eefara said:

I'm trying to improve my listening skills, so I started watching Terrace House on Netflix. I don't have much experience formally working on improving listening, though, so I was hoping you guys could give some tips on what I could try doing. Right now I'm watching with Japanese subtitles, but I feel like I'm relying too much on them; I'll get the gist of a conversation from what I'm reading, not what I'm hearing.

I don't think turning them off cold turkey would help either; would it be more useful to watch with subtitles and then the same episode without?

With shorter pieces of audio I prefer simply transcribing what I hear, but that's definitely not gonna work here.

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Beckx said:

unfortunately, we can't edit the op to link important posts, but here is expert's listening post.

it's long but it boils down to essentially what's said above: listen without subtitles, stopping and rewinding for everything you don't immediately follow. write down what you have trouble with. say it out loud. repeat.

it's a really good way to approach things. at my pathetic level i'm mostly just making complete scripts to kids shows. :/ (on the other hand, i'm now a big fan of Wan the math police dog!)

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eefara said:

I'm trying to improve my listening skills, so I started watching Terrace House on Netflix. I don't have much experience formally working on improving listening, though, so I was hoping you guys could give some tips on what I could try doing. Right now I'm watching with Japanese subtitles, but I feel like I'm relying too much on them; I'll get the gist of a conversation from what I'm reading, not what I'm hearing.

I don't think turning them off cold turkey would help either; would it be more useful to watch with subtitles and then the same episode without?

With shorter pieces of audio I prefer simply transcribing what I hear, but that's definitely not gonna work here.

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Sakura said:

In regards to your 可愛そう, this only appears to be correct usage to people who don't quite understand what the そう is supposed to convey. For example consider 悲しそう. You might translate this into 'looks sad' because that works and can convey the meaning, but it's not quite the same meaning in Japanese. The そう means that you, as an observer, don't actually know, but based on what you see (or hear, etc) you get that impression. If I say in regards to a girl 悲しそう, I don't truly know how she feels. She could be happy, she could be mad, etc it's not 100%, it is just the feeling that I get. But when you say 可愛そう, this doesn't work, because if I look at her, I can decide if she is cute or not. I can see her face. She is either cute, or she isn't.
I think the problem is thinking something in English (I want to say that looks cute!) and then trying to translate that literally into Japanese (I know, I will say 可愛そう!). I guess what I am trying to say, is this isn't a situation of the rule not working, but the rule not being understood.

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eefara said:

I'm expecting some joy leaching as a matter of course; finding a happy medium is the challenge.

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Sakura said:

In regards to your 可愛そう, this only appears to be correct usage to people who don't quite understand what the そう is supposed to convey. For example consider 悲しそう. You might translate this into 'looks sad' because that works and can convey the meaning, but it's not quite the same meaning in Japanese. The そう means that you, as an observer, don't actually know, but based on what you see (or hear, etc) you get that impression. If I say in regards to a girl 悲しそう, I don't truly know how she feels. She could be happy, she could be mad, etc it's not 100%, it is just the feeling that I get. But when you say 可愛そう, this doesn't work, because if I look at her, I can decide if she is cute or not. I can see her face. She is either cute, or she isn't.
I think the problem is thinking something in English (I want to say that looks cute!) and then trying to translate that literally into Japanese (I know, I will say 可愛そう!). I guess what I am trying to say, is this isn't a situation of the rule not working, but the rule not being understood.

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LeroyPantwether said:

I am trying to translate a children's story. Can someone please help me with similes.

For example,

"And under the bridge lived an ugly troll, with eyes as big as saucers, and a nose as long as a poker. "

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LeroyPantwether said:

I am trying to translate a children's story. Can someone please help me with similes.

For example,

"And under the bridge lived an ugly troll, with eyes as big as saucers, and a nose as long as a poker. "

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Beckx said:

I'm interested to hear from others whether you would translate this particular line using 大きさ and 長さ　(e.g., 目の大き&#12373 to emphasize you're talking about the size/length.

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marimorimo said:

ize" and "length" respectively. There's nothing intrinsically large or long about them. You can say 「大きさはお皿くらい」or 「長さは火かき棒くらい」 but those are dry-fact sentences (The size is about as big as a plate. The length is about as long as a poker). To emphasize you need to use ～ように or even better (for exaggeration's sake)　～ほど。

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Beckx said:

(e.g. 皿のように目の大き&#12373

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eefara said:

I'm trying to improve my listening skills, so I started watching Terrace House on Netflix. I don't have much experience formally working on improving listening, though, so I was hoping you guys could give some tips on what I could try doing. Right now I'm watching with Japanese subtitles, but I feel like I'm relying too much on them; I'll get the gist of a conversation from what I'm reading, not what I'm hearing.

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KanameYuuki said:

I was wondering if any of you have some game suggestions for Vita so I can start really practicing with the language?

It helps if they are kinda cheap, I was checking the store and boy they don't care if it is a handheld, prices go all over the place.

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KanameYuuki said:

I was wondering if any of you have some game suggestions for Vita so I can start really practicing with the language?

It helps if they are kinda cheap, I was checking the store and boy they don't care if it is a handheld, prices go all over the place.

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KanameYuuki said:

It would be for just really starting at all, I know grammar from my books and classes but not any vocabulary at all and that's what has me a bit upset because I just don't know how to break that vocabulary barrier.

So how did you overcome that to get the train starting, just read whatever you could find and a dictionary at hand?

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KanameYuuki said:

I was wondering if any of you have some game suggestions for Vita so I can start really practicing with the language?

It helps if they are kinda cheap, I was checking the store and boy they don't care if it is a handheld, prices go all over the place.

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Manbig said:

Hey everyone. I've been really screwing up in this Japanese class that I'm taking right now and I'm quite behind in my work. One thing that I have been struggling with (other than particle usage and general sentence structure) is finding a good list of い and な adjectives. I already found what appears to be a great site for verb conjugations, but does anyone know a good place where I can look up adjective conjugations?

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Moral Panic said:

I there a simple list somewhere of Japanese grammar with examples?

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Skinpop said:

Anyone here knows how to disable recall cards in anki?

EDIT: nvm, I found out how to do it.


You might find it useful to spend a few evenings researching japanese phonetics. Studies have shown that vowel recognition increases listening proficiency so learning how to accurately make those sounds physically is something I found to be very helpful. Recording yourself is also good practice, you'll quickly pick up mistakes in your articulation. You don't have to spend that much time on it but I found it helpful both for listening and my own speech.

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eefara said:

Hmm. Would working with minimal pairs be helpful, do you think?

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Kilrogg said:

I was watching a Dragon Quest Heroes I & II Let's Play on Switch by a Japanese guy, when something shocking happened: https://youtu.be/bhD9ZY3B6h0?t=220

The guy couldn't read 「覆」 in 「覆われる」 (for those of you wondering, it's 「おお&#12301.

Now, that wouldn't surprise me coming from a foreigner or a Japanese kid, maybe even a junior highschooler, but the dude sounds like he's in senior high school at least.

「覆」 isn't exactly a difficult or rare kanji at all. I think I learned it for the JLPT N2. And the fact that I can instantly read even after years of essentially twiddling my thumbs speaks to how basic it must be to a native speaker.

To those of you who know Japanese people well, does that happen often? Situations where they can't read stuff that seem obvious for you. I know the ワープロバカ is strong right now, but that usually applies to writing rather than reading.

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Kilrogg said:

To those of you who know Japanese people well, does that happen often? Situations where they can't read stuff that seem obvious for you. I know the ワープロバカ is strong right now, but that usually applies to writing rather than reading.

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Eien1no1Yami said:

Does anyone know a good grammar guide that goes into detail on the use particles?
I mean in which occasions we use the ni,no,de,to,ha,ga particles and so on and so forth....

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Alanae said:

Something like this: https://core6000.neocities.org/dojg/ ?
it also includes a bits where it describes why you would use one particle over a different similar particle in a particular situation.

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Torraz said:

I am being told that while my pronounciation seems to be fine I speak with too much stress.

Any advice on how to reduce this?

Thanks!

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Kilrogg said:

Assuming English is your first language, the first question would be: do you understand what they mean by that? Do you know what stress is? Are you aware of the notion of "stress accent" in English?

No shame if you don't, but being aware of it is the first step towards reducing it, so feel free to ask.

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Torraz said:

Hey,
I think I am aware of what stress is. English is the third language I learned, after German and Dutch (and unfortunately have somewhat of an accent in English and Dutch). I want to avoid this in the first "new" language I am learning - Japanese! Getting it out of my "oral" muscle memory in Dutch and English is going to be quite a long road (if I ever manage that is...).

Stress is related to the concepts of function and content words, right - the latter having extra stress in them in English, in order to make it easier for the listener to grasp the gist of whatever the speaker is communicating. So that means I am subconsciously doing this in Japanese?

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Kazuhira said:

Noob question here,don't laugh.
Why is こんにちは pronounced as konnichiwa if he last character is not わ?.

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Kurita said:

Because it's the particle は, which is pronounced wa

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ATXAlchemy said:

To further elaborate, こんにちは is basically a greeting that came from a sentence being cut short. The konnichi there is 今日, so it's actually "今日は..."

To give one: 今日はご機嫌いかがですか

Same with こんばんは → 今晩

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Kilrogg said:

German and Dutch have stress accents of their own, so chances are you're unconsciously adding stress accents to words in Japanese, yeah. Which is understandable, because you're just replicating what feels like a natural flow to you. By contrast, The French have a much easier time with Japanese because there really is no such thing as a stress accent in French. This allows us to get the rhythm and pronunciation right more consistently than English speakers for instance.

I'm not sure I can give you good advice since stress accent was never a thing for me growing up as a Frenchman, but what I can tell you is that stress accent, at least in English, does three things:
1) It generally lengthens the duration of the stressed syllable
2) It tends to shape the vowel, i.e. it gives it a curve of sorts, which is why so many vowels in English become diphthongs (i.e. two vowels in one)
3) unstressed syllables become much shorter, and the vowels in them are often barely uttered
Some of those might not apply to German/Dutch though, or not to the same extent. I don't know enough about those languages to be able to tell.

Think of the Japanese rhythm as a "machinegun rhythm": each and every syllable in a sentence is a bullet of the same shape and speed that goes in a straight line. Every sound must be as flat, simple and short as the next. Another useful analogy is music: if a 3-syllable word in English might go eight note-half note-eighth note (i.e. super-short/long/super-short because there's a stress accent on the second syllable), a 3-syllable Japanese word will always go quarter note-quarter note-quarter note (i.e. same length for each syllable).

Does that help you at all? It'd honestly help if we could just Skype so I can give you some examples. Shoot me a PM if you're interested.

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