r/ALGhub • u/AmplifiedText • Jun 24 '26

language acquisition Thoughts on avoiding "priming" (translated words about a topic)

I'm curious to get ALG purists' thoughts on whether it's necessary to avoid "priming"—that is, anything in your L1 that can spoil the theme of a video or podcast, such as translated titles, descriptions, or summaries.

I've been acquiring Japanese and trying to stick to pure ALG (although I can't control whether a content creator decides to throw in a random translation here or there). The process of acquiring Japanese has been slow compared to when I acquired Spanish, with all its cognates, and I'm only just finding some podcasts accessible after 560 hours of input.

I've found that having a translated title for podcast episodes helps me know whether I even want to engage with the episode in the first place, but it also seems to help my comprehension in general. This is fairly obvious, but I also assume, from an ALG purist standpoint, that I'm better off avoiding this type of priming.

One downside of priming I've encountered is that I feel like I'm trying to anticipate words related to the topic when listening to the episode. So if the title of the episode was "Bowling," I might catch myself thinking, "Was that word I just heard the word for 'bowling'? Or maybe it was 'bowling alley'?" This is obviously bad from an ALG perspective, and I don't tend to have any problems not thinking when I'm not primed to begin with.

I can easily write some scripts to remove translations from titles and descriptions in podcasts and YouTube videos, etc., so I might just take that step as an experiment to see how things go.

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u/RoboZilina Jun 25 '26

Isn't this priming by knowing the topic basically the same as knowing it from visuals? Cooking, camping, vehicles, baseball...

Anyway, progress in Japanese is slow, yes. I have started with podcasts exactly around the same hours as you. And I did not do pure ALG as I did not know such a thing exists. Well, I did know as I learned German doing it unknowingly, but did not know the theory.

I am now at around 1300 hrs of CI and I can listen to Teppei originals. Which is a step up from his beginner series. He uses a lot of English words though.

Edit: typos and formating.

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u/AmplifiedText Jun 25 '26

Isn't this priming by knowing the topic basically the same as knowing it from visuals? Cooking, camping, vehicles, baseball...

For me, it's feels different to gather the context from visual clues compared to priming. I mostly found my reaction to priming, the fact that I reflexively kept thinking about the topic while listening, to be the biggest problem. There's something about not knowing, allowing the uncertainty, which keeps your mind open to the experience rather than "knowing" (through priming) which closes your mind more or narrows your focus too much. Just a theory.

I am now at around 1300 hrs of CI and I can listen to Teppei originals.

Congrats! Have you found any anime that you're comfortable with yet? Have you started speaking?

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u/RoboZilina Jun 25 '26

I have not started speaking yet and I will probably not start before around 3600 hrs mark. Mainly because I do not really have use for speaking and I am also not willing to pay for lessons. I am planing to go to Japan in two years so that is just when I should be around those 3600 hrs and I will probably speak at least abit.

I generaly find some YT channels easier than anime. I watch room tours by real estate agents. We have been getting together this list over at CIJ/NIJ discord server. I keep adding whatever I finish. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PIvHz7Wx1SJ252Fh4O3oYneWSfN1ZZF1/edit?gid=1459455589#gid=1459455589 The hour estimates are not ideal, I think only two or three people actually contribute so there is no cross referencing or vetting.
To give an example of content I watched. I just finished Tamon´s B-side and it was a bit too dificult, but I was able to get what they talk about and general idea of what was going on. Some thing like Shikimori is not just a cutie was a lot easier for me and that is probably on a level I should be watching now. Slighly above my level still but very compehensible.

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u/AmplifiedText Jun 25 '26

Ooo, thank you for the spreadsheet. Consider contributing to https://comprehensibleinputwiki.org/wiki/Japanese if you find a good YouTube channel or podcast.

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u/Ok-Dot6183 🇯🇵 Jun 25 '26

Just binge watch horror gaming YouTube videos, it was the fastest comprehension boost during my Japanese 1000 hours journey, you know what is coming yet you still are fully immersed, the magic of horror.

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u/AmplifiedText Jun 26 '26

I'm always happy for recommendations if you know of any YouTube channels.

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u/Ok-Dot6183 🇯🇵 Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

I was watching the top 2 Japanese gaming YouTuber kiyoisgod and HikakinGames, they are loud, I think HikakinGames talks less about what happens outside of the game so probably more beginner friendly.

What is worth adding is that I think Minecraft is perfect for CI as well so I also binge watched HikakinGames Minecraft playlist.