If you're only interested in knowing Japanese as a tool, then I'd argue it's probably not worth the effort given that today we have, voice to text software, dictionaries and furigana plugins (you can even do it completely in romaji if you're so inclined), and now LLMs for a rough initial pass if you're really lazy and just want to get at the meaning.

So for the bulk of use-cases you can get by today without really "knowing" Japanese, although it's probably good to know grammar so you can feel the flow. [In fact I'd argue that most learning advice is outdated, and you should aim for mastery of grammar even before trying to memorize vocabulary or kanji, since it is by far the best return on investment].

>>29094
How would a person gain a mastery over grammar without reading? Reading a lot is pretty much the only way to get an intuitive grasp on grammar, and you can't do that without some vocab.

>>29093
We are on the same boat, except I'm a bit older and sick. Kanji and
>no practical use
killed my will power entirely. I used to study regularly for a while but came to the same conclusion yet it's something that still gets me frustrated to this day even though I have accepted it.

This is a valid feeling. I had to ¨force¨ myself to watch and read everything in JP even if there were English subs available because It felt so frustrating having to depend on translations. I'm still learning but I don't feel as frustrated as before. The beginning might be a slog but it gets easier.

Maybe try diversifying your interests? My curiosity wouldn't let me enjoy this hobby without learning the language but you might be different. I gave up and picked it up again like you a lot. It wasn't until I forced myself to do that when I started feeling less frustrated with myself. It's up to you.

>>29095
Learning enough basic grammar to start reading and pick up vocab and more grammar is ideal imo. It can be done with Tae Kim in a day or two. I did anki alongside reading at first. There are others who grind it for a month or two to warm up to reading but that slows down the process of acquiring grammar.

Post edited on 17th May 2024, 8:53pm

>>29098
>¨force¨ myself to watch and read everything in JP
At least for me, doing so is a chicken/egg situation since if I watch the shows I like in JP then I will miss out on too much nuance to really appreciate it. And conversely I feel watching shows I don't like in JP just to get through it is a waste of time.

It's not that you are dumb.
>there's no practical use for such language
You have summed it up.

Did you actively try to learn your language ? No, because you had a practical use of it.

Unfortunately, TC's too strict spamfilter has struck another one. As the convention, the ban has been removed.
The original message reproduced below:

>>29099
I want to add that what you mentioned is the reason why I dropped it many times; I used to try to look up every single grammar point I didn't get or be autistic about words that had no exact English translation. It's something we are able to understand one day, like how the average anime viewer could tell you what やはり (yahari) means from seeing it translated in different ways many times. The ¨slog¨ is dealing with the frustration of it at first and having to look up almost every word (this is where anki can be helpful). Wasting an hour to get through a single manga chapter because I wanted to understand exactly what they meant wasn't fun, no matter how compelling the manga was. It wasn't until I took a break from anime after my 2nd burnout of it that I wanted to come back to it exclusively in Japanese. Some try to devalue it a little, thinking ¨it's just a show¨. I understand not wanting to miss out on nuance but I don't force myself to watch anything, that's why I put it in quotes. Re-watching anime you've forgotten in Japanese can help with that. Conversely, you can do what I do and convince yourself that you are getting the real nuance of it because you are watching it in JP. Sorry for blogg*ng

>>29127
If you are crafty you could swap the order of the slogging by taking transcript of anime (or use a deck for a manga if someone else has created it) and then SRS'ing on that _before_ watching the show.

[I haven't really seen a good push-button workflow for this for arbitrary shows though. And the state of publicly available Japanese tokenizers was really bad up until 1 year ago (I always find it amusing that it took LLMs basically solving the entire field of NLP to give us something better than the SOTA released in 2006)].