Does anyone try to learn Japanese from watching anime?

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Liv6

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I know that one of my friends actually has become fluent in Japanese by first studying the three alphabets and then watching anime to expand her vocabulary (she's going to college this year to hopefully become a diplomat to Japan in the near future). Has anyone else tried to do this?
 
I could never completely learn via anime, but I do pick up on some words like idiot, sibling names (bro/sis) and other small phrases.
 
I cannot say I would learn Japanese from watching just anime alone. However, I find that over the years, I could pick up a few things. I find that I could understand a few things when I hear it from other sources. What I also noticed is that many Japanese phrases and words sound similar to Cantonese or Mandarin like the phrase for "absolutely". So with that, I could say anime helps me identify words in Japanese easier, with the aid of my knowledge in Cantonese.
 
It depends on what types of shows you watch.  Like most cartoons, western or otherwise, characters tend to talk in a more dramatic or theatrical manner that doesn't really represent real life.  There are certain exceptions, but you have to be careful using anime as a learning source. 

It's good for picking up vocabulary and building listening comprehension skills, but I think you'd be better off watching the news or listening to the radio if you want to get a better grasp of grammatical concepts and so on.

I don't know your friend, so I can't attest to her case, but in my experience, people who try to learn Japanese from anime tend to have a pretty negligible grasp on the language along with an unrealistic perception of Japanese culture and pragmatics.
 
I picked up A LOT of vocab through anime. Maybe it won't work for everyone but it worked for me. I used to listen to openings and endings I loved with the romaji, kana, and English lyrics. I managed to match the hiragana/katakana characters with the syllables and matches every word in romaji with its meaning in English, and so on... I wasn't doing it intentionally though.

But that's not how I learned Hiragana/Katakana, I used Memrise for that. It was perfect. I learned them all in a few days of constant practice, all that's left is Kanji in addition to grammar as well as writing. I might need to take a course for these, they're hard to learn on your own.
 
Rux said:
I picked up A LOT of vocab through anime. Maybe it won't work for everyone but it worked for me. I used to listen to openings and endings I loved with the romaji, kana, and English lyrics. I managed to match the hiragana/katakana characters with the syllables and matches every word in romaji with its meaning in English, and so on... I wasn't doing it intentionally though.

But that's not how I learned Hiragana/Katakana, I used Memrise for that. It was perfect. I learned them all in a few days of constant practice, all that's left is Kanji in addition to grammar as well as writing. I might need to take a course for these, they're hard to learn on your own.
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The theme songs are actually a good way of connecting the writing with the words. The only thing that puts me off is Kanji. I had almost grasped Hiragana and Katakana through practice and then I started on words, but the second I got Kanji symbols instead of these "ordinary" ones as I like to call them, I lost patience.

But in general, Japanese structure isn't too difficult to learn. The grammar structure is fairly straightforward, you just need to see what matches with what. In any case, there are very few words that move, if any (I know that neither Chinese nor Japanese move the wh-item, for example, like English does from its object/subject position to the beginning of the sentence in order to form a question - if you know  this, you can then understand the basics of wh- questions and so on). I'd recommend a basic course in generative grammar as a way of getting "tools" for languages. It certainly helps me a lot.

Anyway, anime is an excellent source for basic words. No on claims that after  watching anime you will be fluent in Japanese, just that the basic vocabulary won't be completely unfamiliar to you. This gives you a fair start for more a serious learning. 
 
If I want to learn a language because of a show. It would be korean. I love watching this one show called Running Man, and it released on sundays. It takes 2 days before a sub comes out.
 
applemusician said:
It depends on what types of shows you watch.  Like most cartoons, western or otherwise, characters tend to talk in a more dramatic or theatrical manner that doesn't really represent real life.  There are certain exceptions, but you have to be careful using anime as a learning source. 

It's good for picking up vocabulary and building listening comprehension skills, but I think you'd be better off watching the news or listening to the radio if you want to get a better grasp of grammatical concepts and so on.

I don't know your friend, so I can't attest to her case, but in my experience, people who try to learn Japanese from anime tend to have a pretty negligible grasp on the language along with an unrealistic perception of Japanese culture and pragmatics.
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Prior to graduating, she was used by our high school as an interpreter for one of the exchange students who only spoke Japanese. I'd say that she has a pretty solid grasp of the language, though it took her a while to learn from anime. As for the culture, she has learned a great deal from the student that she befriended; I would agree, however, that anime is not an accurate representation of a majority of Japanese culture. 
 
It'd just be silly to try and learn Japanese from anime.  Even if you managed to pick it up perfectly, you wouldn't be able to speak it like a normal person, you'd speak in a very exaggerated manner.  
 
I have yet to succeed.  A couple of my friends have actually picked up a lot of the language, but they also had flash cards of important phrases or words to help them so I'm not sure how much anime actually helped.  I know some words, but I can't pronounce any of the words without hashing it up.  I also learned not to take some of their phrases seriously meaning that some of their phrases aren't actually used in real life.
 
Liv6 said:
Prior to graduating, she was used by our high school as an interpreter for one of the exchange students who only spoke Japanese. I'd say that she has a pretty solid grasp of the language, though it took her a while to learn from anime. As for the culture, she has learned a great deal from the student that she befriended; I would agree, however, that anime is not an accurate representation of a majority of Japanese culture. 
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That's awesome.  She must really have knack for language acquisition then.  I feel that, while not impossible, learning a language solely through a medium like anime or television is really (and needlessly) difficult though.  At the very least, I'd encourage anyone considering to do so to study grammar and vocabulary through other means as well, since that would only speed up the process. 

That is to say, when you have a grasp of different grammar structures, picking out words and figuring out their classification (verb, noun, particle, etc.) is much, much easier, so it's in every student's best interest to do so.  

I guess I just don't want someone to hear of your friend's success story and then follow in the same steps without making use of any of the great resources to speed up and ease the learning process.
 
I don't TRY to learn either, but I've realized I do understand a little bit when subtitles aren't available.
Opening themes are a great way to learn, Tokyo Ghoul and the Psycho-Pass theme have helped me understand a few more words.
But I'm actually going to learn Japanese when I'm done with college and stuff, I'd like to visit Japan and see how it is in person.
It would be a dream come true. :grin:
 
applemusician said:
That's awesome.  She must really have knack for language acquisition then.  I feel that, while not impossible, learning a language solely through a medium like anime or television is really (and needlessly) difficult though.  At the very least, I'd encourage anyone considering to do so to study grammar and vocabulary through other means as well, since that would only speed up the process. 

That is to say, when you have a grasp of different grammar structures, picking out words and figuring out their classification (verb, noun, particle, etc.) is much, much easier, so it's in every student's best interest to do so.  

I guess I just don't want someone to hear of your friend's success story and then follow in the same steps without making use of any of the great resources to speed up and ease the learning process.
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It's definitely not for everyone, and I wouldn't advocate it. She just happened to be really interested in anime and willing to learn the hard way. For her, it was easier to learn via anime because she has a hard time studying from textbooks (issues with focusing). 
 
I been watching anime seen's 90's but until now I didn't know hoe to speack Japaneses. But I know some words of them. But I can spreak naturally.
 
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