Nothing to do with the language

Navig · 22 Nov 2015

I am at the stage where I need to expose myself to as much japanese as possible, spoken and wirrten to get a decent vocabulary (above survival level vocabulary)
However I have nothing interesting to do to get this amount vocabulary, which heavily reduces the effectiveness of my learning

I have little interest in anime/manga, but I do watch some anime(often with japanese subtitles) and read some manga.
I tried finding films in japanese, but it was difficult, and I don't like films very much(I did watch some).
I tried finding interesting youtube channels but I found nothing interesting.
I tried reading news articles, but that is boring. (nhk easy is too easy now, btw)
I tried watching dramas, but I do not like dramas and it is not at all interesting.
I tried finiding blogs/article on various subjects, but I found nothing intriguing.
I tried to find books, but unlike is the case with English, finding books is rather hard.
I know many websties like bauddha.net and aozora bunko but I need to find authors to find books, and all I have now is a list of popular children's authors, again nothing interesting.

I need your assistance, any assistance is greatly appreciated..
Be it a method to find things of interest to do with the language, names of authors, useful websites, good anime, something I haven't tried, something I am doing wrong....
I will try anything now.

My interests, if I could even say I have any, would be science, technolgy and history, although I do not read much of this in the languages I do know.

lanthas · 22 Nov 2015

Well, what was your goal for the language when you started learning it? What thought has motivated you to keep going until now?

Kida400061 · 22 Nov 2015

May I ask, what do you like specifically about science, history, technology? Science, history, and technology are very broad and diverse topics. Narrowing it down would make easier to find topics that you are interested in.

Navig · 22 Nov 2015

I will first say that I do no really have any interests, I never did.

lanthas said:
Well, what was your goal for the language when you started learning it? What thought has motivated you to keep going until now?

I wanted to learn a language on my own(my fourth), so I searched for something.
Then I chose japanese, for it being different than what I know, for it seemed interesting and for some nostalgic reasons, namely pokemon songs
And so nearly a year passed, I made progress as it has became my habit to study, I do enjoy learning the language, but now it is my time to use it, and as is the case with my other languages, I have nothing to do with it.
I have no goal, learn the language and hone my learning skills while having fun.

Kida400061 said:
May I ask, what do you like specifically about science, history, technology? Science, history, and technology are very broad and diverse topics. Narrowing it down would make easier to find topics that you are interested in.

I am not sure if I understand what you mean.
History - mainly war, religion, colture, empires.
Technology - I value its importance, although I do no care about the new whatever of apple or a review of the latests phones, if there is some important breakthrough that is interesting.
Sciene - well everything
I tried reading a yomiuri article about a new projection technology for medicine, I didn't understand a thing, but after learning the vocabulary the article was easy, so that is too early.

nekojita · 22 Nov 2015

What do you read about in English (or your native language) for fun? Do you read fiction?

You might try installing apps like Smartnews, or looking at sites like らばQ for a mix of serious and non-serious news.

If your interest in technology includes space, have a look at JAXA's educational offerings, for example 宇宙情報センター / SPACE INFORMATION CENTER トップページ

Navig · 22 Nov 2015

nekojita said:
What do you read about in English (or your native language) for fun? Do you read fiction?

You might try installing apps like Smartnews, or looking at sites like らばQ for a mix of serious and non-serious news.

If your interest in technology includes space, have a look at JAXA's educational offerings, for example 宇宙情報センター / SPACE INFORMATION CENTER トップページ

Thank you for the three recommendations, I would check them out, even though space related material would be very complicated for me.
My lack of interest in things has an effect on my other languages as well.
I cannot go higher because there is nothing interesting to read.
Even though science is interesting, I do not read anything related to it.
I tried reading literature, I enjoyed Charlotte Brontë's work, more due to the beautiful english though, but then again I do not read much literature, although I wouldn't mind doing so.
Now most of my free time involves doing something in japanese, or at least trying to.

Navig · 22 Nov 2015

Well this is really a difficult quesiton.
Maybe by trying more and more things I might find something interesitng.
How could I search for this variety of material (in all formats that are available)?
For example:
Should I write 歴史の記事? 面白いビデオ?
This won't produce many quality material, and will make it hard to find new things I don't even know about or never tried.
Any recommendations(about anything) are greatly appreciable.
Now I will try to read national geographic(never thought about that)

nekojita · 22 Nov 2015

At first, any specialist subject will have vocabulary you're unfamiliar with, but reading around a single topic - whether that's space or baseball or the Shinsengumi - will naturally build your vocabulary in that specialist topic.

I think you need to think more about what type of stuff you want to read. History = any sort of history? A specific period? You'll have more luck if you narrow it down. Would you search for "interesting video" in English or would you search for 'funny cats' or 'cake recipes' or 'best football goals'?

にほんブログ村 - 人気ブログランキングとブログ検索 - blogs
I often search for a topic plus 動画 if looking for video
A topic plus 入門 or 基本 for "introduction to" or "basics of".
Add の or を to the search if you get too many results in Chinese.

For fiction I'd recommend not going for classics initially - I read a lot of crime/detective fiction in Japanese which I got into because someone was selling them cheap on Ebay - they're much easier, fun reads.

Navig · 22 Nov 2015

nekojita said:
At first, any specialist subject will have vocabulary you're unfamiliar with, but reading around a single topic - whether that's space or baseball or the Shinsengumi - will naturally build your vocabulary in that specialist topic.

I think you need to think more about what type of stuff you want to read. History = any sort of history? A specific period? You'll have more luck if you narrow it down. Would you search for "interesting video" in English or would you search for 'funny cats' or 'cake recipes' or 'best football goals'?

にほんブログ村 - 人気ブログランキングとブログ検索 - blogs
I often search for a topic plus 動画 if looking for video
A topic plus 入門 or 基本 for "introduction to" or "basics of".
Add の or を to the search if you get too many results in Chinese.

For fiction I'd recommend not going for classics initially - I read a lot of crime/detective fiction in Japanese which I got into because someone was selling them cheap on Ebay - they're much easier, fun reads.

Thanks for the wording suggestions
It is hard to narrow things as I would read just about anything to find the interesting topics within, although I will try it (江戸時代か幕末か、それとも地球外生命 ).
I have some ラノベ, I will try to find some detective fictions (any specific authors?).
I often add の on youtube, but besides it it is possible to search only for websites in japanese or from japan(in many search engines)

mdchachi · 23 Nov 2015

Not sure if it's possible where you live but perhaps you could try to focus on live interactions with real people. If you don't live in Japan, are there places or volunteer opportunities to meet Japanese people? A great way to get practical vocabulary, I've found, is to interact with people in a variety of contexts. Especially if they are involved with different activities, you'll hear many new terms. For example, I had hiking friends, tennis friends, motorbiking friends, work friends, girlfriends, etc. Every new context and interaction yielded lots of new words. I even avoided dating girls who could speak better English than my Japanese. Of course now I'm "stuck" speaking Japanese every day. haha.

Kida400061 · 23 Nov 2015

If you are interested in chemistry and physics, I have a book on the basics on of those topics. The title is 法則と定数の事典. If that interests you, I would be willing to send pictures on the table of contents only.

letslearn · 23 Nov 2015

nekojita said:
What do you read about in English (or your native language) for fun? Do you read fiction?

You might try installing apps like Smartnews, or looking at sites like らばQ for a mix of serious and non-serious news.

If your interest in technology includes space, have a look at JAXA's educational offerings, for example 宇宙情報センター / SPACE INFORMATION CENTER トップページ

hey nekojitasan thanks for the link. you always come up with great suggestions.
I particularly like your tip to use 入門 or 基本 when searching, really helps a lot.

Navig · 23 Nov 2015

mdchachi said:
Not sure if it's possible where you live but perhaps you could try to focus on live interactions with real people. If you don't live in Japan, are there places or volunteer opportunities to meet Japanese people? A great way to get practical vocabulary, I've found, is to interact with people in a variety of contexts. Especially if they are involved with different activities, you'll hear many new terms. For example, I had hiking friends, tennis friends, motorbiking friends, work friends, girlfriends, etc. Every new context and interaction yielded lots of new words. I even avoided dating girls who could speak better English than my Japanese. Of course now I'm "stuck" speaking Japanese every day. haha.

Yes, I enjoyed speaking japanese through skype several times, I want to do it again soon.
Face to face would be impossible now.

Kida400061 said:
If you are interested in chemistry and physics, I have a book on the basics on of those topics. The title is 法則と定数の事典. If that interests you, I would be willing to send pictures on the table of contents only.

Thank you. That's really kind of you, but I wouldn't need a table contents.
It sounds very interesting, and basic.
I will see if I can find it.

Nothing to do with the language

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