How Can You Learn Japanese With Anime?

Learning a new language is challenging, particularly a complex one like Japanese, with three different writing systems and a series of honorifics. But learning Japanese is fun in its own way, especially if you are interested in it.

Japanese is a culture-oriented language, which means a big part of the Japanese language comes from its heritage, differentiating it from other languages. Many people, while learning the Japanese language, use flashcards, quizzes, or repeatedly write vocabulary over and over again to increase the pace of learning.

However, they forget that a big part of encouraging yourself when learning a language is searching for ways to make the process fun. If you don’t mainly enjoy reviewing flashcards, you put them on the back-burner and waste your time and energy.

So, how can you increase the pace of learning Japanese vocab while staying motivated? One way to do this is by watching anime! If you are an Otaku, this can be highly beneficial in building up your Japanese listening abilities and vocabulary.

We have subsided a list of anime you can watch to boost your Japanese learning process and ease your difficulty.

Let’s dive in!

1. Death Note

Whether you are an Otaku or not, everyone knows about Death Note and how great it is. The series follows the main character, Light Yagami, a high school prodigy who finds a book named Death Note that can eliminate everyone whose name appears on its page. Light undertakes the mission to kill those he feels are unworthy of living to create a utopia without crime. But soon, an elite Japanese police force begins the hunt for Light to this reign of terror.

The vocabulary of this series focuses on law enforcement and AI intelligence, so both anime and manga will be more understandable to those students who are in upper-level Japanese Language Courses.

2. Dragon Ball Z

Dragon Ball Z is one of the longest-running anime series. It is one of the famous classics worldwide, and everyone has heard about Goku once in their lifetime. Goku is the protagonist of the series, sets out to collect the seven wish-granting Dragon Balls. The anime follows his martial arts training and competitions.

It is highly entertaining for all ages but more suitable for upper beginners and above for vocabulary and cultural references.

3. Detective Conan

Detective Conan is based on the well-known Sherlock Holmes character. The anime follows a high school spy named Conan, a young prodigy who was inadvertently shrunk into a child’s body due to poison.

This is an excellent show that provides easy-to-understand content over a wide variety of different topics. It will be perfect for a beginner or intermediate level student (such as 2nd-year students).

Much of the vocabulary emphasizes mystery-related words, and with over 900+ episodes, viewers won’t run out of material to hear formal and informal Japanese language.

4. The Promised Neverland

The Promised Neverland has unswervingly been one of the highest-rated anime series of all time. It is a dark series with a complex character and endearing relationships between a group of orphans plotting their escape from a man-eating farm.

This anime series might be better for more advanced students enrolled in JPN 301 Japanese language course.

Some Secret Tips To Increase Pace Of Learning Japanese With Anime

Those students who reached an advanced-beginner or intermediate level may try watching anime in the following ways to increase the pace of learning the Japanese language:

• Watching Anime Without Subtitles & Pause

This strategy is helpful when training one’s ability to listen. It allows the listener to touch upon many different Japanese language expressions, vocabulary, and grammar sentence patterns. This also helps fortify the listener’s knowledge of words, expressions, and sentence patterns that the listener already knows.

• Watching Anime With Japanese Subtitles & Pause

This strategy is suitable for training one’s listening and reading ability. It will allow the listener to learn new vocabulary, expressions, and grammar sentence patterns and delve a bit more in-depth with specifics of the Japanese language.

Note: These listening methods are not limited to anime solely but can be applied to any movie, drama, or show that a person would be watching to learn Japanese or any other language.

Ready, Set, Watch, And Learn!

Learning Japanese vocab with anime helps you learn formal, informal, and even native language. Moreover, it gives you considerable exposure to Japanese culture and traditions that enables you to understand the essence of the language.

So, if you are planning to learn the Japanese language, you may contact Oku Sensei’s Japanese for course information and enrollment.

Oku Sensei’s Japanese is an online Japanese language academy that offers an inclusive range of Japanese language and culture courses at an affordable price.