I finally realized my Japanese study group was just watching clips with no subtitles and calling it practice

We spent 3 months in a Discord voice channel every Tuesday night supposedly discussing anime dialogue, but when I tried to actually read a raw manga page at the end, I couldn't translate a single panel because we never paused to break down what anyone said so I backed out and joined a proper grammar server instead has anyone else wasted time on a group that just felt productive?

2 comments

2 Comments

riverhill2d ago

lol the "no subtitles" part got me. I had a buddy who joined a group that swore they were "immersion only" and they just watched One Piece episodes in Japanese for two hours while someone occasionally said "oh that part's funny" in English. He tried to ask what the joke was and nobody could explain it. He eventually quit when he realized he could have just watched the show alone and gotten the same result.

finley_bennett282d ago

Gotta push back on this one. Immersion only groups are rough at first but they work long term because your brain starts connecting sounds to visuals without the crutch of reading. Plenty of people learn languages this way and end up with way better listening comprehension than textbook learners. The joke might not land at first but that's kind of the point, you're supposed to figure it out over time.