This is so true. I was looking up words every minute on my English-Japanese dictionary on my phone and ended up remembering none of it. If I only look up like 5 words an hour I tend to remember them much better
@@toastedtarts4044 they were probably responding to slither dude who decided to delete his comment for some reason. Idk why it autocorrected another to slither but I mean “another dude” lmao although he could be snaky idk 👀 😂
Ive run into a similar problem. I used to boot up an anime with intention of making sentence cards. This quickly turned into "make a card for every sentence they say" and felt like homework.
I have always gone with the "do I need to know this word to understand this sentence? and do I need to understand this sentence to follow the plot?" approach, it's the approach used in games but you can use it in other medium too. It's used in games in such a way that you can have a long explanation that you need to find a 魔法の棒 but the only words you need to know to progress in the game is "find" and "magic stick". Once you start to implement this way of thinking all of the immersion stops bothering you because you don't get stuck on the notion that you have to understand something completely to actually understand it.
@@gregwhite4942 If you stumble upon something that doesn't make sense to you then you simply ignore it, the art of language learning is always to understand the message behind the words/sentences and in the beginning you will only be able to understand simple clear cut messages but the better you get at it the more nuanced messages you are able to grasp. I would also say that language learning is one of the few fields where you shouldn't ask why something is a certain way because knowing why is useless in actually learning the language. For example I don't know why we call sandwich smörgås (butter goose) in swedish but I don't need to know why to understand what it means. It's the same with sayings like "break a leg" and so forth.
@@weltar1995 nonon, skipping words is really greasy. Though, I have to say I don't remember words if I just translate them and do not put them on my studying list.
@@gregwhite4942 If you have an immersive environment then you really don't have to put in much effort to remember things because you will be exposed to the language enough that there is no way you will forget the words you need to learn, that's why you won't forget things like です, は, の, 行く, 食べる and so on while words like 読書感想文 and other words that aren't used everyday is more difficult to remember. If you try to learn every word even if the message behind it doesn't make sense then you will only make the process of language learning harder on yourself but if you learn the things that make sense then more words will unlock themselves to you. I'm fully fluent in 2 languages and mediocre in 3 and my journey through languages has not only taught me how to go about learning languages but more importantly how not to learn languages and my knowledge is the reason I love MIA and AJATT because they take my experience with learning English and boost it so that you don't have to spend a lot of time in the "I can't understand anything" swamp that is the initial steps to learning a language.
10:00 I couldn't agree more. When I first started reading, I was moving at a snail's pace. I was reading manga and LN's from anime that I have already seen, which made reading a lot more enjoyable. I knew what was happening, and I didn't need to worry about missing something important. I could feel my reading speed getting better each day! Now I've reached a point where new words are so few and far between that looking them up isn't much of a chore.
I’m exactly at this moment with Polish. I can understand a lot of regular conversations on a daily basis, but whenever I get a book or even comic books, it is just frustrating that I want to stop every three words and can’t read. I will apply your ideas!
This is the most beneficial channel I’ve ever seen on the platform. You are one of those rare people who have an understanding of something and willingness to share it with people for free. I want to make sure you know you’re giving people opportunities that could completely change their lives and possibilities. Thank you, seriously
As a general rule I'll usually only look up words I know I've heard before or ones that I can usually guess the meaning of through context. Occasionally I'll look up a word I can't even guess but I don't do it too often or else it'll just make the whole reading process tedious.
@@abdvs325 in the long term mining every word is mucj better. After several months, you won't br looking up words as much as another person who was lazy to do it.
I only really look things up if I find myself asking "What did that word mean?" It feels like being a child and asking a parent or carer what words in English meant as a child. With the genuine interest too, it makes it way easier to remember them :)
I do make sure to look up words I know will be important though when I start the series. I learn the title in Japanese first. If I see a word enough times to recognise it, I'll look it up too bc ik it'll be useful.
Everyone in my house is big into reading and whenever I was stuck on a word as a kid, my mum wouldn't tell me what it meant. I always had to look it up for myself. Which is great advice when you speak most of the language and you're trying to build on it, but its definitely a habit I need to break with this new language, at least for now
Matt, you look so friendly and it's very nice from yours sharing the experience you've been having all over those years of self learning. They are really helpful and useful tips, wich can guide essentially a self learner to probably the best way of learning japanese. Thank you
To add on to Matts thoughts (especially looking up only 1 or 2 words per page). I have a method atm where I read a light novel for around an hour a day and any words I don't know I simply highlight and continue reading. The next morning I look up the words and log them onto anki. This is great because I don't have to break my reading to open up a dictionary, simply highlight the word and keep going. The problem with this is that some chapters I'd run into up to 50 new words/phrases to the point where It was demoralizing to tell myself "If I read today then I'm gonna run into more new words to add to the huge anki deck" which made me not want to read every day. By changing this strategy to only highlighting 1-2 words per page it makes logging words and pushing through the novel that much more enjoyable. And Matts right, you don't need to learn every single word in a book, and when you run into a word that you've seen before your brain will have a little "huh i've seen that" moment where if you didn't highlight it on the previous encounter you can this time.
I’ve been studying Portuguese for almost 9 years now and I’ve visited Brazil 18 times now but I still can’t read or converse and I have to translate everything into English to understand. Every single word has to be translated even if I’ve known it for years. The Portuguese words don’t mean anything to me like English words do. I still haven’t had a conversation yet in almost 9 years. I practice every day with my girlfriend who only speaks Portuguese and we’ve been practicing for over 5.5 years now but I still can’t understand her. It’s very frustrating. I usually learn very quickly and score very high on tests. I don’t think in any language like people say they do. Maybe that’s a clue.
that works for listening too. similar to reading i don't understand everything I hear but sometimes some words pop up so vividly so when i stop and look it's meaning i end up never forgetting it. it's like your brain saved this word even though it doesn't know its meaning.
Good video, but I've realized that I disagree with the idea that the only solution in this scenario is to limit context-switching, and I think there's deeper meaning that's held back by the idea "nobody has that kind of willpower." When somebody says "I just don't have the willpower to do X", what I hear is that that person finds doing X stressful over a long period, but believes that enduring that stress would be necessary or expected for something they do want. It's a convenience to avoid unpacking why there's actually a stressor at all or what it is. If we phrase this case as "I just don't have the willpower to look up everything when consuming Japanese media," what you're saying is that in this case it really isn't necessary to look up every word - you can just setup some restraints. While this is true, and a valid approach, another way of approaching the problem is to understand exactly what makes looking up every word stressful. After all, there are many people who enjoy reading maps and dictionaries for fun. What comes to mind here mostly is stress from pacing (expecting to get through a certain chunk of media in a certain period of time) and stress of trying to retain your mental state (in particular, interest in what you're consuming). For me, I think that both of these sources of stress could be handled well by accounting for looking up words as part of consuming the media (e.g. consider that every book *could* have footnotes with definitions or other information contextualized to the reader and their knowledge). I find that context-switching is actually fine when it's not treated as an obstacle to experiencing media, but a meaningful piece of content in its own right. I don't think it's far off to make an analogue to a game with side stories that aren't necessary to understand the plot, but help build up characters and motivations. tl; dr: My answer to "I just don't have the willpower to lookup everything when consuming Japanese media" is that "Looking up words doesn't have to get in the way of consuming media, but if you feel like being a completionist sometimes you may also be able to find that learning a lot of words provides a deep experience."
This is a very good point your making. I've found myself weirdly enjoying reading japanese definition chains even if I started on a separate piece of media, because I have decided that reading definitions is in itself a part of immersion. I don't consider it an obstacle to enjoying media or immersion, since it is just as much a part of my immersion as anything else. I try to think of reading a definition as nothing but maintaining the constant chain of immersion that I would be gaining from engaging with the original content I started with.
Not overloading yourself with new information is the key. People don't try to learn 300 words a day in Anki, so you won't remember 300 words in one day just because you looked then up while immersing. It's all about that steady drip of getting a bit better every day.
Good vid! I remember trying to look up every word while listening to Japanese news and it just backfired since the listening lost it's context. Thanks!
For some reason when learning Spanish in my class at school I was actually very comfortable with the ambiguity of the language therefore not looking much if anything up just trying to find what I need to know in the sentence however when learning Japanese by myself in a non-class environment I always have an urge to look up certain words.
I think one of the hardest things I've had to learn is to not look up everything. I can generally handle it with watching anime but the moment I try to read anything I'm dying. Would help if I knew more kanji, but life's pretty busy at the moment so I've had to learn them slowly with a mix of Context and RTK.
Good video. I liked the points presented here, honestly - and I like how these videos are much closer to what the average learner is generally thinking often haha. We do worry about MIA's processes, of course - such as "How am I gonna learn this?", but as we're constantly immersing these seemingly insignificant questions are actually things that we're worrying about all the time haha At least that's how it is for me, honestly
Ive somehow had the opposite happen; with my audio immersion, I've become TOO used to not understanding everything, and so I end up not looking anything at all outside of making sentence cards... I will have to start making a conscious effort to look up 3-5 words per episode haha
Great advice, thank you! Sometimes I worry that I'm doing something wrong if I misunderstand a lot of a medium in my target language (Gaeilge). But it's all part of the language learning process.
When im listening i just look up the words i feel like i've heard more than once and when i'm reading i use rikaikun so i do read every single word but it's like jisho so i don't really learn any word anyway, i just have a vague ideia of what they mean and when a certain word comes up again and i think its valuable THEN i go to the monolingual dictionary and make a card for it.
I am still very beginner here. I look up about 10 items maximum per anime watching session (1 to 2 hours). I don't think I can take more in. By the way, if you are watching subtitles like me and you can't find the kanji you are looking for based on the sound input alone, you can use the draw input method on your android phone (not sure if the iphone has an equivalent). That thing is so good that even if you draw like a 5 year old, it will accurately guess the kanji.
I really find that part about "things sticking out" (for your brain) interesting. Maybe it just shows where your interests lie. Would be awesome if you could change it, because I find it kind of pointless in the early stages to be able to freely recall words like 脱脂粉乳 or 受動喫煙, even thought I never made a card for them, while it takes me ages to remember 枕. But well whatever, that's the brain for ya.
great video, I learnt a lot with this. Also just watched the subs2srs video so I am going immersion all day long. I am already doing full time immersion but now with the snime audio I will enhoy it a lot more, since I love anime as well.
I personally generally only look up words if I see it repeatedly, I figure once I know the common words that come up a lot, I can use context to figure out other ones. :-)
I don't look anything up when I'm listening/ watching a show. I only lookup stuff if I can use the browser extension Yomi-chan to look things up quickly, or I'm reading a novel in my kindle app where I can get J-J definitions with one tap. When I'm watching a show, I just try to use context from the visuals.
Yesterday I finished playing どうして勇者様そんなに弱いのですか。I'm pretty sure that I'd skipped 70%+ of kanji containing words(especially the hero and skill names). It was worth looking up 倒す、城 because they appeared all the time, this and understanding words of demon and hero was enough to follow the plot.
Too many times have I looked up what an anime character said, only for jisho to tell me it was an archaic word and the character was just trying to sound cool So I don't look it all up anymore lol Text is harder, as you've rightly said, and it's so much easier to give up while reading a hard text..
Sometimes I go based off "Oh, I think that word means ___" based off context then I look it up to double check, or I hear a word over and over again so it sticks out so I'll look it up. XD sometimes I look a word up b/c it just sounds funny/interesting, like maybe it sounds similar to a word from some other language so I get curious as to what that string of sounds means in THIS language.
So because you are basically skipping over/ not looking up so many words that you don’t know, at what point does reading become more-or-less effortless, where you understand most of what you see (and not just the gist of the story, but knowing the meanings of all the individual words themselves)
I really struggle to "not look things up" and that actually had already affected me, I barely want to read because I already know it will be boring.... I need to fix this
a teacher who i had told me to start learning the words first and after learn the meaning and it worked im learning too many kanjis easily and it maes easier to understand them, i start to realize i started to be like japanesse people, i know thye meaning but i dont know how to read it XD now im focusing on reading faster
IMO I think that you should look up a word when you feel that you need it. For example if the episode of that anime, or the chapter of that manga wichever is about 魔法 and they are constantly saying it you should look up 魔法 (magic) so the next word could be 魔女. now we know that they are speaking about magic, and that the first kanji in 魔女 is repeated and the second one is woman, so the meaning could be witch, and usually the media confirms that, if not, then it's not really important. Another case could be that you heard or read a word and gives you the feeling of hearded it. In my case i've headed a several times いまさら, until now (with a expresion of surprise) so i looked up and made a flash card for it.
@@Knight-Cyberia But then 魔法 could still be added to anki, so that you could remember it for the case it comes up like 2 months later in a totally different context. Or would you say only words that you"feel like you've heard/read it once" should be added and other chapter/episode specific words not? I am really interested in how others manage this, since I always wonder about that question :)
@@heinzmustermann8416 IMO both. I would add 魔法 to anki because I needed to know that word in order to understand the main plot of the media and not for example 塩 (salt) because it just, for example, form part of the shopping list of the witch and it's irrelevant for the episode. Also I add to anki those words that I had already hearded 2-3 times because they have a space in the memory, and now I just have to fill it with the meaning I hope you find my thinking interesting and usefull. :)
What he really means is that you shouldn't be too caught up with looking things up when you are consuming content. Your brain needs the raw volume of exposure to the language in order to have a large sample to draw from when trying to understand the language. Looking things up just slows you down and also makes what is supposed to be fun a chore. But you still should dedicate separate regular study periods where you're actually following instructional material or guided practice where you're trying to understand everything, at least until you reach an upper-intermediate to advanced level.
Matt and what do you think about parallel/bilingual books for a beginner with 20% understanding? Is it a good idea to read one sentence in Japanese and then in English and move forward like this or is it better to read a whole page in Japanese first and then in English?
@@zombiedeutsch The thing that is working for me is to watch/read first to understand, it can be a whole episode of some anime or a chapter of a manga in English.. and then in Japanes, it doesn't have to be right away, and i'm just trying to enjoy the story and the japanese, i'm not trying to nail everything down, and things start to stick naturally, i also use animelon with Japanese and English subs at the sametime if i don't understand the japanese i read the english subs, but not everytime sometimes i don't care if i don't understand perfectly, it's really the best approach to just relax and enjoy the japanese, you don't need too much structure just as long as the material is really appealing to you
I just have 6 months doing MIA, so my level and vocabulary still low. Yesterday I just finished my firts book in Japanese; コンビニ人間 (I did not undestand it a 100%). I read it together with a reading group, and I did as you just mentioned Matt, I was looking for every word that I did not understand, so it took me longer than anyone, 2 or 3 hours (Just to finish 3 or even 4 pages) I have now the confidence to start reading books by my own, so I will apply this rule in order to read faster and to enjoy more the process because I really had a problem trying to put myself to read, just for the tought: I have to look for at least 10 words in a page, BORING! Thank you for the advice!
Convenience Store woman is a great book! I read it in Japanese and English, reading a few pages then going back and checking my understanding as I went along. The language in コンビニ人間 is kind of robotic, a bit like the main character, so less difficult than some other texts I've looked at...
I have a method that works for times you find yourself looking things up too much. Only add words that you've seen so frequently you're starting to get annoyed by the fact that you can't read them.
this is the trick i use, but for deciding what words i put into my SRS to study! i look up a lot more than just those, i just don't pressure myself to remember them. i like to understand everything as thoroughly as possible... 98% at the least. i just get more enjoyment out of what i'm reading that way. but i read 2 full pages, highlighting unknowns as i go along before i take 2 minutes to look up the stuff i didn't know.
what about readings? i find that the readings of new kanji simply do not stick most of the time unless i review them. even if looked them up. i might see the word again and know the meaning, but how to read it? nope. when/how are you guys going about learning the actual readings of these words?
Okay but what if i cannot read because I know only a few kanji's reading. Should I stick with SRS or push through reading anyway while actually reading let's say one every 5 sentences or less?
Hey man I have the same problem, I only know around 200-250 words, and I know that if I read something I only will understand a 5% or less, what have you done? Guess I have to keep going with SRS until I have a solid base of vocabulary and then start doing what Matt says
WalrusPrime my experience is you won’t get very far in yatsuba. Not to mention the font is so stylized you’ll have trouble distinguishing one hirigana syllable for another. Get through Tango N5 or parts of tae kin first or you’ll give up by the time you hit the 10th pane in the story.
@@scotmcpherson I have to disagree here with you. When I first started out using ajatt, I started reading よつばとand I found the different styles easy to read. Also, It doesn't have many kanji, so even when you haven't started with the sentence phase, you still might be able to recall some of the words from audio immersion
@@heinzmustermann8416 that's fair. I just found よつばと to be very frustrating right after RTK but before TangoN5. As you said there aren't many kanji, but that's why having some sentences under your belt helps here. It's not kanji reading, its sentence reading. I am glad you didn't have an issue with the font, but I literally had to ask one of my language partners for help figuring out what some of the hiragana were. I'll also say this...I just looked up the manga online, and the fonts used online are much easier to read than the fonts in the printed book which is what I read, so if you are reading online, then it's probably a lot less hassle.
Grammar guides with extensive explanations, like tae kim and most others for that matter are a waste of time. Find something in the vain of Assimil which is like 80% Japanese sentences with translations and do a vocab deck that has full sentences like the good version of Core 2k. As for when to start reading, getting through basic kanji and a basic vocab deck first will make the experience a lot more seamless but don't let the lack of that stop you if you enjoy reading with your current level of ability.
@@AmDr4g0n Well Mass Immersion Approach uses TaeKim and now Tango as well as an organized and deliberate and progressive source of sentence SRS material. I wasn't really suggesting studying the coursework. That should be clear since we are talking about MIA.
I would say yes and no. Right now I'm reading Saiunkoku Monogatari and I have to look up a lot of words, because the series borrows heavily on the Tang-Dynasty. It's fun to read though, so I don't mind that much. If I read Manga, I look up almost no words.
How do you build vocabulary and figure out how kanji are read without studying the readings? Are they all just picked up as you go on by looking things up? I fail to see how reading can be helpful if you have little knowledge of vocab.
Start with material that has furigana included, like manga, light novels, children's books, subtitled anime (Animelon is a good resource, just turn off the English subtitles), Tae Kim's grammar guide, and some video games (Nintendo games especially). Once you have enough basic vocab down, you can move onto non-furigana texts, and as you're collecting i+1 sentences you'll only need to look up the readings for the new words your looking up, which will be in the dictionary definitions (whether it's bilingual or monolingual). You may have to use a little common sense to figure out which reading is appropriate for the context, but if it's not obvious then move on and forget about it until you see it again and are better equipped to tackle it (although in most cases there will only be one reading anyway so don't sweat it too much). It kinda sucks in the beginning tbh. It was really slow and painful for me personally (literally painful, I'd get major headaches when reading in Japanese for some reason so I couldn't do it for more than 10 minutes or so -- not sure if that's normal), but trust me, if you stick with it, it gets easier with time and practice.
@@olive8604 Very extensive reply, thank you. I actually did order Tae Kim's grammar guide and was planning on starting it after RTK (I'm at 1600 kanji as of today).
hey matt! currently i mine japanese children tales and after i completely mined them i listen continously to them until i fully 100% comprehend them and listen to nothing else sinde my listening is so bad. do you think thats a good strategy? i know i should listen to things i dont fully comprehend at times to get some uncouncious things going, but many language learners emphasize that content is king, in a sense that you shoul comprehend something to atleast some degree... listening really bothers me and with those children tales i see quick results where as when i try to digest some hard stuff i dont see anything at all... except those word i occasionally look up... thanks in advance :)
@@zombiedeutsch i think it was the one of the best ideas i had! Out of all things i learned i remember those children tales the most vivid and that is of great value since it really connects me to the language whereas dry stuff i didnt want to learn in the first place did the exact opposit... it disconnected me and all is extremely blurry
@@S0ulbanish3r stories are definitely engaging unlike boring conversations or texts. I am curious about your progress in the language after 3 years and how much effort you put? And are you able to speak Japanese now only by reading and listening as they claim using this method...
I disagree, I don't think you can say for definite that everyone would get tired of looking things up, I look everything up and over time the period of time between looksup has decreased, I like understanding everything. The way i see it, this is a sort of natural spaced repetition, like looking at anki cards in full context Edit: However, I do like the video and discussion created around it
What about tv if you're looking up every word every five seconds. When are you taking the time to listen to the sounds of the language? phrases and sentences being said? Visual context to try to understand? Your brain is constantly taking a break looking at definitions being engaged interupted. When it's trying to get used to the sounds,and parce them, patterns, exc.
this can mean one of two things. 1. youre super advanced and cant find a word you dont know. 2. youre a beginner and can barely find a word you do know. lol, either way. keep going, good luck!
@@5IRAHHHP checkmate! I'm probably a bit above intermediate. My problem is that I either understand the whole sentence, or its more than i+1. Actual i+1's are for some reason no where to be found…
@@nitsi9333 i feel we face the same problem. for me a lot of the common sentences are obviously fully understood, but the things i cant understand i just am not understanding. at least thats how i was feeling. but what ive done is, change up the immersion. as much as i love watching awesome anime, if i cant understand a thing or two every minute or so, this can be a big "waste". so if i catch myself here, i have been going to videos that ive watched a few times before, that i may not understand fully but i understand a lot of. for example "ruclips.net/video/qzzweIQoIOU/видео.html" this video two years ago, i understood just those main words/common sentences. but watching it and watching it, learning through immersing, getting my ears trained, learning words and grammar im able to close this gap and can understand about 70% of the video as opposed to the 4% i was at.
im not an immersing legend, this is just my approach. make sure youre getting i+1, if youre not the content could possibly be a little too difficult for your level. find those little victories
@@stayskeptic3923 about collocations: I use yomichan as my dictionary and I set it up to use monoligual epwings and also kireicake which has just about all collocations. I think it has to do with the content more, like what @Long E said. When I watched jojo I was getting 30 new sentences in a day (I used the extra as backup for when I couldn't get enough sentences - I can only immerse 6/7oftheweek so it was useful). I'm finishing hunter x hunter today and I couldn't make sentences with this so it may very well just be hxh thats the problem. Ill post updates here if thats true or not. (But I do agree that coming back to the same video to see your progress is motivating)
idk man thats how i learned english. I started reading light novels and couldnt understand like 70% of the vocabulary so i looked up every single word i didnt know. It was really boring and tedious in the start but i got used to it fairly quickly and i didnt even use anki. Now i can understand them with ease. My grammar still sucks though
When is you MIA website gonna be considered, a complete replacement for the AJAT website? I hate the AJAT website, is just menus inside menus with text inside text, and go here and go there, and avoid this thing, and dont click here click that. SAVE MEEE
First. :D. Now that everyone knows I was the first one to comment I can edit my comment. The advice is excellent, I realized this a week ago after looking up a lot of words which is brain torture.
No. No. "To do A, just do A" is bs. I can't read, so I don't read. I tried reading, it is not happening. I am not reading, I am viewing a page full of squiggly lines. There is no language in front of me. There is nothing I am able to pronounce. I need to look up the words and grammar, use all tools to know what the sentence is saying, then I can read it. I don't have the privilege of knowing japanese to "just read lol". There is no reading without comprehension.
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This is so true. I was looking up words every minute on my English-Japanese dictionary on my phone and ended up remembering none of it. If I only look up like 5 words an hour I tend to remember them much better
@Derrick Korbyn what do you mean it took 10 minutes?
@@toastedtarts4044 they were probably responding to slither dude who decided to delete his comment for some reason.
Idk why it autocorrected another to slither but I mean “another dude” lmao although he could be snaky idk 👀 😂
Ive run into a similar problem. I used to boot up an anime with intention of making sentence cards. This quickly turned into "make a card for every sentence they say" and felt like homework.
Omg i relate so much
I have always gone with the "do I need to know this word to understand this sentence? and do I need to understand this sentence to follow the plot?" approach, it's the approach used in games but you can use it in other medium too. It's used in games in such a way that you can have a long explanation that you need to find a 魔法の棒 but the only words you need to know to progress in the game is "find" and "magic stick". Once you start to implement this way of thinking all of the immersion stops bothering you because you don't get stuck on the notion that you have to understand something completely to actually understand it.
Unless you stumble upon something awkward, not fitting the context you find the word in.
@@gregwhite4942 If you stumble upon something that doesn't make sense to you then you simply ignore it, the art of language learning is always to understand the message behind the words/sentences and in the beginning you will only be able to understand simple clear cut messages but the better you get at it the more nuanced messages you are able to grasp. I would also say that language learning is one of the few fields where you shouldn't ask why something is a certain way because knowing why is useless in actually learning the language. For example I don't know why we call sandwich smörgås (butter goose) in swedish but I don't need to know why to understand what it means. It's the same with sayings like "break a leg" and so forth.
@@weltar1995 nonon, skipping words is really greasy. Though, I have to say I don't remember words if I just translate them and do not put them on my studying list.
@@gregwhite4942 If you have an immersive environment then you really don't have to put in much effort to remember things because you will be exposed to the language enough that there is no way you will forget the words you need to learn, that's why you won't forget things like です, は, の, 行く, 食べる and so on while words like 読書感想文 and other words that aren't used everyday is more difficult to remember. If you try to learn every word even if the message behind it doesn't make sense then you will only make the process of language learning harder on yourself but if you learn the things that make sense then more words will unlock themselves to you. I'm fully fluent in 2 languages and mediocre in 3 and my journey through languages has not only taught me how to go about learning languages but more importantly how not to learn languages and my knowledge is the reason I love MIA and AJATT because they take my experience with learning English and boost it so that you don't have to spend a lot of time in the "I can't understand anything" swamp that is the initial steps to learning a language.
@@weltar1995 You've got some great insights! Just subscribed to your channel! :)
10:00 I couldn't agree more. When I first started reading, I was moving at a snail's pace. I was reading manga and LN's from anime that I have already seen, which made reading a lot more enjoyable. I knew what was happening, and I didn't need to worry about missing something important. I could feel my reading speed getting better each day!
Now I've reached a point where new words are so few and far between that looking them up isn't much of a chore.
Blue Toad How much time did it take?
I can't fathom how helpful these videos are for relaxing and de-stressing about what I feel I'm doing wrong, Cheers Matt
You're doing the Lord's work, my friend.
@Peter Johnstone xd
I’m exactly at this moment with Polish. I can understand a lot of regular conversations on a daily basis, but whenever I get a book or even comic books, it is just frustrating that I want to stop every three words and can’t read.
I will apply your ideas!
This is the most beneficial channel I’ve ever seen on the platform. You are one of those rare people who have an understanding of something and willingness to share it with people for free. I want to make sure you know you’re giving people opportunities that could completely change their lives and possibilities. Thank you, seriously
As a general rule I'll usually only look up words I know I've heard before or ones that I can usually guess the meaning of through context. Occasionally I'll look up a word I can't even guess but I don't do it too often or else it'll just make the whole reading process tedious.
Interesting, counterintuitive approach 何をやってるか分からない
!
Japanoscope - Beyond Basic Japanese | did you say you don’t know how to do nothing?
@@AquesticYT ha, kind of, that part was in reference to the handle name of the person I was replying to.
@@humansixbillion LOOOOOL! you are peter not japanoscope unless you are on a different account lmao
I'm glad he answered this. You can go nuts looking things up every minute.
I disagree, I like understanding everything, I don't find it a chore
different types of people
Think this is the difference between active listening and extensive listening, that luca talks about
@@abdvs325 in the long term mining every word is mucj better. After several months, you won't br looking up words as much as another person who was lazy to do it.
I only really look things up if I find myself asking "What did that word mean?"
It feels like being a child and asking a parent or carer what words in English meant as a child. With the genuine interest too, it makes it way easier to remember them :)
I do make sure to look up words I know will be important though when I start the series. I learn the title in Japanese first.
If I see a word enough times to recognise it, I'll look it up too bc ik it'll be useful.
Everyone in my house is big into reading and whenever I was stuck on a word as a kid, my mum wouldn't tell me what it meant. I always had to look it up for myself. Which is great advice when you speak most of the language and you're trying to build on it, but its definitely a habit I need to break with this new language, at least for now
I find dividing reading into "reading for pleasure" and "reading for study" works for me Lanna.
Matt, you look so friendly and it's very nice from yours sharing the experience you've been having all over those years of self learning. They are really helpful and useful tips, wich can guide essentially a self learner to probably the best way of learning japanese. Thank you
To add on to Matts thoughts (especially looking up only 1 or 2 words per page). I have a method atm where I read a light novel for around an hour a day and any words I don't know I simply highlight and continue reading. The next morning I look up the words and log them onto anki. This is great because I don't have to break my reading to open up a dictionary, simply highlight the word and keep going. The problem with this is that some chapters I'd run into up to 50 new words/phrases to the point where It was demoralizing to tell myself "If I read today then I'm gonna run into more new words to add to the huge anki deck" which made me not want to read every day. By changing this strategy to only highlighting 1-2 words per page it makes logging words and pushing through the novel that much more enjoyable. And Matts right, you don't need to learn every single word in a book, and when you run into a word that you've seen before your brain will have a little "huh i've seen that" moment where if you didn't highlight it on the previous encounter you can this time.
this seems great. what is your target language? how is your progress now?
This is a really cool method! Still going on with learning? c:
I’ve been studying Portuguese for almost 9 years now and I’ve visited Brazil 18 times now but I still can’t read or converse and I have to translate everything into English to understand. Every single word has to be translated even if I’ve known it for years. The Portuguese words don’t mean anything to me like English words do. I still haven’t had a conversation yet in almost 9 years. I practice every day with my girlfriend who only speaks Portuguese and we’ve been practicing for over 5.5 years now but I still can’t understand her. It’s very frustrating. I usually learn very quickly and score very high on tests. I don’t think in any language like people say they do. Maybe that’s a clue.
that works for listening too. similar to reading i don't understand everything I hear but sometimes some words pop up so vividly so when i stop and look it's meaning i end up never forgetting it. it's like your brain saved this word even though it doesn't know its meaning.
The video I've been looking for!😭 I have a really bad habit of looking up every single word🙈
I just started MIA after a year of learning from Textbooks and Apps (wish I had found it sooner) This video helped me a lot. Thank you so much Matt
I usually look up word if it is specifically repeated in a given conversation.
Good video, but I've realized that I disagree with the idea that the only solution in this scenario is to limit context-switching, and I think there's deeper meaning that's held back by the idea "nobody has that kind of willpower."
When somebody says "I just don't have the willpower to do X", what I hear is that that person finds doing X stressful over a long period, but believes that enduring that stress would be necessary or expected for something they do want. It's a convenience to avoid unpacking why there's actually a stressor at all or what it is.
If we phrase this case as "I just don't have the willpower to look up everything when consuming Japanese media," what you're saying is that in this case it really isn't necessary to look up every word - you can just setup some restraints. While this is true, and a valid approach, another way of approaching the problem is to understand exactly what makes looking up every word stressful. After all, there are many people who enjoy reading maps and dictionaries for fun.
What comes to mind here mostly is stress from pacing (expecting to get through a certain chunk of media in a certain period of time) and stress of trying to retain your mental state (in particular, interest in what you're consuming). For me, I think that both of these sources of stress could be handled well by accounting for looking up words as part of consuming the media (e.g. consider that every book *could* have footnotes with definitions or other information contextualized to the reader and their knowledge). I find that context-switching is actually fine when it's not treated as an obstacle to experiencing media, but a meaningful piece of content in its own right. I don't think it's far off to make an analogue to a game with side stories that aren't necessary to understand the plot, but help build up characters and motivations.
tl; dr: My answer to "I just don't have the willpower to lookup everything when consuming Japanese media" is that "Looking up words doesn't have to get in the way of consuming media, but if you feel like being a completionist sometimes you may also be able to find that learning a lot of words provides a deep experience."
This is a very good point your making. I've found myself weirdly enjoying reading japanese definition chains even if I started on a separate piece of media, because I have decided that reading definitions is in itself a part of immersion. I don't consider it an obstacle to enjoying media or immersion, since it is just as much a part of my immersion as anything else. I try to think of reading a definition as nothing but maintaining the constant chain of immersion that I would be gaining from engaging with the original content I started with.
Not overloading yourself with new information is the key. People don't try to learn 300 words a day in Anki, so you won't remember 300 words in one day just because you looked then up while immersing. It's all about that steady drip of getting a bit better every day.
Good vid! I remember trying to look up every word while listening to Japanese news and it just backfired since the listening lost it's context. Thanks!
For some reason when learning Spanish in my class at school I was actually very comfortable with the ambiguity of the language therefore not looking much if anything up just trying to find what I need to know in the sentence however when learning Japanese by myself in a non-class environment I always have an urge to look up certain words.
I think one of the hardest things I've had to learn is to not look up everything. I can generally handle it with watching anime but the moment I try to read anything I'm dying.
Would help if I knew more kanji, but life's pretty busy at the moment so I've had to learn them slowly with a mix of Context and RTK.
Good video. I liked the points presented here, honestly - and I like how these videos are much closer to what the average learner is generally thinking often haha. We do worry about MIA's processes, of course - such as "How am I gonna learn this?", but as we're constantly immersing these seemingly insignificant questions are actually things that we're worrying about all the time haha
At least that's how it is for me, honestly
Ive somehow had the opposite happen; with my audio immersion, I've become TOO used to not understanding everything, and so I end up not looking anything at all outside of making sentence cards... I will have to start making a conscious effort to look up 3-5 words per episode haha
Thanks a lot for this video, it couldnt have come at a better time haha
P
i do the same thing, if i’m really interested in what i’m watching or reading then i’ll forget to look up any words
I read in three languages and am learning my fourth. This man knows what he's talking about.
Great advice, thank you! Sometimes I worry that I'm doing something wrong if I misunderstand a lot of a medium in my target language (Gaeilge). But it's all part of the language learning process.
When im listening i just look up the words i feel like i've heard more than once and when i'm reading i use rikaikun so i do read every single word but it's like jisho so i don't really learn any word anyway, i just have a vague ideia of what they mean and when a certain word comes up again and i think its valuable THEN i go to the monolingual dictionary and make a card for it.
I am still very beginner here. I look up about 10 items maximum per anime watching session (1 to 2 hours). I don't think I can take more in.
By the way, if you are watching subtitles like me and you can't find the kanji you are looking for based on the sound input alone, you can use the draw input method on your android phone (not sure if the iphone has an equivalent). That thing is so good that even if you draw like a 5 year old, it will accurately guess the kanji.
Yo what website do you use?
@@ハナビ-o1j animelon is probably ur best bet if you want subtitles
Perfect timing, my City Hunter manga just came in the mail.
i understand how often I should look things up, but how often should I make flashcards and when?
I really find that part about "things sticking out" (for your brain) interesting. Maybe it just shows where your interests lie.
Would be awesome if you could change it, because I find it kind of pointless in the early stages to be able to freely recall words like 脱脂粉乳 or 受動喫煙, even thought I never made a card for them, while it takes me ages to remember 枕.
But well whatever, that's the brain for ya.
great video, I learnt a lot with this. Also just watched the subs2srs video so I am going immersion all day long. I am already doing full time immersion but now with the snime audio I will enhoy it a lot more, since I love anime as well.
I personally generally only look up words if I see it repeatedly, I figure once I know the common words that come up a lot, I can use context to figure out other ones. :-)
I don't look anything up when I'm listening/ watching a show. I only lookup stuff if I can use the browser extension Yomi-chan to look things up quickly, or I'm reading a novel in my kindle app where I can get J-J definitions with one tap. When I'm watching a show, I just try to use context from the visuals.
Another option is only looking up a word if you see it 3-5 times (however many you want). Your brain will want to remember things it sees often.
How many hour of inmersion u do in the past ?? (Active inmersion?)
Yesterday I finished playing どうして勇者様そんなに弱いのですか。I'm pretty sure that I'd skipped 70%+ of kanji containing words(especially the hero and skill names). It was worth looking up 倒す、城 because they appeared all the time, this and understanding words of demon and hero was enough to follow the plot.
Cool thing about link is any content you upload it will show you what percentage of new words it contains.
Nice room. All foam rolling all the time
What worked best for me in Spanish was only looking up words I really wanted to understand after reading them multiple times.
Too many times have I looked up what an anime character said, only for jisho to tell me it was an archaic word and the character was just trying to sound cool
So I don't look it all up anymore lol
Text is harder, as you've rightly said, and it's so much easier to give up while reading a hard text..
Sometimes I go based off "Oh, I think that word means ___" based off context then I look it up to double check, or I hear a word over and over again so it sticks out so I'll look it up.
XD sometimes I look a word up b/c it just sounds funny/interesting, like maybe it sounds similar to a word from some other language so I get curious as to what that string of sounds means in THIS language.
These videos are crazy helpful
So because you are basically skipping over/ not looking up so many words that you don’t know, at what point does reading become more-or-less effortless, where you understand most of what you see (and not just the gist of the story, but knowing the meanings of all the individual words themselves)
I really struggle to "not look things up" and that actually had already affected me, I barely want to read because I already know it will be boring.... I need to fix this
Me too Koutta! I've found it helps to divide reading up into "study" and "pleasure"!
@@yogakudaigaku Yeah I managed to "embrace ambiguity" still learning :D
@@koutta-idiomas8118 I'm going to get a t-shirt that days "Embrace Ambiguity".
And wear it backwards.
Actually, sideways.
a teacher who i had told me to start learning the words first and after learn the meaning and it worked im learning too many kanjis easily and it maes easier to understand them, i start to realize i started to be like japanesse people, i know thye meaning but i dont know how to read it XD now im focusing on reading faster
I look things up every second when I don't remember anything and then I make up context based sentences
What I am wondering about your method is, when should a word just be looked up and when should it be added to anki?
IMO I think that you should look up a word when you feel that you need it. For example if the episode of that anime, or the chapter of that manga wichever is about 魔法 and they are constantly saying it you should look up 魔法 (magic) so the next word could be 魔女. now we know that they are speaking about magic, and that the first kanji in 魔女 is repeated and the second one is woman, so the meaning could be witch, and usually the media confirms that, if not, then it's not really important.
Another case could be that you heard or read a word and gives you the feeling of hearded it. In my case i've headed a several times いまさら, until now (with a expresion of surprise) so i looked up and made a flash card for it.
@@Knight-Cyberia But then 魔法 could still be added to anki, so that you could remember it for the case it comes up like 2 months later in a totally different context. Or would you say only words that you"feel like you've heard/read it once" should be added and other chapter/episode specific words not?
I am really interested in how others manage this, since I always wonder about that question :)
@@heinzmustermann8416 IMO both.
I would add 魔法 to anki because I needed to know that word in order to understand the main plot of the media and not for example 塩 (salt) because it just, for example, form part of the shopping list of the witch and it's irrelevant for the episode.
Also I add to anki those words that I had already hearded 2-3 times because they have a space in the memory, and now I just have to fill it with the meaning
I hope you find my thinking interesting and usefull. :)
7:25 good point!
Good, comprehensive and interesting.
Matt, what if you don't look anything up? How long would it take for you to get fluent?
10 minutes tops.
What he really means is that you shouldn't be too caught up with looking things up when you are consuming content. Your brain needs the raw volume of exposure to the language in order to have a large sample to draw from when trying to understand the language. Looking things up just slows you down and also makes what is supposed to be fun a chore.
But you still should dedicate separate regular study periods where you're actually following instructional material or guided practice where you're trying to understand everything, at least until you reach an upper-intermediate to advanced level.
Matt and what do you think about parallel/bilingual books for a beginner with 20% understanding? Is it a good idea to read one sentence in Japanese and then in English and move forward like this or is it better to read a whole page in Japanese first and then in English?
How did it go with you?
@@zombiedeutsch The thing that is working for me is to watch/read first to understand, it can be a whole episode of some anime or a chapter of a manga in English.. and then in Japanes, it doesn't have to be right away, and i'm just trying to enjoy the story and the japanese, i'm not trying to nail everything down, and things start to stick naturally, i also use animelon with Japanese and English subs at the sametime if i don't understand the japanese i read the english subs, but not everytime sometimes i don't care if i don't understand perfectly, it's really the best approach to just relax and enjoy the japanese, you don't need too much structure just as long as the material is really appealing to you
I like that "low-hanging fruit" analogy a lot.
I have a Japanese dictionary on my phone do I search up definition learning from immersing in anime ect in Japanese or do I type them in Romanji
I’m watching this for your eyes.
I just have 6 months doing MIA, so my level and vocabulary still low.
Yesterday I just finished my firts book in Japanese; コンビニ人間 (I did not undestand it a 100%). I read it together with a reading group, and I did as you just mentioned Matt, I was looking for every word that I did not understand, so it took me longer than anyone, 2 or 3 hours (Just to finish 3 or even 4 pages)
I have now the confidence to start reading books by my own, so I will apply this rule in order to read faster and to enjoy more the process because I really had a problem trying to put myself to read, just for the tought: I have to look for at least 10 words in a page, BORING!
Thank you for the advice!
Convenience Store woman is a great book! I read it in Japanese and English, reading a few pages then going back and checking my understanding as I went along. The language in コンビニ人間 is kind of robotic, a bit like the main character, so less difficult than some other texts I've looked at...
I never look up things, unless its a big English word. And even then i do 5 or 6 then i let it go, I'll eventually figure it out along my life. Lol
I have a method that works for times you find yourself looking things up too much. Only add words that you've seen so frequently you're starting to get annoyed by the fact that you can't read them.
this is the trick i use, but for deciding what words i put into my SRS to study! i look up a lot more than just those, i just don't pressure myself to remember them.
i like to understand everything as thoroughly as possible... 98% at the least. i just get more enjoyment out of what i'm reading that way. but i read 2 full pages, highlighting unknowns as i go along before i take 2 minutes to look up the stuff i didn't know.
I always have a fear I will look up a word but I just end up using subtitles in a sense and not actually immersing.
This video is so very useful
what about readings?
i find that the readings of new kanji simply do not stick most of the time unless i review them. even if looked them up.
i might see the word again and know the meaning, but how to read it? nope.
when/how are you guys going about learning the actual readings of these words?
cathy Try to treat each word as a block rather than 2 or more kanji
Okay but what if i cannot read because I know only a few kanji's reading. Should I stick with SRS or push through reading anyway while actually reading let's say one every 5 sentences or less?
Hey man I have the same problem, I only know around 200-250 words, and I know that if I read something I only will understand a 5% or less, what have you done? Guess I have to keep going with SRS until I have a solid base of vocabulary and then start doing what Matt says
Hey I'm half way through RTK and I had a question, should I start reading things like Yotsuba (よつばと)? or should I wait until I get into Tae Kim's?
WalrusPrime my experience is you won’t get very far in yatsuba. Not to mention the font is so stylized you’ll have trouble distinguishing one hirigana syllable for another. Get through Tango N5 or parts of tae kin first or you’ll give up by the time you hit the 10th pane in the story.
@@scotmcpherson I have to disagree here with you. When I first started out using ajatt, I started reading よつばとand I found the different styles easy to read. Also, It doesn't have many kanji, so even when you haven't started with the sentence phase, you still might be able to recall some of the words from audio immersion
@@heinzmustermann8416 that's fair. I just found よつばと to be very frustrating right after RTK but before TangoN5. As you said there aren't many kanji, but that's why having some sentences under your belt helps here. It's not kanji reading, its sentence reading. I am glad you didn't have an issue with the font, but I literally had to ask one of my language partners for help figuring out what some of the hiragana were. I'll also say this...I just looked up the manga online, and the fonts used online are much easier to read than the fonts in the printed book which is what I read, so if you are reading online, then it's probably a lot less hassle.
Grammar guides with extensive explanations, like tae kim and most others for that matter are a waste of time. Find something in the vain of Assimil which is like 80% Japanese sentences with translations and do a vocab deck that has full sentences like the good version of Core 2k. As for when to start reading, getting through basic kanji and a basic vocab deck first will make the experience a lot more seamless but don't let the lack of that stop you if you enjoy reading with your current level of ability.
@@AmDr4g0n Well Mass Immersion Approach uses TaeKim and now Tango as well as an organized and deliberate and progressive source of sentence SRS material. I wasn't really suggesting studying the coursework. That should be clear since we are talking about MIA.
My family thing im crazy beacause i do inmersion like my family things Ajatt or MIA no works but i going to do 🙏♥️🔥
The app Hellotalk can also help out
I often create a Anki card when I don't understand something. But actually, if I watch something I really like, I don't create any cards.
I would say yes and no. Right now I'm reading Saiunkoku Monogatari and I have to look up a lot of words, because the series borrows heavily on the Tang-Dynasty. It's fun to read though, so I don't mind that much. If I read Manga, I look up almost no words.
How do you build vocabulary and figure out how kanji are read without studying the readings? Are they all just picked up as you go on by looking things up? I fail to see how reading can be helpful if you have little knowledge of vocab.
Start with material that has furigana included, like manga, light novels, children's books, subtitled anime (Animelon is a good resource, just turn off the English subtitles), Tae Kim's grammar guide, and some video games (Nintendo games especially).
Once you have enough basic vocab down, you can move onto non-furigana texts, and as you're collecting i+1 sentences you'll only need to look up the readings for the new words your looking up, which will be in the dictionary definitions (whether it's bilingual or monolingual). You may have to use a little common sense to figure out which reading is appropriate for the context, but if it's not obvious then move on and forget about it until you see it again and are better equipped to tackle it (although in most cases there will only be one reading anyway so don't sweat it too much).
It kinda sucks in the beginning tbh. It was really slow and painful for me personally (literally painful, I'd get major headaches when reading in Japanese for some reason so I couldn't do it for more than 10 minutes or so -- not sure if that's normal), but trust me, if you stick with it, it gets easier with time and practice.
@@olive8604 Very extensive reply, thank you. I actually did order Tae Kim's grammar guide and was planning on starting it after RTK (I'm at 1600 kanji as of today).
Cirrus Congrats on 1600 kanji! By the way, not sure if you are aware but Tae Kims grammar guide is freely available online from the author's website.
@@olive8604 Yeah I'm aware, I just prefer to have the physical copy for some reason lol.
does this still apply, now with the ease of yomi chan?
hey matt!
currently i mine japanese children tales and after i completely mined them i listen continously to them until i fully 100% comprehend them and listen to nothing else sinde my listening is so bad.
do you think thats a good strategy? i know i should listen to things i dont fully comprehend at times to get some uncouncious things going, but many language learners emphasize that content is king, in a sense that you shoul comprehend something to atleast some degree... listening really bothers me and with those children tales i see quick results where as when i try to digest some hard stuff i dont see anything at all... except those word i occasionally look up...
thanks in advance :)
Can you update your progress and how well this method worked for you?
@@zombiedeutsch i think it was the one of the best ideas i had! Out of all things i learned i remember those children tales the most vivid and that is of great value since it really connects me to the language whereas dry stuff i didnt want to learn in the first place did the exact opposit... it disconnected me and all is extremely blurry
@@S0ulbanish3r stories are definitely engaging unlike boring conversations or texts. I am curious about your progress in the language after 3 years and how much effort you put?
And are you able to speak Japanese now only by reading and listening as they claim using this method...
Are all those dictionaries yours? I’m impressed with anyone still using paper dictionaries.
They are mine, but the only ones i actually use are the pitch accent dictionaries, since there is no digital equivalent.
I disagree, I don't think you can say for definite that everyone would get tired of looking things up, I look everything up and over time the period of time between looksup has decreased, I like understanding everything.
The way i see it, this is a sort of natural spaced repetition, like looking at anki cards in full context
Edit: However, I do like the video and discussion created around it
What about tv if you're looking up every word every five seconds. When are you taking the time to listen to the sounds of the language? phrases and sentences being said? Visual context to try to understand? Your brain is constantly taking a break looking at definitions being engaged interupted. When it's trying to get used to the sounds,and parce them, patterns, exc.
Why are there spanish captions😂
U guys are all worried that ur looking things up too often while I'm here barely getting 10 i+1 sentences every day😖😖
this can mean one of two things.
1. youre super advanced and cant find a word you dont know.
2. youre a beginner and can barely find a word you do know.
lol, either way. keep going, good luck!
@@5IRAHHHP checkmate! I'm probably a bit above intermediate. My problem is that I either understand the whole sentence, or its more than i+1. Actual i+1's are for some reason no where to be found…
@@nitsi9333 i feel we face the same problem. for me a lot of the common sentences are obviously fully understood, but the things i cant understand i just am not understanding. at least thats how i was feeling. but what ive done is, change up the immersion. as much as i love watching awesome anime, if i cant understand a thing or two every minute or so, this can be a big "waste". so if i catch myself here, i have been going to videos that ive watched a few times before, that i may not understand fully but i understand a lot of. for example "ruclips.net/video/qzzweIQoIOU/видео.html" this video two years ago, i understood just those main words/common sentences. but watching it and watching it, learning through immersing, getting my ears trained, learning words and grammar im able to close this gap and can understand about 70% of the video as opposed to the 4% i was at.
im not an immersing legend, this is just my approach. make sure youre getting i+1, if youre not the content could possibly be a little too difficult for your level. find those little victories
@@stayskeptic3923 about collocations: I use yomichan as my dictionary and I set it up to use monoligual epwings and also kireicake which has just about all collocations. I think it has to do with the content more, like what @Long E said. When I watched jojo I was getting 30 new sentences in a day (I used the extra as backup for when I couldn't get enough sentences - I can only immerse 6/7oftheweek so it was useful). I'm finishing hunter x hunter today and I couldn't make sentences with this so it may very well just be hxh thats the problem. Ill post updates here if thats true or not. (But I do agree that coming back to the same video to see your progress is motivating)
はじめまして 私は ランス です。ありがとうございます まっと さん. I'm just a beginner, so haven't learned Katakana yet (still working with Hiragana and a few Kanji)
Just buy a Kindle
He has a video on that as well...
If I can understand about 80%of what he’s saying, am I decently fluent in English?
yes
From a zero standpoint won’t you ha e to look up absolutely everything?
idk man thats how i learned english. I started reading light novels and couldnt understand like 70% of the vocabulary so i looked up every single word i didnt know. It was really boring and tedious in the start but i got used to it fairly quickly and i didnt even use anki. Now i can understand them with ease. My grammar still sucks though
@@gianniskappa7241 As a native, I can say your grammar is pretty good.
When is you MIA website gonna be considered, a complete replacement for the AJAT website? I hate the AJAT website, is just menus inside menus with text inside text, and go here and go there, and avoid this thing, and dont click here click that.
SAVE MEEE
yea pretty much, except i might have a section where I link my favorite articles that I think people should read
せりだよ
First. :D. Now that everyone knows I was the first one to comment I can edit my comment. The advice is excellent, I realized this a week ago after looking up a lot of words which is brain torture.
No. No. "To do A, just do A" is bs. I can't read, so I don't read. I tried reading, it is not happening. I am not reading, I am viewing a page full of squiggly lines. There is no language in front of me. There is nothing I am able to pronounce. I need to look up the words and grammar, use all tools to know what the sentence is saying, then I can read it. I don't have the privilege of knowing japanese to "just read lol". There is no reading without comprehension.
My thoughts exactly Xd