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Creating Good Japanese Habits vs. Removing Bad Ones — 13 Comments

  1. Great article that everyone should read! The power of habits is incredible; I have changed my life (for the better) so much thanks to creating habits! Removing bad habits is just as amazing too, and like you said, good thing we all have Japanese to use to replace them.

  2. The idea of replacing English based media consumption to the Japanese equivalent seems like a good theory.
    However, the problem is Japanese content is created for Japanese target audience. Whereas English media has far larger audience appeal and more niches in general. For example I want to play a hardcore RTS on PC, which is Starcraft2. Don’t want to play any other game only this one. There isn’t any Japanese equivalent. I don’t intend to play some inferior Japanese language game just to see more Japanese.

    • Well, it depends.

      Depending on the game, there are translated versions. I’m not familiar with Starcraft 2, but it is worth seeing if anyone created a translated version (official or mod). This was done with WOW (https://japaneselevelup.com/turning-world-warcraft-japanese-learning-experience/) so even many of your English favorites can be changed to Japanese.

      Also, it gives you a chance to explore more Japanese games you may not have before. You may find yourself connecting with some great ones that you wouldn’t have if you focused all on English games.

      At the very least, you can try to connect with Japanese players who also play your favorite English-only game.

    • You might find this interesting-
      https://starcraft.com/ja-jp/

      Unfortunately SC2 has not been localized for JP yet (and many JP fans play it in English as a result), but SC1 remaster came out recently and has full JP language support. Definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan of Starcraft =)

      And to Adam’s last suggestion, there’s a large JP community around SC2 that you could look to jump in and interact with, so you’re at least talking about the game in Japanese. Here are a couple of good accounts to start following if you go that route-

      https://twitter.com/horikenSC2
      https://twitter.com/nazomen
      https://twitter.com/sb_sth

    • Also FWIW, there’s *tons* of JP media that’s interesting to more than just a JP audience. I literally grew up playing JP games (Nintendo, Playstation) without realizing where they came from and enjoyed the hell out of all of them. It’s one of the reasons I chose to learn Japanese in the first place – there are a lot of amazing Japanese games out there that I want to play.

      While there are some minor cultural differences, Japanese gamers for the most part want the same thing as western gamers. We’re a lot more similar than I think you realize.

  3. My twitter is almost completely Japanese. I follow only a couple of accounts that post in English. The same goes for Twitch. I feel like the harder I studied the more I just naturally started switching things over. I also started to really get into Japanese music and Idols and I really had no choice as a lot of that stuff doesn’t get translated. I have tried in the past to consciously switch things over because I know it will be good for me, but I had much better luck when I just did it naturally as a result of my intense effort to learn, and intense interest in Japanese. I just became so interested in learning, switching things over happened without me even trying.

    The good thing about switching everything over is, when I get really burned out or bored, my twitter and twitch just don’t change themselves. I’m still surrounded by Japanese and I’m still interested in the streamers and idols I follow. That interest inevitably pulls me back into studying.

    If I was currently really into some activity, and I couldn’t find an equivalent in Japanese (or it wasn’t a popular activity in Japanese) then I would be cautious in just giving it up. Instead, I would just try to dive into learning Japanese and hope that over time I could find things that interest me even more.

    • Yes, as I mentioned, this isn’t about banishing English from your life. This isn’t realistic and it may have the opposite effect of pushing you away from Japanese. It’s about removing activities that you don’t actually want/need and/or replacing them with Japanese versions where possible.

      • This is true, at first I was trying to banish english & french completely from my life as AJATT recommended. I’m sure it works great if you have the strength and willpower for it, but for me, all it did was make me constantly quit, so here I am 4 years later, with maybe 2-3 month’s worth of learning under my belt. I understand now that english still has a place, and I am enjoying myself SO MUCH MORE now that I made japanese the biggest part of my life instead of the ONLY part.

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