How do you categorize your videos?
…given the following categories…
– Watched with no subs
– Watched with Jpn subs
– Watched with Eng subs
I’m asking because I started watching a show recently with only Japanese subs, but after about 4 episodes, I realized that I’m switching to English more often than I should to really call it “watching with Japanese subs”. So what do I do at this point? I could:
Give in completely, finish watching the show with English subs, and switch the natively list to Eng Subs. But if I do this, then I’m not really challenging myself to immerse myself and absorb more Japanese.
Stop watching it for now, and pick it up again in the future when I’m better prepared for it. But I wanna enjoy it now!
Force myself back into Japanese-only mode, and finish out the show with Japanese subs and lots of dictionary lookups. This sounds really painful. Even if I go back to the show later, this sounds painful because I’m sure there’ll be some key moments that I miss now.
Something in between: Watch a couple (1-3) episodes in fully intensive, Japanese-only mode, but finish out the show with English subs. This sounds more manageable, but then what natively category do I mark this under? Jpn subs? Eng subs?
In my opinion, if you’re cross-referencing English subs more than once in a blue moon you’re watching with English subtitles. Personally, I don’t ever cross-reference English subs. At my Japanese level I can generally understand the dialogue without lookups (easier anime/scenes) or with occasional lookups (harder anime/scenes). Not every detail of course, but I mean the overall story and (for comedies) most of the jokes. If I felt like I would need to look up a ton of words regularly, I’d just watch with English subs entirely. For example, I watched the first episode of Lycoris Recoil with Japanese subs, decided it was too hard and would require too many lookups to enjoy it, and just switched to English subs fully. So in my case it’s not hard to categorize since I watch any given anime in the same format the whole time.
So my recommendation for you would be just switch to English subs and have fun watching the anime. There will always be another anime that you can watch without English subs and hopefully go more smoothly.
EDIT: I see you’re watching ロマンティック・キラー S1 | L25. Is that the anime you’re asking about? I watched that very recently and totally understand why you’re having trouble with it. It’s definitely middle-difficulty among the stuff I’ve watched, but there were certainly scenes where I had to pause and rewatch a bit and look up more than I would have liked.
I just thought that was funny the way that came out, like, “I never do that, except when I do”.
But I get what you mean. You stay in Japanese mode until it’s no longer enjoyable and then switch. Like you said here…
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As for which one was giving me trouble, it’s actually both of these: https://learnnatively.com/season/b4f46be018/ 逃げるは恥だが役に立つ S1 | L30
They both have some scenes that are straight-forward, everyday conversation, and then some scenes that have lots of technical/specialized words.
I’m saying I rewatch the scene still with only Japanese subs. I’m never turning on English subs on a show that I’m watching with Japanese subs.
No, not really. I generally decide up front if I’m going to watch an anime with English subs or with Japanese subs. I switched once, and even that I don’t really count because I went into watching Lycoris Recoil with the expectation that it would be too hard. So I gave the first episode a shot with Japanese subs on the off chance it was easier than expected, and once I confirmed it was too hard I switched to English subs.
I guess the point for me is that I consider anime to be primarily for entertainment and only secondarily for learning / listening practice. So there are plenty of anime I watch with English subs just for enjoyment without ever attempting to watch them without English subs.
I am the same as Seanblue. I don’t watch anime for learning but entertainment. Learning is a nice benefit. I will always try Japanese w/o subs first, then jp subs. I rarely watch with English subs as the stuff I tend to watch is usually not that hard, but if it was too hard, I’d just go with English. I get plenty of subless listening practice watching YouTube.
I wasn’t sure how to answer this as at this point the only time I’ll watch Japanese content with English subs is when I’m watching something with friends/family and that’s
Pretty rare for us to watch something to in Japanese together.
Not something I would put on Natively anyways unless I rewatched it sans subs a loooonng while after so I couldn’t easily rely on memory.
I just do my best with JP only, I’ll use JP subs if I have access to them, and if there’s no JP subs and it’s too difficult for me I’ll either try my best or shelve it for later.
Really short answer from me but I just don’t plan on using natively for adding stuff I watched with Eng subs, as it’s not in the tasks I do to learn Japanese.
So I’ll be using only the no-subs option, and maybe in the future if I find a less annoying way to do it, with jp subs.
I realized that I’m switching to English more often than I should to really call it “watching with Japanese subs”.
Assuming you mean: “watch with JP subs > try to understand, but get stuck > pause to do word lookup or toggle subs > immediately toggle back > continue”, I don’t see why this wouldn’t count as watching in Japanese. I do that with books/manga constantly. I’m still getting the experience of absorbing and trying to process it in JP, which is very different than reading in English (sometimes wildly different, depending on the translation ). I don’t see how say 80% lookups vs 30% lookups changes that.
That being said, with anime I try to just leave the JP subs on, and not interrupt it. So far I’ve only watched material that I’ve previously read (JP or EN) or watched (EN subs). Tho I’m getting to a point where I’m willing to try something unfamiliar in JP (depending on the level).
I also log what I watch with EN subs, since there’s the separate category for that. Even tho it’s a less beneficial method for learning, there’s still the fact that you’re listening to the native language (actively or passively). I also just like tracking that, and was using MyAnimeList to do so until now. If there wasn’t a separate category for it, I probably wouldn’t log it here.
Watch shows you already know, and then it won’t be so bad. It still takes patience, but the more you do it, the easier it gets. If possible, aim for stuff at lower level, and/or that doesn’t have a lot of technical/domain specific. If you like SRS, then prep the show or episodes beforehand via jpdb premade decks. I did that for a while with Akatsuki no Yona & Kimetsu no Yaiba episodes and found it really helped. Though eventually I got impatient and dropped the SRS.
Missing some key moments is definitely a thing, which is why I’ve stuck with shows I already know so far.
Right now I’m watching Tsubasa Chronicle without subs (first show without subs), and reading the JP manga alongside (but slightly behind it). It’s definitely helped with missed moments, or occasional confusing adaptation (tho it’s a generally excellent adaptation)
Yup. This is what I meant. (and I was definitely on the 80% lookups side)
Yeah… I think this is key for me. It’s sorta how I’ve been treating my reading journey – earlier this year, I decided to be patient and gradually step up in difficulty, instead of always seeking novelty. I think it’s really helped my reading. I should be patient now with video.
This is what I do for the most part. I’ve tabled Golden Kamuy and the Case Study of Vanitas for exactly the same reason.
Since they’re both manga as well, I may give them another go if reading their manga goes well.
I successfully did this with 鬼滅の刃 recently too. A year or two ago, I couldn’t understand the beginning of the red light district arc, but I gave it another try last month and was finally able to understand a good portion of it (not all/every line completely, but definitely the plot and the gist of characters said).
I do this if I don’t think I’ll reasonably be able to watch the show later and also if I actually have english subtitles available. I did this with 異世界おじさん since I figured I probably would not pick up console related and gaming vocab in a year or two because I don’t focus or use much of those materials.
This I never do. Do you worry that the show will be removed from the service you watch it on? I rarely pause a show/movie to look up words. It’ll be there in the future as far as I see it. Whatever I don’t understand now, I’ll be able to watch again another time and get even more out of it. That’s what I do with Part 1 of JoJo. I have it on the Japanese bluray, which for some reason, has English subs. I used to put it on in the background when cleaning or doing chores with English subs and then at some point I switched it to Japanese subs, and now if I put it on, I do no subs at all and understand almost all of it (definitely all the bits that interest me but I zone out when characters I don’t care for talk lol).
I would recommend that if you can watch without stopping to look things up, that you try and then either do your lookups later or rewatch it after some time. It can be really satisfying to feel your progress when you think about how much you understood on your last watch vs current watch.
Thanks for the thoughtful response! Sorry for the late reply!
It’s just that I’m too curious and really want to understand the story now.
Btw, I finally accepted that I wanted to understand the story in the moment and I finished watching the show with ENG subtitles. I realized that I really only have the willpower to do one of two things: 1) watch it totally in Japanese if it’s at my level, or 2) switch to ENG subs if it’s above my level (and yes, I’ll try to come back to it later when I’m better prepared for it). So the next challenge I’m making for myself is to re-watch several shows I’ve already seen but watch it all in Japanese, so that I can get this feeling…
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). I don’t see how say 80% lookups vs 30% lookups changes that.
