crush wrote:I'm still struggling with finding things to watch that are interesting. What i ended up doing for a while was watching Japanese dubs of western animated movies i've seen (Kung Fu Panda, Toy Story, etc.) and those are both more comprehensible and more enjoyable for me.
That's a good idea, and I might really try that. I'm sure Avatar, as big as it is, has been dubbed somewhere. It'd be nice to rewatch that and doing in in Japanese before bed to relax could be really useful.
So like you i've turned to books, books are definitely more interesting but getting to the point where it's fun and relaxing to read is a huge hurdle, one i'm still working on. But in general i do enjoy reading in Japanese, it's just not effortless.
Yeah, I really think that's what I'm going to do. Especially since my main goal currently is to be able to read Japanese. It's not likely my Japanese option in the future will come to fruition, so there's really no push for me to be able to produce currently (though of course it might, then my goals change completely!). I think picking up a graded reader aimed at N5 and working on conjunction with Genki/Assimil (which I can take to work and do during my planning periods,something I can't do that with immersion) might truly be the best way for me to go about it all, and then do immersion where I can in the evening.
but overall investing about an hour and a half a day, 20-30 minutes of Anki study and 30-60 minutes of immersion, has taken me pretty far.
It's amazing to me how much it works. Like I've read the stories, and it's just shocking. I wish I could stay focused on stuff long enough. My Anki time has dropped tremendously since New Years, though -- I've often found myself rushing through the cards, not really focused on memory and just hitting 'good'. Probably because I currently have no practical goal and so don't see a reason to focus on them. Maybe a complete 'reset' would be the best, starting once again from the beginning. But I don't really want to waste another three months. I just need to refocus on things and do Anki correctly, then move on to reading and just watch stuff in the evening before bed when I can, without worry about throwing it into Anki necessarily.
I'm open to any tips you have, please! You're doing it in a way that seems to be working well, if a bit slower than Matt suggests with his multiple hours of immersion a day. But, for what you (and I) want, that seems to be the best way. Also any recommendations for things I can immerse in in the car is welcome -- I've an hour and half commute where I do nothing but listen to podcasts. I'd be more than willing to throw a Japanese one or two in.
I'd also appreciate tips specific to getting started to read. That's currently my main goal, as I feel once I can read without translating it to English, or even if I do translate it to English but read with the actual vocab as opposed to just knowing the English translations of the kanji, it'll be easier to go to to listening, especially if I get around to immersing myself at the same time.