hi! I’d love some BL show recs if you’re willing to share.
sure thing! As I’m new to BL (started in July??), so far everything I’ve seen are recommendable since I haven’t watched that many. Also using this as an opportunity to write down how I started watching BL, thanks!
My first BL anime was 異世界の沙汰は社畜次第, I was interested since the title had 社畜 (しゃちく) which is kinda a popular word for jokingly say that you spend too much time working for a company.
And then ユーリ!!! on ICE started their 10th year anniversary event so it is free to watch on YouTube for 30 days. Some people think this is just another sports anime, but I’d categorize it as BL too.
This became the turning point from consuming content to learning, as YouTube started recommending me ボイスコミック, simply put as voice actors reading the manga. This is when I realized I actually don’t need native language subtitles and can still understand the story by listening and reading the manga. Here are the three channels that specifically publish BL ボイスコミック:
hello! i see that you’re watching anime without subtitles to prepare for n2, and as someone who struggles with listening comprehension, i was wondering if you have a specific system for practicing this skill that’s worked for you? e.g. listen without subtitles and then try to transcribe what you hear, then go back and double check with subtitles
listen without subtitles and then try to transcribe what you hear, then go back and double check with subtitles
This is basically how I’m doing it with the help of AI so it works even if I can’t find the subtitles. The process goes like this: since an episode is usually around 20 minutes, I usually only focus on phrases that I absolutely don’t understand and skip through the parts I “kinda” understand to keep the process bearable.
Listen to the sentence that I don’t know what they’re saying
Write down the “sounds” I hear
Explain the scene to AI and what I heard
Check what I guessed right/wrong and then listen again to see if it sounds like what the AI suggested
Put down my list here (which I’ve only started recently 🤣)
And if I’m reading manga, then I have to add an extra step of looking up the intonation of the word in Japanese.
I’ve been watching/listening to a lot of BL lately and unfortunately/fortunately it’s not as popular as “mainstream,” so it gives me tons of opportunity to be on my own since it’s harder to find stuff about them in any other language.
Also the vocabulary that BL uses are actually quite specific as they’re mostly around romance, so you’ll keep hearing the same vocab over and over again even when watching different works.
For example, words I keep seeing:
照れる (てれる) – shy/embarrassed/害羞
挙げ句の果てに – “in the end,” “finally,” or “to top it all off”. It shows a negative final result after a long time, a lot of trouble, or a bad process.
人の言うことを聞かないし – you never/don’t listen to what others say
からかう (揶揄う) – からかわないで don’t tease me 不要鬧/笑我
惹かれる (ひかれる) – to be attracted/drawn to someone
Not sure if I’ll end up with a very weird set of vocabulary, but at least this keeps me “studying” for at least 1 hour per day, which I couldn’t do before.
Ultimately, as there are no shortcuts to training my ear, I think spending more time with Japanese is what I’m aiming for at the moment as I haven’t passed the test yet to prove anything. At least I’m enjoying the process which I think has been one of the hardest thing of language learning once I get into an awkward intermediate level.
Another sentence structure that I often get the order wrong.
母ほど綺麗じゃない。
Notes to help me remember:
First look at the second part of the sentence: 綺麗じゃない Not pretty. Then ask myself: to what degree am I not pretty?
Answer with the first part: I’m not pretty to the degree of my mom.
Another example:
バカな私にもわかるほどこの宿題は易しいです。
The homework is easy. To what degree is it easy?
Even as stupid as me I can understand.
The second part is the part I want to convey, and the first part is for adding details of to what degree.
Another example sentence I used to struggle with but can understand well now!
彼の話は想像できないほど面白い。 His story is unimaginably interesting.
His story is interesting.
(to the degree that) You can’t imagine.
I can finally say I understood the usage on my first try today! (Took me almost a year! FINALLY!!!)
そのとこが、泣きたくなるほどうれしいんだ。
happy
(to the degree that) it makes me wanna cry, this isn’t the literal word for word translation, but I think I can grasp what it wants to convey 泣く->泣きたい->泣きたくなる
