Word-Learning Posts
In my first post about learning Japanese while watching Japanese animation, I wrote I may consider documenting episodes where I hear a verb, how far into the episode, and the situation, maybe with a screenshot.
While this would be a lot of work which might have no practical benefit to myself or others
, I’ve decided to give it a try, after all.
Posts on “Japanese Grammar” from visual media will include the following aspects:
- The name of the series or movie the word use is from.
- The location on the DVD of the word, as well as which DVD is being used.
- A quick summary of the events surrounding the use of the word.
- Screenshots of the event surrounding the use of the word.
- The sentence containing the word, and possible relevant sentences from before and/or after it. These should appear in Japanese (once with kanji, once with kana only), in rōmaji, and in English.
If you’re learning Japanese, it may be worth it to review Japanese grammar posts, even if you don’t know the series containing the word. The number one way I’ve found to learn a new word is to first learn the word.
When I learned “mitsukeru”, I was having trouble remembering it. In the following two episodes of Ojamayo Doremi ♯ I watched, the word came up multiple times. In one episode, Doremitchi and Onputchi are trying to find their friends (who’ve vanished in the woods, after hearing a scary story about vanishing friends). While pondering, Onputchi says to herself, “mitsukeru hoho, mitsukeru hoho…” In the episode prior, a witch is announcing a trial Hana and other babies have to pass, finding a panda doll within a pile of dolls. The witch’s sentence ends in “panda ningyo mitsukete kudasai.” I wouldn’t even have “heard” this word in either situation had I not read the word and its meaning prior. It would have been unnoticed, remaining unlearned.
