.
I understand where he is coming from. 'Background' listening isn't even really passive listening, as really it's just sound. His definition of 'passive' listening is a bit odd, but he's from from the angle of you not devoting your full attention to it, yet still actually listening to it. And from there, 'active' listening is devoting your whole attention to it, maybe taking notes and looking things up.
@@caiomatsumoto No need for the passive aggression.
thank god, you have no idea how much you help us. Even for me who learns languages mostly through a secondary language (english is not my first language) because there aren't enough scources for my first language. thank you for making the only actually helpfull guide
1:40 oh no... its literally me... you cant do me like this man
Also thanks for the sources
time to actually start listening
thank you! applying this to my french studies
worst part about the immersion learning is your own adhd and distraction you get from unknown language and information that wants you to switch to your native or language you know.
one way i recommend to get over this "FOMO" hump when consuming content is to imagine you actually know it lol. I know it sounds counterproductive, but even if you are starting day one and literally understand nothing, just pretending like you do by making up scenarios in your head will help you overcome this. And as you progress more and more the less you'll have to imagine.
Don't use adhd as an excuse, it's a self fulfilling prophecy
something something lock in
this video is the last place i expected to find another project moon fan
Just echoing the guy above saying not to use it as an excuse. ADHD isn't some ancient magical curse. It's a very minor disorder compared to many out there. Just be glad you get distracted sometimes instead of having psychosis or hallucinations.
I’m going to Japan soon for a little trip for a couple weeks, I was never worried about the language barrier bc people said it’s not too bad over there, but I saw your videos and it’s actually inspiring me to learn. I have terrible ADHD and it’s super hard for me to keep doing something for more than a. Week, so hopefully I can at least try to learn Japanese
wellif ur gonna be maining english for most of ur time in japan the language barrier would definitely be significant they dont english well over there
0:45 listening to Japanese songs?
Podcasts, not songs
No I’m asking if that’s also fine.
he explains it in this part 11:40
11:20 That's perfect! That's exactly what I was looking for! I had to cut down on watching anime because of this specific problem with the silences in between dialogues. It will definitely make for a more efficient listening input while making it enjoyable!
hi trenton. Since ur last video i was very interested in anki and i wanted to ask if u could make a little anki tutorial for how u did stuff and how u use it. Thanks for ur videos
A quick way to start learning:
Watch a movie, show or anime in english first, familiarise with it.
Then watch the same one in another language you want to learn. Your brain will start picking up correlations in language with what you remember from watching it the first time, rather than just watching everything the first time and trying to guess what it is being talked about.
Same with reading, any book you are familiar with already, get the version in another language and read that while translating and writing down words you dont know the meaning of.
Some people, like me, memorise things when they write it down by hand better.
dude no way the follow up has a crazier title 🤣 whatever i just wanna learn my parent languages ⪧⸜❪⸄⏑⸅❫⸝⪦
Not so long ago, I've finally mustered up the courage to speak to a Japanese immigrant at a bar. It was super broken mind you, but after listening and writing down notes for 6 months I felt like I did something incredible. For listening all I'm doing is watching anime and vtubers, pausing and playing the sounds again to identify words. Same for japanese music too.
man good thing there isn't any "this man fell off" comments
This man fell off
this man fell on
I fell
Very true. My father made me switch the language of the content I watched from my native language to English, and I started understanding and speaking English in no time lmao
man, you are awesome, thanks for posting! listening here with my dog to our first ever Japanese podcast. And getting ready for my second trip to Japan.
I’m so excited for this. I haven’t been able to sit down and study from books, but I have the ability to listen while I’m working.
I listened to English songs a lot as a child, even before I studied it formally at school. At the time, I didn't even know what they were saying, but I realized later that it helped me so much in learning the rhythm of English.
Thank you for both videos! While I am not really motivated currently to go back to the level of mastery of Japanese I had 15 years ago when my whole life consisted of anime and games, it reminder me that I really need to find content in Dutch if I want to pass the exam next year. I've been falling behind my classmates in the last couple of years and it's been frustrating me to no end. If only the damn Dutch actually made interesting stuff to watch or listen to...
The hard truth has been spoken man. I found watching translations of animated stuff works a treat, especially ghibli, avatar the last airbender and disney movies. It may be a bit strange at first but man did it help my dutch a lot!
@@anvari255 Yeah, but that implies that the language is so void of culture that you have to go hunt for translated foreign material to be able to learn it. Which is true, and I have to learn the language for professional reasons, but still quite damning
@@elevulIndeed. I mean I live in the Netherlands now and need to speak it to get by. Believe me, there is some culture but it really doesn't lie in the media. They prefer their festivals and parties. The content they do make itself is rarely about their culture. Which I sort of get. My home country didn't really make a lot of good content in our langauge that wasn't just always the same thing in the same genre for the same age group and there was never translations so I learned english naturally almost natively at the same time as my native langauge as a result. As for dutch, there's a very big divide between young and old and the latter seems to be the large majority. They have a desperate issue with a lack of workers as a result. This could also be why their media is really lacking as the elderly wouldn't necessarily be spending their retirements making movies, right? But they might be watching them so....
Either way, its tough learning Dutch for business either way. Speaking from experience. I wish you the best of luck. I personally find it an even harder language to learn than Japanese and I'm natively Afrikaans (which has around 90% of the vocab already.) I'm sure you'll make good work of it!
news channel's are fairly good because they usually show images with the speech, giving your brain more context so it can learn faster.
my right ear is loving this video
Thank you soo much! Appreciate the effort and time you took to make this video and for not gate keeping!
I would honestly listen to you if you did a podcast. Your voice is so soothing and the things you talk about are interesting.
As a foreign student in japan, this is completely true.
Immersion/passive listening is basically how we all learn our (first) language anyways - we weren't born knowing, as we grew we picked up on the meanings of different things and how different sounds make up a word. So it's not surprising that the same applies when learning other languages when you're older, besides it being a bit more difficult
I did this exact thing when I taught myself Korean. I used passive and active listening for the first 2 years before moving to Korea. At that time, while in America, I had almost no exposure to Korean speakers so I was on my own and way back 10 years ago there was hardly any UA-cam Korean language content. So instead I watched Korean TV programs like Running Man and a ton of news and music from solo artists. When I later moved to Korea my speaking ability was very basic but my understanding was much much higher. Within my first year here in Korea I became the Korean to English translator for my college that I was working at (not a student). Now there is sooooooo much more learning materials available for just about any language. I have know been doing this same thing for Japanese for about the past 4 months and wow, learning much faster than I did my Korean just because there is so much more materials these days. Hang in there and if you stick to it for years.... yes YEARS not months, you will get there. Buuuuuuut for Japanese, definitely learn Kanji too. If you don't study any grammar at all, at least learn Kanji because you will need it.
Ive never been able to focus on class type work struggling through my entire school years. Jan this year I went to tokyo and absolutely jumped in the deepend for a month and by the end was able to communicate at groceries and stuff about short answer responses and answer and understand a little with my new-found friends I made. When I saw your immersion video I whole heartedly relate to this method and will try all these ways you suggest. Thanks a bunch!
You came to me at the right moment, I was studying the hiragana and katakana alphabet and some grammar particles and vocab at the start of the month, so this is quite helpful. Thank you so much for your suggestions! Greetings from Spain!
Thank you brother for taking you're time in helping other people like me to learn japanese and helping us to one day go to japan
daily japanese with naoko will always be my favorite (i recommend it for both active and passive listening)
I'd love if you could talk about methods to get past that first vocab hurdle. You already mentioned Anki as a tool ofc, but talk about how to push yourself through a day where you don't remember anything, etc.
thanks for reviving my wish to learn Japanese
Arigathankyou Gozaimuch