I picked up Japanese to varying degrees throughout the years, my pronunciation has shocked people when I do speak what little I can out loud when questioned about it.
Years and years of Japanese dubs having a subliminal effect, decades at this point, when I went to actually learn it for a time, I picked it up much faster and my pronunciation was correct, and even worse, I had an "accent" in it.
The whole games method of learning a language is better than just TV, but combined with TV and music alongside making an effort to learn words and phrases, then efforts at conversation etc.
Though with Japanese its best to make more of an effort to learn the formal version of speech and there's shows where they only speak in formal Japanese than "casual" Japanese.
Too much focus on the formal one though and you won't have enough accentuation in your speech and seem worse at the language.
It's hard to become near fluent though without actually speaking to native speakers 95% of time. You'd need to actively be speaking and using the language 95% of your day to get really good at it.
An example, I live in Ireland, was born here, I can't speak Irish, I resent the language in fact, as it's mostly a novelty that isn't spoken by 99% of the country, and it's mandatory in our education system with the exception of third level, you will be perceived as dumb if you aren't good at it by the school system, I also stutter in the language (yes, you can stutter in a language and not stutter in any others), I never picked it up. It's mainly used for the amusements of tourists, obnoxious patriots and people that live a the handful of areas that the language thrived in, this is the literal backwater areas though, tiny villages and what not. So it's not really needed or even used by the general public because of this.
I started to pick up German from watching anime on rtl 2, because I was actively listening and paying attention as I did not have access to the original dragon ball or sailor moon in English at this point. I still remember the bit of German I picked up.
Also people are very politically aggressive when it comes to languages, they represent nationalism to some more extreme minded people. Apparently speech therapists practically jump out the window when anyone mentions stuttering in a specific language
, as it implies inbuilt bias against a language by the brain and tongue muscles.
I was given the most exposure to "learning" the "native" language of my country, however from movies, TV, games and music, I have picked up to varying degrees, Japanese, French, German, Latin and even some Spanish. I could only give you names of items in gaelic despite 12 years of indoctrination, languages be strange.
But yee, this is the better way to learn a language, it's similar to how small children pick up language, exposure and effort to enunciate and communicate. Not writing letters or listening to a tape with someone that sounds like they have marbles in their mouth and writing down what they say.
Has anyone else ever learned, or practiced, another language by playing video games? When I was learning Spanish in school, it was suggested that every student do independent study by watching movies, reading books, or (the classic method) watching hundreds of episodes of telenovelas. While everyone else was watching Disney movies with Spanish dubs, I was playing 'Fantasía Final Seis' on an emulator with the European version. I ended up learning how to read and write far more than I expected from that experience. I also practiced listening by playing Blasphemous with the Spanish dub. Besides, it felt more natural to the game.
Have you ever had an experience like that? Tell us about it.
Honestly, it's the most natural way to pick up a language, the fastest way too, from exposure and naturally picking out what you understand.
