It started years ago in university when when I needed a two hour per week course that didn’t relate to my major and I wasn’t in the mood for public speaking. Out of all the available courses, it was the right balance between interesting and no consequences if I drop it once I have my credits.
Now I’m continuing out of habit and a vague hope that I’ll soon have an opportunity to visit Japan. Being able to play some video games with the original voices while not constantly having to read subtitles is a nice bonus.
Hard to say. I notice that I understand more and more when listening to Japanese media but it’s more on the level of individual sentences or “hey, the english subtitles are completely different from what they said”. If you dropped me into a remote Japanese village where nobody speaks English, I would probably manage to keep myself fed and find my way home but not enough to hold an actual conversation.
I find that noticing diverging subtitles the first sign that a language really settles. King level is when you notice that the synchronization diverges from context or how they move their mouths.
Usually it goes like this: brain autocomples what commonly would be said in a situation like that but audio in other language diverges because that’s whats needed for resynchronisation. Lookin at the mouth movements totally betrays that premise though.
I spend a few minutes per day learning Japanese.
It started years ago in university when when I needed a two hour per week course that didn’t relate to my major and I wasn’t in the mood for public speaking. Out of all the available courses, it was the right balance between interesting and no consequences if I drop it once I have my credits.
Now I’m continuing out of habit and a vague hope that I’ll soon have an opportunity to visit Japan. Being able to play some video games with the original voices while not constantly having to read subtitles is a nice bonus.
That’s awesome! What level do you think you’ve reached in your years of casual practice?
Hard to say. I notice that I understand more and more when listening to Japanese media but it’s more on the level of individual sentences or “hey, the english subtitles are completely different from what they said”. If you dropped me into a remote Japanese village where nobody speaks English, I would probably manage to keep myself fed and find my way home but not enough to hold an actual conversation.
I find that noticing diverging subtitles the first sign that a language really settles. King level is when you notice that the synchronization diverges from context or how they move their mouths.
Usually it goes like this: brain autocomples what commonly would be said in a situation like that but audio in other language diverges because that’s whats needed for resynchronisation. Lookin at the mouth movements totally betrays that premise though.