To be exact, this post should be entitled Japanese non-immersion because the week was a complete disaster. I have been busy with other things and could not even hold to my weekly challenge (it was listening and repeating lines of Isao TAKAHATA’s film Only Yesterday). As for immersion, there was almost none, apart from some usual things I do like listening to a video in Japanese while cooking, but then I don’t really listen with attention.
The only active step that I took was to watch the first episode of a Japanese drama. I chose 『慰謝料弁護士～あなたの涙、お金に変えましょう～』because it was on the list of the popular Japanese drama of our VOD’s catalogue. As almost every first episode of a drama is available for free on this VOD, I took the resolution, some months ago, to watch as many first episodes as possible until I find a drama worth watching and paying for.
So I watched the first episode of this drama but it was not a success. I can see the appeal of such dramas, but it is not for me. While I did find some scenes funny, I don’t think that I want to pay to watch the rest or even spend time watching it.
During the whole episode, I was annoyed and wanted to stop but at the same time, I thought it was a good listening practice and continued to watch it. But then I felt irritated because now that I had one hour free to do some Japanese I was watching a drama I didn’t like instead of doing something more productive or at least interesting. This frustration prevented me from actually listening to the drama and I could not even take advantage of my listening session. I ended up even more frustrated, with the feeling that I had lost my time.
Oh well, I guess this kind of things happens, and it will soon be forgotten! I really felt depressed that day but upon the years of this learning Japanese adventure, a wasted week is hardly something worth writing about.
And I will finish this post on a positive note. When I ended the episode and returned to the catalogue, I saw the drama シグナル (2018) which is a remake of the Korean drama of the same name – 시그널 (2016). I tried to watch the Korean version when it came out, and while I found the story very interesting and wanted to watch the whole drama, for some reason, I didn’t.
I can’t wait to watch it in Japanese now, and I am excited to have found a drama that I really want to watch for itself and not just to practice Japanese.
I’ll start watching it this weekend!
Japanese drama trailer. The complete name of the Japanese remake is 『シグナル 長期未解決事件捜査班』:
Original Korean drama trailer (in Japanese):
https://youtu.be/GaCQZosch_4
About
I’m learning Japanese, Korean and Chinese to read detective novels in these languages. I post about my reading progress and language study here. Best way to get in touch is on Mastodon 🙂
Curious. How do you watch Japanese movies usually no subs? Japan’s subs ? English subs?
I prefer j subs then k subs then e-subs or no subs
If it’s a movie that I really want to watch because the story interests me, I’ll go for English subs if available. Japanese subs are great to study but I rarely have the option. As for Korean, it’s the worst option possible to me but sadly it is what I have the most access to…
I remember Korean subs used to be awful for me too so I would google translate it Japanese ( never translate is better ) so I could have ghetto Japanese subs as opposed to no subs . That was in 2013 but since my Korean vocal has grown I just use the Korean subs. There’s still words I don’t know in the Korean subs but it’s not like before where it felt like it was every other line. Like I’m watching the anime Kodocha with Korean subs since the ankle can be hard to catch at times and it’s better than the English subs
Naver*
And
Vocab**
I wish my Korean were good enough so that Korean subs would help me instead of slowing me. For now, it only brings more work to my brain!