"If I CAN'T understand Japanese, how do I immerse?"

[@WingedShell82]

this is so real, and a good thing to know. I've recently heard, you have to "tolerate ambiguity." But, this video also helps with any fear of knowing whether or not "it's working." Thank you for making this video!

[@nicholasmeinhart5993]

Netflix tends to have anime with Japanese subtitles

[@JannesDragon]

@@nicholasmeinhart5993 Not in all countries. In Germany they usually only have the German subtitles if you don't use a VPN.

[@nicholasmeinhart5993]

@@JannesDragon I lived in Berlin before and for anime and Japanese productions atleast, I could get Japanese subs. But it might have something to do with an extension called "language reactor" that I had

[@WingedShell82]

@@JannesDragon likewise, usually in the US we don't usually get Japanese subs for things, but I've recently been told about animelon . com and there are tons of other resources that allow you to see Japanese subs.

[@IceTurn-niv7el]

Yea, also in Portugal, when i had brazillian netflix it had tho​@@JannesDragon

[@LilRebell57]

FINALLY someone else giving love to ゆうすけさん!! I absolutely love his videos. As someone who has only been learning for a little over a year and went to Japan earlier this summer, his videos are extremely helpful. One of the best resources for new learners to get listening practice. He is a hidden gem. Also, great anime for learning is teasing master takagi San. Targeted at a younger audience, but humorous enough to keep you engaged, and just advanced enough to always keep you learning.

[@davidddo]

oh you pure soul..

[@Dermester27]

"comprehensible japanese is a great channel to start before getting inmerse. I would recommend it

[@BecomeAnything.]

LMAO bro just called out everyone watching the video. "core 2k, and first anime". Good video. I think it's important for people to know that they won't understand almost everything off of core 2k. It's all about little steps each day, and taking T1 sentences. And it will add up like fking magic. The steps are just so small you never realize how big your progress is.

[@mr_mr]

This is great on multiple levels. You start to touch on a perspective that often gets missed and that is by taking the time to see things like Refold and watching JP content as a beginner and point out how that could progress. Those nuances really help. Hearing you say this is so helpful, like "look, it won't make sense but here's why it's important" and "gradually this will start to happen". I would love to see a list of some of your content. Maybe it matches the Refold guides but it would still be cool to see which ones you picked out. I've found that rewatching something that you enjoy is powerful. It makes it so that you can tolerated it and you start to pick up on more and more details with each watch. If you're at the beginning of watching content, don't worry about having each piece of content be something new. If you're watching a series and you watch each episode 20 times, that could be more helpful.

[@mr_mr]

There's a point early on that everyone hits where when you listen to Japanese, it starts to sound more like words (that you don't know) and less like blah blah blah. Like when you hear a language you absolutely don't know, it's just gibberish. But at one point you will hear details and be able to say what does X mean because I just heard that. This is a big milestone and you should be excited when you hit this point.

[@someuser4166]

I actually learned English from watching dubbed anime back in the day (and there weren't any subs available in my language) and now people I meet online sometimes mistakes me for an American.

[@Kkubey]

That proves to me how different the way people learn languages is. I am terrible with pronunciation no matter the language and can only learn a word or name if I read it.

[@BrosukiChyachyo]

How did you learn to read and write in English?

[@idontgiveah00t]

Thank you. You have no idea how encouraging this video is. And you're offering help?? Omg i love you ❤

[@coolbrotherf127]

This is good advice and is pretty much what I did. I learned the JP1k refold deck to learn beginners words then just watched Japanese KZbinrs and anime, while playing games in Japanese and listening to Japanese music until I started to be able to understand stuff slowly over time without subtitles. I would say it took me about 3 years to be able to read and listen and another year to be able to speak. I'm really surprised at how much I've improved but there's always something else to learn. My pitch accent is never quite perfect and I still miss understand things like puns or creative word play and especially technical or medical terminology.

[@kurisu3943]

this is such a bug help as ive been learning for about 2 months now and have started to immerse myself 🔥🔥

[@Eyebuster2]

The line at 3:47 hit me harder than it should have xD Thanks for that lil bit of inspiration!

[@juliapazosmaidana2929]

4:50 wha- FOR REAL??? I would so appreciate that!! I find that asking questions to someone that actually knows helps me a lot to learn (I don't want to be a bother either n,n" but I would soooo appreciete it~)

[@ryacw]

I’m trying to see what my subscribers’ problems are with Japanese so that I can make better videos. There should be a link in the video description if you’re interested!

[@juliapazosmaidana2929]

@@ryacw got it, thank youuu

[@LePlej0]

God, you really helped me. I've been learning japanese for 4 days now and I wasn't sure if I'm doing everything corretly, and now It is all clear. Thanks man (thats a sub) Edit: I know that it isn't the topic of the video, but could you make a video about kanji and how you learned them, becouse iI have a feeling that there are not many reliable sources and materials online, so I'd love to hear your advice Edit2: Nvm you already did, f*ck.

[@justalameusername1736]

Watch crayon shin chan and chibi maru chan with subs Ive done it for chinese and i was learning it pretty easily. Core 2k deck+some grammar lessons+anime for kids. If you grind that shit you'll eventually be able to move to harder stuff. If you can get addicted to something it might work too. For example, ive met good japanese speakers who didnt know what immersion was but got really good by watching their favorite vtubers.

[@RAMENWORLD-ry8oq]

Makes sense as a learner who hardly can see iv been trying to listen more. I picked out a few words while watching slam dunk not really sure if that counts though.

[@nickyschardt9922]

For anyone looking for beginner level comprehensible input, I can't recommend the channel Comprehensible Japanese enough. They have a long playlist of complete beginner videos: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iYO2npdoqL2jjLM

[@KarennaJP]

Nice video man, you explained things correctly and smooth! Also I wanted to ask, what is / how did you put a novel like that at 2:39 (I suppose is a novel idk first time seeing something like that)

[@ryacw]

So recently I’ve been reading light novels but it’s a website called ttsu ッツ reader where you put the epub file in and can read it

[@KarennaJP]

@@ryacw Cool thanks for explaining!

[@kyram123]

I needed this, I’m 3 weeks in and it’s so hard when you can “get by” but can’t engage

[@trashgamerxd7612]

You're 3 weeks into japanese learning and you can "get by" ?

[@anoakenstaff]

Hey mate, great video, thanks! This cleared up a lot. Could I ask if you're using a certain method or tutorial to immerse? I'm completely lost on what to do regarding that, and I do know there's a ton of tutorials, but I wanted to ask about your personal apps/methods.

[@ryacw]

In terms of method I’m doing AJATT but the only app I really use is just Anki for my SRS, other than that I just use content made for natives

[@anoakenstaff]

@@ryacw Ah, nice! Thank you!

[@anoakenstaff]

@@ryacw Sorry mate, but could you direct me to any tutorial on how you set up immersion software or such if it isn't a bother? I couldn't seem to find much.

[@osuplaeyurreallygood]

I have a separate channel where I pretty much only subscribe to japanese women's vlog channels (it wasn't my original plan...). They almost always have Japanese subtitles and all talk at different speeds, some moderate and some very fast, so you get all kinds of input that would help you to listen to people irl or in a vc or whatever.

[@enryboss9826]

Helpful video, thanks. Where can I found anime with jp subtitles?

[@xCrusader66x]

Most anime on Netflix will have a Japanese audio and subtitle option I have found. Otherwise I have been using a VPN to connect to Japanese servers to watch western media in Japanese with Japanese subtitles too. That's been great because I can watch stuff I am familiar with, like Harry Potter or something, and be able to follow the dialogue easier. I will also use crunchyroll for anime but they don't have Japanese subtitles unfortunately.

[@serhatkargn6333]

I commented the greatest way of watching anime with JP subtitles bro go read it!

[@StarkevTL]

Hey, I heard that the 2k/6k deck has a lot of mistakes and is very business related, what are your thoughts about it ?

[@JimbobDubs]

I am by no means an expert but there is a deck called Kaishi 1.5k that is pretty good in my opinion.

[@hellishlycute]

use kaishi 1.5k or core 2.3k instead

[@ryacw]

Kaishi or core is good, I personally used refold 1k so I can’t exactly vouch for either of those but I’ve heard that they’re very good

[@_P2M_]

You didn't ask me, but as someone who's personally gone through that deck, 20 words a day, every day, for 300 days, I'd like to give my thoughts on it. The words are ordered by frequency, but they are sampled not from regular books and novels, but newspapers. That is why you will see a lot of political and business words. There are also a few mistakes. You need to be paying attention at all times to try and spot them. If something seems off, you need to look it up and see if it's actually wrong. The deck is far from perfect, but it did the job for me. What matters is actually doing something, anything, as long as it's not counterproductive. Unless you're already well into it, I'd suggest looking into better decks.

[@gmorf33]

It is, it's a more general every day core vocabulary if you were living/working in japan. I'd say using JPDB's top _k decks are better if your interest is fictiional media. For non-patreons you can create up to a top 3k deck. Patreon subs i think can get even over top 10k or however high you wanna go. The advantage that the core2k anki deck has, is real native audio vs. ai-gen audio.

[@LilChicky]

Great video.

[@M4ID4]

Thanks for this video! I need to start to lock in now since ive been learning for a whioe but am still on a beginner level. How long would u recommend to immerse per day, the nire you immerse the sooner you may get it but how much time woukd you reccommned, and also what woukd u reccommned to do. Any help is appropriated

[@ryacw]

I have a lot of videos on WHAT to do depending on the level, but generally if you want the typical AJATT “basically fluent in 1.5-2 years” then study 3-4 hours a day, if you want to feel really fast progress even, 3 hours a day. But generally just make sure you’re having fun because doing 3-4 hours a day off willpower is going to burn you out.

[@M4ID4]

@ryacw OK thank you so much for responding! I will deffinately put up the effort to learn and have fun with it. I have a few more questions since I'm still a bit lost lol. What should I study for those 3 hours. Grammar? Vocabulary? Kanji? And how much of each of those things should I do. Like 50% kanji 30% vocabulary 20% grammar?? I'm just a bit confused on what I should be learning.

[@ryacw]

I rember as a beginner I tried to limit anki to 30-60 minutes a day (that includes kanji deck) and then i did 2-3 hours of intensive reading immersion (pause and read every subtitle, then play it) and 1-2 hours of freeflow immersion with subs, not pausing

[@M4ID4]

@ryacw ah I see now, thank you so much for the help I appreciate it. As someone who's been learning for a bit now I have been struggling but now I know what to do it should be easier now :)

[@M4ID4]

@ryacw sorry but one more thing 😅 Do you have any reccomendations on what to immerse in. Like any anime recommendations or podcasts or books etc. Anything would be helpful 💜

[@Luizmarcchi]

Should I focus on learning individual kanji, or just pick them up through vocabulary? How should I review my kanji Anki cards-should I memorize all the readings or just the meanings?

[@zurrexGD]

If you’re early into Japanese stop learning kanji it’s too complicated you will just confuse yourself, get to a point of which you can comprehend the language and the kanji will come easy if you just read

[@JansHeikkinen]

Learning individual kanji seems to just be a matter of personal preference. Learning individual kanji can help you learn vocab, and learning vocab will help you learn kanji, so either way you'll end up in the same spot regardless. I personally prefer to just go with vocab, because learning a bunch of readings out of context makes it super hard to memorise anything.

[@kurisu3943]

i personally like learning a bit of kanji as it does help with vocab, but learning the readings and especially the on yomi readings for me has also been quite useful, because when compound kanji words pop up in my vocab deck and i know certain kanji, i am usually able to read the word even though i may not know the meaning of the word. Which may in turn helps me remeber it better.

[@IceTurn-niv7el]

I try watching voiced manga painel videos since they will speak in a more calm and slow way and you can also read the dialogues in the screen, for me its really easier to understand than watching anime or gameplay

[@nemureki]

are these on youtube? if so, any recommendations?

[@IceTurn-niv7el]

@@nemureki on KZbin, i started to watch it recently since i just ended up finding it by recommendation, i would suggest to you to try seaching マンガ 吹き替え + the name of the manga (without anime adaptation or a more unknown one would be easier i think) or a genre

[@Will-nf9gf]

Do you have a server? If you do please link and if not then please make one geared specifically toward input/native comprehension (instead of the conversation-based servers)

[@ryacw]

I’m working on one right now for AJATTers from this channel, stuff like resource sharing, immersion challenges, etc

[@Will-nf9gf]

@@ryacw Okay sick

[@midorin69]

hey, thank you for the video! i'm curious as to which website/app you used for the anime subtitles where you could hover for context? i've really been struggling to even find japanese subs at all overall

[@ryacw]

This is my friend’s clip but I think it’s language reactor, I use a site called sudoto for media player tho because it works with yomitan

[@midorin69]

@@ryacw thank you for the answer!! i'll check out both, tysm again

[@VitorMiguell]

I would LOVE to go to a 2 year extra intense JP community. It would be like this: you can be from anywhere in the world and speak whatever mother language you have, but once you are admited in, is JP only! All the security, all the cleaners and food services employers only speak JP and you have to mimic your way throught there 😂

[@Totally_not_Kelkel]

What is the thing at 0:33 ? I've been trying to find japanese subtitles for my anime on and off for awhile and haven't found anything, and that thing (program?) seems really good, with hover on kanjis you dont know.

[@ryacw]

My friend actually sent me this clip because he didn’t know if he was doing it right lol. I believe the program is language reactor but I might be wrong

[@Totally_not_Kelkel]

@@ryacw Thank you! That looks like it's it! Although it doesn't seem to have anime on it (besides netflix) I could try using it on youtube.

[@Dermester27]

@@Totally_not_Kelkel it is language reactor and it is very useful, it a google chrome extension I think

[@nnik345]

is there a way to use sudoto on android or an alternative website/app? or is it only possible on computer.

[@ryacw]

I just use in on my browser on my PC. The media player is REALLY good with yomitan

[@nnik345]

@@ryacw alright, thanks for the clarification. i thought that the website itself would provide the translation.

[@kidtachifnn]

Nice videos

[@PoofessorP]

I needed this video thank you lol, I'm same exact as your friend. I've been learning for a month and using the anki 2k/6k optimized deck 10-25 new words a day for 3 weeks now with 9 mature words and 288 young. I also was using language reactor and looking up a bunch of words. This video got recommended at the perfect time My question is, how often should I be immersing at this stage? I was thinking of rewatching 1 episode a day of my favorite one piece episodes with japanese subtitles since I don't really watch slice of life

[@ryacw]

Immerse as much as you can without ruining your life lol. There’s no set amount but more is always better. Try passive listening to one piece episodes that you’ve already seen and try to actively immerse at least 2hrs a day if you want consistent good progress. If you want really fast progress then I can recommend 4hrs but I understand most people can’t do that. Best of luck!

[@PoofessorP]

@@ryacw thank you!

[@user-or1cv6bf2q]

もしもしゆすけ is so underrated

[@user-jw2du8cu9u]

hey i am learning french can you give advice for that

[@ryacw]

It’s the same method but without kanji, if you’re a beginner get used to the sounds and do passive listening a lot, it’s fine to not understand

[@user-jw2du8cu9u]

@@ryacw thnxx

[@user-jw2du8cu9u]

@@ryacw hlo i am begginer in french and i know some grammer no that much i was trying a new method and wanted to know if it will work so the method is i find short stories on yt and find the line and try to find the translation of the word and try to guess the meaning of the sentence and it is going fine and i am able to do that is it a rigth method i though i will be able to learn vocab and remeber teh grammer too

[@ryacw]

@@user-jw2du8cu9u it’s not a bad method but you don’t want to be translating everything

[@Punkologist]

I'm doing Japanese classes. I am 4 weeks into beginner 1. I have started watching anime more in Japanese now but still with English subtitles. I am finding I'm a recognising some words and sentences here and there, mostly the basic stuff like introductions and greetings, thankyous and please etc.. I probably only know about 200 words at this stage, I have Hirgana down, most of Katakana and only about 10 Kanji. So I'm still very early on. Do you suggest trying with Japanese subtitles already? I'm very slow as far as reading still.

[@ryacw]

Depends if you’re willing to understand basically nothing. The reward is higher in the end but if you just want to enjoy the show then use the English subs.

[@jakesidoli7292]

Hey man, how do you get anime with Japanese subs? I can find the subs and I can find the anime but dunno how to put them together. Also thanks for the great video 👍

[@ryacw]

I use a website called sudoto.app but there’s plenty of other ways like migaku but sudoto is the cheapest I believe

[@jakesidoli7292]

@@ryacw Thanks you so much 🙏

[@Zeral]

Wooooo

[@HypotheticalTiger]

based

[@caretchara]

What anime subtitles site was that??

[@ryacw]

Believe it’s language reactor

[@leonmarcel5926]

So is watching Anime or any other japanese visual show with english subtitles bad?

[@kolbisama]

it’s not that it’s bad, it’s just the idea that you’re using them as a crutch instead of pushing yourself to try and figure out what you actually know.

[@yusamiyav0]

its really hard to focus to audio when there is subtitles you can still hear it of course but you dont actively try to hear words you know so i think its better to watch with no sub or japanese sub even if you cant understand what they are saying

[@omerfarukbykl6097]

0:33 what's the app name?

[@Retog]

Just watch comprehensible input. Don’t watch incomprehensible anime.

[@hughmungus7933]

Yeah I don't know how you all manage to "just immerse" but in my experience it's mostly useless and for the most part white noising but you just have to play mental gymnastics and call it “ambiguity tolerance”. The only things I understand are the words I have in my tango decks and I know about 7k words. What I find with immersion is that I consistently only understand 10-20 percent of anything I watch, so if an episode is 20 mins at best I'll have 4 mins of comprehensible input that is only comprehensible because of prelearning or having exposure to these words prior. This is horrible efficiency, it means I'm literally just wasting 80-90 percent of my time training my ambiguity tolerance

[@CrispoXofc]

If you already know this much of words, you should undoubtedly start doing a deck on Anki to put sentences instead of words alone. It will without any doubt make you start to understand patterns instead of a words in the middle of a speech. I've been doing it to learn English for a few months since I started learning it and I'm already able to understand more or less 80 percent of whatever I watch without the subtitles. (I know English is totally different, but it's worth doing with Japanese as well.)

[@hughmungus7933]

@@CrispoXofc all the words I know were learned using anki sentence cards, I know all those words in context within a given sentence. The problem with immersion as I stated is that nothing is comprehensible aside for the words i prelearned using anki, this makes watching content for the most part annoying because of low comprehension, it's literally like when you watch a white static TV and you can hear a few intelligible sentences in that static. I have another 3000 sentence cards left at which point I should "know" 10k words in total. But yeah, I might just start mining for the most common words through books by literally copying and pasting the full book and sorting through all the words by frequency using some existing dictionary tool.

[@BrosukiChyachyo]

Sometimes you have to trust your brain working behind the scenes. Certain processes of your brain will not be brought to your conscious attention in the form of thoughts, but it may still be working. For example when you go to throw a ball, it may seem like you're doing it fairly haphazardly, but your brain is doing a ton of calculations accounting for all sorts of variables that would be overwhelming if they had to be consciously thought about every time.

[@CrispoXofc]

@@hughmungus7933 You got it wrong, dud. If you have already mined up to 3k cards 'till now. You are more than prepared to dive in the immersion. It's not about understanding every single word but going and given yourself time of exposure in the language. You will get better and better as you go through it. You just have to maintain mining new I+1 cards every day while combining it with immersion. That's a powerful method

[@justsomeguywithoutamask9602]

If you know that many words and still don't understand anything, the only way to solve it would be through immersion itself You have fallen into a big rabbit hole of thinking that just because anki shows you how well you "know" these words you should technically be invincible, which in reality you haven't really acquired the words, you only learn languages by seeing the words and grammar being used in context hundreds and thousands of times. You'll probably have an easier time with immersion since you already know so many words, but because you didn't immerse from the start, you skipped so many beginner stages that now your comprehension is terrible even though you supposedly know so much. Also even if you spend most of your time not understanding, it's still way more efficient than no immersion at all, proven by the amount of people who get to a really high level in japanese in like under 2 years, compared to 10+ years which many academic language learners spend and still suck at the language. Anki just gives you the illusion of learning that immersion doesn't give

[@abejandro1462]

If you inmerse with anime... I have bad news for you.