The Benefits of Watching Japanese TV Shows and Movies for Listening Practice

When it comes to learning Japanese to a high level, you are going to need to watch some movies and TV shows as they are extremely be beneficial for your listening ability, but let’s look at why that is.

In short, they are a great form of immersion and a lot of fun, so you will learn a lot from watching them without it really feeling like it’s a lot of effort and I guess this can really all be summed up by just saying that you are using the language as intended, so it’s just a good way to practice your listening. 

But let’s go through some of the benefits this type of listening practice has to offer in more detail.  

TV and Movies Are Immersion

You can practice your listening skills in a number of different ways, but ultimately the best form of listening you can do is immersion, where you are just hearing the language in its natural state …and of course TV and movies are the perfect material for this.

You are just going to be hearing the language being used normally. These shows are made by natives for natives, so you can’t really get any more natural than this.   

You can sit there and be engaged with the show and your brain is going to be subconsciously processing everything, trying to make sense of things and generally linking all sorts of things together and while it is struggle at first to really understand anything, the general rule is that more immersion you can do, the more you will improve in the language.

You will need to listen to a lot of the language and movies and TV shows are going to help you make that happen.

You Will Come Across A Lot Of New Words

One of the best benefits is the simple fact that movies and TV shows are absolute treasure troves for vocabulary.

You are of course going to get all the common words, used over and over again which is exactly what you want if you are beginner, but you are also going to be to introduced to more obscure vocabulary and very niche stuff too.

When you are an intermediate, the best way to learn new words will simply be to watch movies and TV shows. If you think about a textbook, it is going to really only teach you so much, which is of course is the more common things and that is fine, but just think of all the specific language used when you watch a movie about space, or a show about a doctor, you are going to hear so many new words and phrases and really the supply of new words is pretty endless, you can always find something new to learn.

You Will Hear The Japanese Language At Its Natural Speed

Movies and TV shows are also going to allow you to hear Japanese spoken at its natural speed. These shows are made for natives, not learners of the language so things will be going at full speed.

This is of course overwhelming at the start, but you need to get accustomed to this speed if you want to speak with actual people and movies will allow you to adjust to this natural speed and the more you watch the more it will seem normal to you.

In the early days some slow learner material may be better for you, but you will quickly outgrow this and the movies and TV show will allow you to progress.

You Will Hear Both The Informal and Formal Versions Of Japanese

You are also going to hear all the different forms of the language through movies and TV shows.

You will not need to watch much to see different interactions, some scenes may be betweens friends, family or lovers and you will get to hear the more informal language this way, then of course there will be plenty of scenes where the more formal language will be used and it is great that you can get exposure to all of this.

If you just start trying to talk to strangers in real life they are going to be very polite to you, and textbooks tend to focus on the formal language too, so it’s good you can get this exposure to the informal language through shows and movies. 

You Will Also Hear Slang

You will also hear a lot of slang and general everyday phrases from the movies and TV, which again are not going to be in the textbook or used by people you speak to.

While you may not need to use these phrases yourself, it is still good to know these types of words in case you do hear them and movies and TV shows are the best way to learn these.  

Japanese TV and Movies Give You Japanese Culture

When you are learning Japanese, you also need to learn about the culture of Japan to really make sense of things and TV shows and movies are going to give you plenty of culture.

You will quickly pick up on things that are very unique to Japan and you can get a very good view of their culture through this type of media.

I had only watched about 5 movies and I managed to spot that the Japanese like to peel their apples, rather than eating the skin. This led me to do some research and find out if this was just coincidence or something they actually do and why they do it.

You will have the same experience, some things are very obvious and you can go and research them, but there will also be lot of subtle things you subconsciously pick up to, such as way Japanese people move their heads when agreeing with someone and while all of this doesn’t really help your listening, it does help your overall understanding of Japanese society.  

Watching Movies and TV Is Fun

Sitting down and watching Japanese movies and TV shows is just a fun activity, it doesn’t feel like studying.

This does also mean that you will be able to sit there and do it for a lot longer than you could with other learning methods. How long can you read a textbook before you get bored stiff …then compare that to how many hours you can binge TV shows with no issues.

Being able to rack up the hours is great, but the fact you are also just sitting back and enjoying yourself also allows you to kind of forget you are “studying” you will end up just kind of watching and following along and being engaged with what you are watching …and while that feels useless, it’s not.

Being in this relaxed state allows your conscious brain to take a back seat and your subconscious to take over and this is a really powerful state to be in.

Making things fun like this may seem like a really different way to learn, but it is actually very powerful and you can make a lot of progress in your listening ability and over all skill from making the “learning” fun.

There Is An Endless Supply Of Japanese TV and Movies To Watch

It is also probably important to mention the fact that there is a pretty much endless supply of content you can you listen to when it comes to movies and TV, and when you include anime into that, the list only gets bigger.

Basically you will never run out of content and you can keep listening until the day you die. When it comes to learner material you are going to reach a point where you have seen everything, or at least covered the concepts many times. You will not find this with the movies and TV shows, there is always going to be something to keep you busy and engaged with and more importantly, progressing with the language. 

The internet has really made this possible for us, you can sit at home and just have an endless supply of material to listen to.

(You can read more about – How To Create An Immersive Japanese Language Environment At Home)

Subtitles Can Help You With Your Reading Skills

While I am mostly talking about the benefits you will get from listening to movies and TV, you will also find it can help with your Japanese reading if you use the subtitles. A lot of Japanese TV shows just randomly have subtitles all over the screen, but even if this is not the case you can still usually activate them.

It can be very beneficial for a learner to both hear and read the language at the same time and while there are other methods you can use for reading, subtitles can play a role in your studies and you of course will also get all the other benefits I have discussed above while also improving your reading at the same time.

Conclusion

Hopefully now you can see that watching movies and TV is going to be very beneficial for your Japanese listening ability and it is something you should be doing a lot of.

Of course traditional lessons and sitting down to learn new words is great and something you should also be doing, but do not neglect immersion. Take the time to just relax and watch some movies and shows and while it may not feel like you are learning …you are, so keep doing as much of it as you possibly can.