Can I actually learn Japanese by watching anime?
3 min read
Many people are interested in learning Japanese through anime or dramas, but often find the results less than satisfactory. While this is true, I believe learning Japanese through anime is severely underrated.
Why Isn't It Working?
Let's examine why we don't see progress when learning through anime. I've identified three main issues:
Problem 1: Lack of Comprehensible Input
Many people watch anime with subtitles in their native language or bilingual subtitles instead of pure Japanese subtitles. This won't work - if you can't understand the subtitles, you should pause and study rather than continue.
I understand this affects the viewing experience, so if your Japanese level isn't high enough and you need to pause frequently, I recommend watching once with native language subtitles first, then rewatching with pure Japanese subtitles, studying each line during the second viewing.
I understand this affects the viewing experience, so if your Japanese level isn't high enough and you need to pause frequently, I recommend watching once with native language subtitles first, then rewatching with pure Japanese subtitles, studying each line during the second viewing.
Problem 2: Lack of Systematic Review
Without systematic review of learned material, progress will be limited. Most people struggle to maintain a system for reviewing vocabulary and phrases.
Problem 3: No Shadowing Practice
Shadowing is crucial for speaking practice, but many people don't actually do it.
Why Do People Struggle with These Points?
Because it's too cumbersome! First, you need to take screenshots, write prompts for AI, then take notes for review - where to put them? What format to use? You need to copy the original text, copy AI's content, and organize the format yourself. It's all too much trouble. And when reviewing, with all these notes, where do you start? Which ones should you focus on because you keep forgetting them? For shadowing, you need to leave your note-taking app and open a recording app. Everything is scattered and manual, extremely tedious - this is exactly why we fail at these points. It's not our fault; these tasks are inherently anti-human! That's why I created Bunn, automating these processes. Now all these hassles have disappeared, and everything becomes enjoyable.
How Bunn Solves These Problems
Bunn will recommend interesting, naturally expressed, and truly useful anime that I've personally curated as a real Japanese language learner living in Japan, not algorithm or AI-generated recommendations.
You can choose your favorites from the recommendations and start enjoying interesting anime directly. When you encounter unfamiliar expressions, simply click the subtitle recognition button in the bottom right corner to turn subtitles into memory cards, with sentence positions marked on the progress bar. You can always view the entered sentences and watch the anime clips again.
Everything is integrated together, intuitive and natural!
You can choose your favorites from the recommendations and start enjoying interesting anime directly. When you encounter unfamiliar expressions, simply click the subtitle recognition button in the bottom right corner to turn subtitles into memory cards, with sentence positions marked on the progress bar. You can always view the entered sentences and watch the anime clips again.
Everything is integrated together, intuitive and natural!
Review Should be Enjoyable
Of course, to make learning truly effective, we need to ensure adequate review. However, as a language learner, I've found that review can easily become painful and resisted.
So I've designed review to stay simple. First, Bunn will play the video clip of the sentence you entered 3 times to jog your memory.
Then it will do simple word meaning Q&A based on the sentence and reconstruct the sentence from the clips.
This won't cause you pain, but it's effective enough. Through this method, you will absolutely remember the core expressions in the sentences, far better than memorizing words.
So I've designed review to stay simple. First, Bunn will play the video clip of the sentence you entered 3 times to jog your memory.
Then it will do simple word meaning Q&A based on the sentence and reconstruct the sentence from the clips.
This won't cause you pain, but it's effective enough. Through this method, you will absolutely remember the core expressions in the sentences, far better than memorizing words.
Try using Bunn to learn Japanese right now - it's easier and more efficient!
