How to Learn Simple Japanese by Watching Anime

If you're anything like I am, you LOVE Japanese Animation otherwise known as Anime. I've found that with very little work, you can amass an amazing Japanese vocabulary as you watch!

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A love for Anime
• DVDs
• Patience

1. Watch your anime DVDs exclusively in Japanese.

2. While watching your DVDs pay attention to the pronounciation of words. At first many words may seem to become jumbled together, but if you listen to it carefully, you should be able to hear the minute seperations.

3. Pay attention to short (seemingly) one-word phrases that are accompanied by subtitles of only 1 word. This makes it fairly easy to pick out one word correlations between English and Japanese.
   
   While you can't count on it being 100% right all the time due to meanings that may be lost in translation, you can confirm your findings using the Internet.

4. Pay close attention to minor variations in the words that can denote verb-conjugations (which don't really exist in Japanese, but that's for another weHow) or the honorifics such as "-san", "-chan" and "-sama".

Tips & Warnings

• Watch shows of various different genres to pick up words that you wouldn't otherwise hear elsewhere.
• Check your results with reputable sources such as WWWJDIC (online) or a Japanese-English dictionary.
• After amassing enough of a vocabulary, you can put Novice Japanese Speaker on your Personal Resume!
• Be very careful when using the Japanese words you learn from Anime. What is translated as "Idiot" could actually be a much stronger insult that could get you in trouble.
• Be careful when using Honorifics.

[akumaxkami]

on 8/10/2009 The way they speak in anime isn't really how Japanese is spoken in day-to-day situations though.

If you want to learn Japanese, try watching Japanese dramas with subtitles or Jappanese movies.

[nick926]

on 6/10/2009 it actually is possible to learn quite a lot of Japanese from watching anime. I developed my own little system for it: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1812884/how_to_learn_japanese_by_watching_anime.html?cat=7 ...it's not as easy as you might have hoped, but it works for me!

[DoctorSnot]

on 11/12/2008 Dude!!!! I do this too when I watch anime w/ subs -plus original japanese voice acting almost always sounds cooler! Great article!!!! Well written!!!! 5 Stars!!!!

[lilwing]

on 11/6/2008 Does Anime porn count ") Great article 5 stars...

[pixiemama]

on 10/9/2008 have to try it.