Learn Japanese Today

Yesterday I posted a review of crunchyroll.com , a site where you can watch hundreds of Japanese TV shows and movies for free. However, to take full advantage of a resource like this, you need to know the best way to glean knowledge from subtitled media. Here are some tips for getting the most out of your viewing experience:

Read & Listen:

Anyone can read subtitles, but you don’t see everyone that’s seen Spirited Away at the UN doing translation. You really need to actively listen to the Japanese as well. When you first read the subtitle, quickly scan it for words that you know how to say in Japanese then listen for them. Try to pick up the rest of the sentence in context. It’s hard to pick up these two streams of information at once, but you’ll get better at it. There’s also no shame in pausing or rewinding.

Pay Attention to Context:

The most important function of subtitled TV/Movies is, in my opinion, to teach you context. When you hear a word or phrase pay attention to who’s saying it, what the situation is, and who they’re saying it to. Is it a man or a woman? Young or old? At work or at home? Are they talking to someone with higher social rank like a boss, lower like an employee, or equal like a friend? Are they a gangster? A sushi-chef? A samurai? All of these are the kind of questions you should ask. Japanese is a very niched language, with many groups having their own special vocabulary that only they can use (women, gangsters…). Additionally, social context pays a very important roll in what you say; you use keigo (honorifics) when talking to people with higher social rank than you, and slang with your friends. Just keep context in mind when you incorporate something from a TV show or a movie into your vocabulary, samurai slang does nothing for you. If your unsure about meaning or when to say something, ask a Japanese friend or teacher. If you don’t have any Japanese friends, that’s a problem. I’ll write an article about making Japanese friends later on.

Watch Out for Small Phrases:

It’s a simple fact that short phrases of about 4 words or fewer are easier to translate than longer sentences. When you see a subtitle that’s under 5 words long, it should be pretty easier to hear the corresponding Japanese, and odds are it will be a pretty direct translation. I’ve subtitled a Japanese film before, and one thing I noticed is that the longer the subtitle it is, the more likely it is to be summary. There is a very limited area of the screen you can use for subtitling, so a direct translation doesn’t always fit. In those cases, you summarize to the best of your ability, sometimes glossing over the nuances of Japanese. Because of this tendency, stuff you learn from shorter subtitles is more likely to be accurate.

Rinse, Wash, and Repeat:

Find a certain episode, movie, or series that you really enjoyed and learned a lot from when you saw it the first time. Then watch it again with subtitles, but try to just listen and only look when you don’t know what’s going on. Then watch it a third time without subtitles, or without looking at them at all. I know this is a lot, so make extra sure you choose something you won’t get bored of.

Let me know how it goes!

It’s hard for me to do this, but I’m willing to let you in on the best kept secret for learning Japanese on the web. To work on your listening, you can’t get much better than watching subtitled Japanese TV shows, and crunchyroll.com is the place to do that. Crunchyroll offers hundreds of East Asian dramas and anime, fully subbed, for you to peruse free of charge. Make sure you don’t just read the subtitles, listen to the Japanese first and then look to check. Anyways, on to the review:

Ease of Use: 7.5

The site sorts its shows into anime and drama, and has an alphabetic index for each category, but you can’t search and you can’t sort by Japanese/Chinese/Korean and you can’t separate movies from TV shows, but these things aren’t too much of a problem, just make sure you don’t learn Korean by accident.

Authenticity: 7

The authenticity is, of course, dependent on the show/movie you choose to watch. In some cases it will teach you a lot of relevant colloquialisms and slang that are hard to find other places, but it can also mess up your Japanese. Just remember that what’s right for a gal in Shibuya is not necessarily right for you, and talking like Naruto NEVER makes you sound cool.

Quantity of Knowledge: 10

I dare you to try to watch all the shows and movies on this site, oh wait, no I don’t, that’d be a good way to get convicted of 3rd degree murder. What I mean is that there are more subtitled Japanese shows and movies on this site than you can possibly watch. There’s also some sweet game related videos too, which are cool even without teaching you Japanese.

Price: 10

The best thing is that all of this is for free. You can even watch the videos in hi-def. You used to have to pay for it, but the guys over at crunchyroll decided to make it free. You can still become a member and be first party to their beta features (not really worth it), but I would recommend signing up if you have the extra money. These guys deserve it.

Fun: 10

What’s more fun than watching TV? Oh yeah, watching Japanese TV. Nothing will make you want to practice your Japanese more than being caught up in a great drama or anime. For drama reviews check out my homey Kumo at kumojapandrama.blogspot.com

Overall: 9.2

This site is great as long as you know how to watch drama or anime as a student of Japanese rather than a regular Gaijin. I would put this higher if you had the ability to single out the Japanese stuff on the site, but as I said earlier, its only I minor problem. Enjoy!

When I was in the Japan the first time, with my high school Japanese class, it was something of a tradition that my good friend Alex and I would go around the entire school we were visiting and say お疲れ様 (otsukaresama) to everyone we ran into. It was just a word we had learned to say at the end of the day, and I assumed it was just some sort of informal greeting like “Hey man!” or “What’s up?”

This erroneous line of thinking led me to say “otsukaresama” to my sensei and all my classmates at the start of our first Japanese class back from Japan. My sensei’s response was “ええぇ、ちょっと。。。”　meaning I had made a mistake. So to keep you guys from making similar mistakes, here’s what otsukaresama really means.

The literal translation of otsukaresama is something along the lines of “you must be tired,” but it carries with it the implied meaning of “…after working so hard.” It’s essentially the equivalent to the English “nice work.” It’s something you say to a classmate, co-worker, or teammate after a hard day of school/work/sports. Also, in a formal or workplace environment, you should probably add “desu” being a more formal way of saying “good work” or “deshita” a more formal way to say “you did good work today.” In informal situations, otsukaresama or just otsukare  can mean either past or present tense. Give it a try!

Today we’ll be taking a look at one of the internet’s largest and most popular Japanese dictionaries, WWWJDIC . This dictionary was created by Jim Breen of Australia’s Monash University, and is the web’s authority for Japanese word look-up. Without furthur ado, let’s go to the review.

Ease of Use: 6

This dictionary has easily twice as much info as any other on the web, but getting to it is another story. I tried to find the word 楽しい(tanoshii), by typing in its definition of ‘fun’. These were some of the results I got:

興味索然 【きょうみさくぜん】 (adj-t,adv-to) uninteresting; tending to spoil the fun (pleasure) (of); throwing a wet blanket (on)
茶化す 【ちゃかす】 (v5s) to poke fun at; to make fun of 
ファンファール(P); ファンファーレ (n) (1) fanfare (ger:); flourish of trumpets; (2) fun fair;

The list goes on, but the target word, tanoshii, does not appear until the twentieth entry. Checking the box marked ‘Common words’ brings it up to the 9th entry, and only by also checking the ‘Exact word-match’ box does it become the second entry. You would think they would put the most common and exact matches at the top, but that’s just not how this dictionary rolls. Typing in a Japanese word and searching for its english definition is much more effective than the other direction, but I find myself looking for a Japanese word much more often. Also, the kanji-finder seems needlessly complex and always takes me a while to use. The Japanese reading tool and hand-written kanji finder are pretty efficient, but they aren’t the main focus of the dictionary.

Authenticity: 6

This dictionary will always have the right word somewhere, but it won’t tell you which one it is, leaving you to find it yourself. Let’s look back at the example of tanoshii, even after I checked the boxes for ‘Common words’ and ‘exact word-match’ it was still only the second entry, the first was this:

ファン (n) (1) fan; (2) fun;

If there’s one surefire way to have a Japanese person think you don’t know Japanese, its to speak in katakana phonetic conversions like the one above aka (dog = ドッグ(doggu)、cat = カット(katto)). ファン is an acceptable word for ‘fan’, as in ’sports fan.’ It is not really an acceptable word for fun, and certainly not if you’re trying to convince people you know Japanese. Finding the right word in this dictionary basically requires you to know the right word.

Quantity of Knowledge: 10

You just can’t argue with this one. There are so many entries, most of which are equipped with example sentences and conjigations. On top of that is a reading tool, kanji dictionary, and even a dictionary you can use from your cell phone. If you can’t find a word in a smaller dictionary, odds are it will be here. This is a good last resort.

Price: 10 (free)

Yes, it’s free, but the 10 score is assuming you don’t put a price on your time. It takes a while to get what you want out of this beast.

Fun: 2

I know dictionaries aren’t supposed to be fun, but using WWWJDIC frequently puts me in a bad mood. Sometimes I find what I’m looking for right  away, but other times it makes me wish for a less thorough dictionary. Again, most of the other tools aren’t as frustrating as the English-Japanese, but that’s the one I usually use.

Overall: 6.5

I have to give credit where credit is due because of the ridiculous amount of stuff you can find at WWWJDIC, but because its so difficult to use, I’d really recommend it only for obscure words that you know aren’t commonly used.

Remember how I had that tidbit about -っぽい a couple posts ago, and I said it’s something you don’t really find in textbooks. Well, they have it in this book. 13 Secrets for Speaking Fluent Japanese by author and translator, Giles Murray, shown below rocking out a very stylish purple shirt.

This book basically kicks ass. Each secret has it’s own chapter and they range from manga translation, to children’s word games, to detailed explanations and histories for some of the more interesting loan words. The chapters I found most useful were the chapter containing 41 prefixes and suffixes you probably won’t find in textbooks(like -ppoi), and the synonym generator chapter, which teaches you four other ways of replacing a word you don’t know, so your conversations can go more fluidly without a dictionary. I have started applying these secrets in conversation and my Japanese has gotten noticeably better. For a detailed outline of all the secrets, check out Giles Murray’s website here.

Anyways on to the fun part of the review:

Ease of Use: 8.5

Each secret is well organized, usually with a lesson at the beginning, followed by some way to test what you’ve learned, and then a list of vocabulary used at the back. Each secret is pretty clear about what it offers, but this really isn’t the kind of book you can look in for a certain piece of information like a dictionary. You just have to read it and see what you learn.

Authenticity: 9

The real strength of this book is in teaching you all sorts of ins and outs of authentic Japanese that would be hard to cover in a textbook. There’s a lot of stuff in this book that I’ve tried out and found immensely useful and accurate in conversation with Japanese people. However, you should be careful with the included Blackjack manga, as well as manga in general. A lot of the vocabulary used is archaic or niche-slang, not stuff you would generally use.

Quantity of Knowledge: 9

For the size of this book, there’s so much useful knowledge, including idiomatic expressions and fluency tips, that it’s really hard to find consolidated anywhere else. Each secret feels fully fleshed out, and the vocabulary lists and glossary give you a little something extra to study after you’ve read the book.

Price:9

Right now you can get this book for $7-$12 on Amazon, and it’s easily worth that. When I first bought it at Borders it cost $17, and I still don’t regret it at all.

Fun: 10

This is easily the most fun Japanese learning book I’ve ever used . I’d often find myself reading it instead of watching TV, and I think that really speaks to its strengths. The book is written with such an air of frivolity and humor that you just don’t want to run out of secrets. Trust me, it’s so good.

Overall: 9.3

There’s never a dull moment with this book, and it stands up so well to multiple rereads. If you don’t have the extra $10, check the library or borrow it from a friend. You need to read this book.

To buy it online, click here

For other books by Giles Murray, click here

I’ll try to get some of those up in the future. I hope you enjoyed the first review!

So I’m planning on writing a lot of learning material reviews for this site, and this article will lay out my criteria and rating scale. Just look back here if you’re ever confused while reading a review. Anyways, each reviewed item will be rated on the following 5 qualities, give or take (i.e. Price is not a huge factor in websites). Each one will be rated between ichi (1) and jyuu (10), with an overall score at the end. The categories are:

Ease of Use: This one is pretty self-explanatory, how easy the product is to use. For a dictionary this might be how fast you can find a certain word on a page, or for a website how long it takes you to find the kind of information you’re looking for. The information does no good if you can’t get to it.

Authenticity: What I mean by authenticity is basically asking the question, “Is this the Japanese real Japanese people use?” Materials that do a good job of clarifying context for certain words and teaching Japanese that won’t embarrass you will get a high score. Materials that use out-dated words or slang without telling you it’s slang will get a lower score.

Quantity of Knowledge: This category basically means how much you can learn from the product. A pocket dictionary may be really convenient, but it misses out on the breadth of vocabulary offered in larger ones.

Price: If you’re a student like me, odds are you don’t have a lot of disposable income, and even if you do, you want to make sure you get the most out of it. A high price rating means the product is cheap relative to other materials of the same kind. Obviously  this category is not really applicable to websites.

Fun: I feel like fun is the most overlooked and underrated quality of learning materials. If learning isn’t fun, then it’s really hard to make time for it. Why not go up another level on WoW or finish that novel you’ve been working on. High scores will be given to materials that make you want to learn, and I personally think this is one of the most important categories. Remember, TV shows, movies, and music can be learning materials too, not everything has to be a textbook.

Overall: Overall score will be a rough average of the above 5 scores, weighted according to how much each matters to the particular item. I’ll be putting up ranking pages so you can compare  reviews by this score. This will be a good general determinant of how good I think something is, but don’t go just by this number. Consider which of the above categories matters most to you.

Well there you have it, the first review will be coming out tomorrow. お休み !

I’m still working on my scale for the product reviews, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. Coincidentally, I’m also writing my first movie review this week for the newspaper I’m working at over the summer. It’s a review of Kung Fu Panda. I’ll post it once it hits the presses.

With reviews in the works, I’m going to have to post something more general about Japanese, some useful stuff that I didn’t find in my textbook in class.

Here are two really useful tidbits of Japanese that I didn’t really know until this winter. You’d be surprised how often they come up in conversation and how useful they can be:

1. 結構（な） kekkou (na). Kekkou is a Na-adjective that means good, decent, enough, or sufficient depending on the situation. The best use, and I can’t believe I didn’t know this until recently, is as “no, thank you” to either that third bowl of rice or watching Harry Potter 5 for the fourth time. Just say kekkou desu and all your problems will go away. Speaking of Harry Potter 5, it also has the word kekkou in the translated version. It occurs when Umbridge asks Professor Trelawney to predict something, and all she manages to come up with is to say Umbridge is in great danger. Umbridge replies with “kekkou” meaning “That will suffice,” which also has the connotations that it’s just decent, and not great. I’ve watched Harry Potter 5 twice in the past two days, once in English with Japanese subtitles and once in Japanese with no subs. It was ok not having English subs for the Japanese dub because I was so familiar with the movie, but I recommend using subtitles if you are watching for the first time. That being said, watching in Japanese is way more effective than reading Japanese subtitles to improve your language skills. No one wants to read more than they have to, so trying to figure out what they’re saying is much more fun than trying to guess what the Kanji for transfiguration is. Watch the characters mouths and ask for explanations if you get lost. Japanese people are nice, and they get excited about foreigners learning their language. Help will be easy to come by.

2. -っぽい　(-ppoi). This one is tough because it’s not really a word and you won’t be able to find it in a dictionary. Also, because it’s a more colloquial suffix, you probably will have a tough time finding a textbook containing it. It’s basically a suffix that is the English equivalent of “-esque,” “-like,” or “-ish.” For example, if you saw a man walking down the street wearing a pink shirt and make-up, and carrying a purse, you might say that he is feminine, or in Japanese, onnappoi. Another example, let’s say your friend Jim always wears plaid button-down shirts. If you were in a store and saw a plaid button-down shirt, you might say it was jimuppoi or Jim-esque. A third example, let’s say your friend Anna always has at least 3 bowls of rice at every meal. One night, you eat 5 bowls of rice and your friends call your mammoth apetite annappoi, or anna-like. You get the idea. It’s a really useful phrase and now that I know it, I hear it often in everyday conversation. Feel free to come up with creative uses for it and post them here. I admit my knowledge is limited.

Well, I have to get up for work at the paper at 6:30 tomorrow morning, so I guess I should go to bed. Laterz.