Difference between anime japanese and normal japanese?

[tenshi696]

I've been told that there's a difference between the japanese used in anime and the one that's used in real life. Unfortunately for me, no body told me in detail what it was. All they told me that I shouldn't try to learn japanese from an anime. :?
Could someone explain to me what is that difference? Thanks!

 

[Mike Cash]

Would you recommend anyone learn English from Yosemite Sam?

 

[Gee337]

I learned Japanese mostly through anime. Then when I was interpreting for my classmates and a Japanese transfer student, she ended up laughing for at least a full minute when I said "omae". Then the girls in the class started laughing as well, even though they didn't even know what happened. It was a bit embarrassing.

In anime you usually see younger people interacting whith eachother, so obviously they use a different kind of language. Actually, even that is probably different from what real teenagers would use in those situations. I believe in anime how they speak is also about showing their character, since there's so many ways to express the same things. (That's why the spiky-haired protagonist would say "Oi, koko da." but the shy underclassman wouldn't.)
We had an orientation at the Japanese embassy two weeks ago and we had a chance to speak with the ambassador, as well as some other Japanese people who work there. They were really friendly, but I was a little worried that I might say something rude or strange.

Also, I think learning from movies, games etc. is more of a passive thing, instead of a deliberate decision. I picked up both English and Japanese this way, without thinking too much about it. After a while I just noticed that I can understand stuff. And even though at the end of grade school I spoke English much better than German (which I had been learning for 5 years then) I didn't understand why I said things the way I did until I learned grammar in high school. And trust me, Japanese is more about understanding than memorizing, at least if you think about learning seriously.
Not to mention that it's a slow process, I've been watching anime for probably 5-6 years now, complemented with reading wikipedia, random free stuff on the internet, and a really basic book in library, and... well, I do feel somewhat confident with my Japanese, but I still think there's a lot to learn, mostly vocabulary-wise. Plus there's the kanji - anime won't help there one bit. Of course that's only my experience but my talent/skill to learn foreign languages is probalby a little higher than average.

Oh, actually I attended the intermediate Japanese lessons at University for about 3 months, and here's a few things that were new for me:
the difference between imasu and arimasu; some basic words, inlcuding a few colors, vegetables, fruits, furniture; most of the counting words

 

[LewiiG]

Well of course there are differences. The differences are the same with our cartoons like what Mike is getting at. Compare English to one of our cartoons. There are a lot of crazy characters with quirks in their speech who will talk like no one else in the world will, all for the sake of making something dramatic or sound more epic. Films do this. The changes probably aren't as problematic as you think though, assuming that you haven't learned Japanese solely from anime, if that's even possible. Learn from a conventional source and then you will understand the differences between "dramatic" Japanese and "normal" Japanese. They aren't really things you can just list.

Edit: It doesn't look like it, but I wrote this before the previous poster's post, I just didn't post it and therefore didn't see it.

 

[tenshi696]

Would you recommend anyone learn English from Yosemite Sam?

You made my day with that comment!

I learned Japanese mostly through anime. Then when I was interpreting for my classmates and a Japanese transfer student, she ended up laughing for at least a full minute when I said "omae". Then the girls in the class started laughing as well, even though they didn't even know what happened. It was a bit embarrassing.

In anime you usually see younger people interacting whith eachother, so obviously they use a different kind of language. Actually, even that is probably different from what real teenagers would use in those situations. I believe in anime how they speak is also about showing their character, since there's so many ways to express the same things. (That's why the spiky-haired protagonist would say "Oi, koko da." but the shy underclassman wouldn't.)
We had an orientation at the Japanese embassy two weeks ago and we had a chance to speak with the ambassador, as well as some other Japanese people who work there. They were really friendly, but I was a little worried that I might say something rude or strange.

Also, I think learning from movies, games etc. is more of a passive thing, instead of a deliberate decision. I picked up both English and Japanese this way, without thinking too much about it. After a while I just noticed that I can understand stuff. And even though at the end of grade school I spoke English much better than German (which I had been learning for 5 years then) I didn't understand why I said things the way I did until I learned grammar in high school. And trust me, Japanese is more about understanding than memorizing, at least if you think about learning seriously.
Not to mention that it's a slow process, I've been watching anime for probably 5-6 years now, complemented with reading wikipedia, random free stuff on the internet, and a really basic book in library, and... well, I do feel somewhat confident with my Japanese, but I still think there's a lot to learn, mostly vocabulary-wise. Plus there's the kanji - anime won't help there one bit. Of course that's only my experience but my talent/skill to learn foreign languages is probalby a little higher than average.

Oh, actually I attended the intermediate Japanese lessons at University for about 3 months, and here's a few things that were new for me:
the difference between imasu and arimasu; some basic words, inlcuding a few colors, vegetables, fruits, furniture; most of the counting words

That was an interesting story there. And actually I started japanese lessons a few weeks ago, but we're still on the hiragana alphabeth and I already know it + the katakana alphabeth...so it's kinda boring up to this point.

Well of course there are differences. The differences are the same with our cartoons like what Mike is getting at. Compare English to one of our cartoons. There are a lot of crazy characters with quirks in their speech who will talk like no one else in the world will, all for the sake of making something dramatic or sound more epic. Films do this. The changes probably aren't as problematic as you think though, assuming that you haven't learned Japanese solely from anime, if that's even possible. Learn from a conventional source and then you will understand the differences between "dramatic" Japanese and "normal" Japanese. They aren't really things you can just list.

Edit: It doesn't look like it, but I wrote this before the previous poster's post, I just didn't post it and therefore didn't see it.

Yes I understand that now. Thank you so much!