tips for learning Japanese

Here is the second video with Charith. After we had finished the first interview he had some more he wanted to say. At first he starts talking about watching TV even when you don't understand any of it, and about not using a dictionary. He says that the words will enter you and you will acquire them naturally. But then he goes on to give some more tips and advice. At the end of the 5 minute video I have provided a list of the points he makes. I put the list up in Japanese and in English. You can just hit the pause button to read the list.

I have also subtitled this video, in Japanese and in English. Go to the YouTube site to get the subtitle functionality. You can turn it on or off in the lower right corner of the player. It is called 'CC' for closed captioning. I think this will be the last time I try to subtitle a Japanese video. It takes too much time. But since I figured many people here who don't learn Japanese will want to watch the video and know what he says, I subtitled this one. After writing all the Japanese down, creating the English translated subtitle file is easy. It's just the Japanese part that is difficult because I have to keep listening to parts over and over trying to catch the exact words used.

What's interesting about that is that I will have a part already transcribed and I'm trying to hear what is said after that part, and so I rewind and listen to it again but my mind gets stuck on what is being said and when the part I'm supposed to be listening for comes along, I miss it because my mind was preoccupied. That can happen like 3 or 4 times in a row!

Tips for Learning Japanese from Charith

Japanese interview with Charith

I have finally got the first interview with Charith ready. It is late because I decided to create subtitles for the video. I can only do so much typing at once. And then there was that day that I lost 2 hours of work on the subtitles.

This interview is in Japanese. I have made Japanese subtitles and also English subtitles. You may have to turn them on and you may have to select the one you want to appear. That control is in the lower right corner of the video player. If it's not available on the embeded player in this post, then go to youtube to watch it: The Video link.

There will be two more videos to come. I have to make subtitle files for them before I post them. I don't know why, though. I just feel like providing them.

About Charith: He came to Japan 6 months before I arrived. He went to a Japanese language school for 18 months and then to a technical college to study computers. Those classes were, of course, conducted in Japanese.

beginning to watch Japanese TV

I am beginning to watch TV in Japanese now. I've started with DVDs. I watched over 6 hours on Saturday and I made a new YouTube video in Japanese last night. We'll be able to see how much change there is over time. It depends on just how much watching or listening I do.

If you want to see what I have done since I spoke to Steve, you can look at my Google document here. I will put this link on the right side of the blog as well. This document is formatted differently than my document for the TV method for Chinese. I have added any significant speaking events to it.

I remembered recently that I can go to the library and check out 2 DVDs there. There's not really a very good selection at the library. There are no TV dramas there. They have more foreign films than they do Japanese ones. I would expect there to be more NHK documentaries and such than what is available now. I think the main problem with the library is that they have many branches throughout the town and so the collection is split up.

There is a series called 日本の巨匠, which means Japan's Masters. I think there were 50 discs with about 1 hour each. Each disc has 4 episodes of this series. Each episode is about a master painter, artist, craftsman, etc. It's not dialogue like a usual conversation. There is some narration and there is the master telling his or her story including pictures of their works. It seems they started this series about 30 years ago, or during the 1980s. Each person has something they want to tell to the people of the next century (21st). It's not super exciting, but I'm going to try watching through all of it. I watched the first 2 discs yesterday, and today I checked out the 3rd disc.

There's a 2-disc check out limit at the library. The other disc I checked out today is called bluestockings in English, but the actual title is 自由恋愛 by Masato Harada. It's some kind of love story. It looks like the disc has some extras on it.

The discs from the library have something attached to them that they call an IC tab. I guess it's to make the alarm sound if you try to sneak the disc out of the library. Friday, I put the first one into my Mac Mini before reading the warning not to put the discs into a slot loading DVD player. My computer was OK, but I guess I'd better not take any chances, so I'll just use my portable DVD player to watch these.

watch a preview!

On March 27th, I wrote a post where I told you about a coworker who used TV to get his Japanese fluent. I will do a full interview with him and put it up on YouTube in 3 weeks.

For now, I have a preview that you can watch. I do an introduction to it in English and also the concluding part is in English as well. I also have painstakingly made sub-titles for the video. It should default to the bilingual one, but there is also an English only one and a Japanese only one. You can turn them off, of course, if you like. The bilingual subtitle is the same as the other two subtitles. There are no translations.

Here is a link for you so you can go watch the preview.