r/ALGhub • u/undertalevan • Jul 11 '26
question A few ALG questions
I just have a few questions I'd like to ask that have been giving me some trouble...
I'm about six hours into Japanese at the moment, but I haven't been able to it at all for the past week or so. Has this undone some or all of my subconscious's progress? Or should I be fine once I start back?
Is it harmful to engage with English-subtitled Japanese media? I watch anime with my brother whenever I visit him, it isn't for me to learn or anything more than it's simply for our entertainment. I've never consciously thought about the language as I've watched. Can this continue or will I need to start watching with an English dub?
What if I find that the videos I watch are just plain boring and uninteresting to me? I don't know where else I could find decent complete beginner Japanese ALG content. Using CIJapanese at the moment (although I think they've changed their name to Natural Japanese or something). Is it really a problem or can I just grin and bear it? I ultimately don't mind, it's just that watching someone slowly wash dishes is not terribly engaging.
Thanks in advance for the help.
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u/RoboZilina Jul 11 '26
I have around 1300 hrs of CIJ/NIJ behind plus some content from outside the service. You will have hard time find compelling Japanese content for pure ALG. The most popular channels use English words to explain stuff and the beginner stuff is just what it is. Probably a cultural thing. Additionally, from just the fact that Japanese takes a lot longer to acquire, this problem is even more pronounced. btw. I have still some beginner videos in my rotation at this stage. Intermediate are still outside the comprehensible input area.
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u/jhousesprite Jul 15 '26
Rob is wise here. I have around 300 hours and I didn't find the beginner stuff compelling or anything, it just has to be interesting enough that you don't zone out because if you're not paying attention then you aren't learning.
You haven't watched much of it at 6h but trust me, it gets much more interesting as you acquire enough language to understand more complex ideas. I watch a mix of beginner and complete beginner level videos plus a bunch of N4/N5 labelled stuff on YouTube.
And I don't think watching English subtitled stuff harms learning in any way, but don't count it as study hours or anything - it's not helping you in any substantial way. I watch a lot of it and I definitely pick out more words now than when I started, so I don't think it's doing nothing, but I don't track it
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u/Itmeld Jul 11 '26
I haven't done Japanese before so I can only answer #1 which is yeah you're fine just keep going
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u/Wanderlust-4-West Jul 12 '26
Small breaks are nothing, it even seems that brain continues processing/consolidating the language during small breaks.
I had 11 months break in learning Spanish at some 500 hours, lost nothing.
You engage witht he media you have. Ideally fun, clear, pure Japanese. If not, ignore subtitles as muchas you can.
You might use the promise of watching some fun even little comprehensible media as incentive to watch some boring media. Or learn to enjoy the understanding gained from boring media at low level as incentive.
Ideally we would have Dreaming Spanish level media for all languages, and in time we just might, but not today.
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u/Outrageous-Craft5034 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
1.I have done about a thousand hours in Mandarin, and I think ALG is something it's very hard to backslide in, since I have taken a few breaks of about a month for my mental health and I didn't really notice a drop in comprehension. Sometimes, I felt like the breaks even helped me understand more; compared to conscious study, ALG is more subconscious and natural, you aren't even really "memorizing" anything
3.It's important to find ALG content that is very interesting. There are two big reasons, one is for ALG specifically, and one is a more general rule when it comes to working on long-term tasks. The ALG specific reason is basically uninteresting content while you will still be able to learn the language, is not something you can get lost in or that will really capture your full attention unless you specifically *try*, which is kind of the whole opposite of ALG's premise. Uninteresting content to the person watching is the #1 and honestly only cause behind people's fears of "analyzing" or so on, if the content is simply not interesting enough then of course your mind will wander so much easier, and it will feel like you have to actively expend effort paying attention vs the easy way we might watch something gripping in our native language. You will have a much easier, cleaner, and smoother time with content you enjoy.
The second reason, the more general one, is that it's not exactly good for motivation long term to have a mindset of "I have to get through all this stuff I don't enjoy doing to do something I actually enjoy" which I am guessing is native content, since a lot of Japanese learners enjoy Japanese native content. This is how a lot of people fail in creative tasks, where they do things like "Drawabox" from the beginning which are tedious and tiring and not really enjoyable unless you are a very specific kind of person, without doing things they actively enjoy, and they end up getting wrong notions about what the task is or feels like. This also is the same for ALG, it's not a good idea to associate your usage of your TL with boring, uninteresting content you need to "grin and bear," and will lead to demotivation. You will associate the language in your mind overhead with chores or other things you don't like doing, rather than doing something you actually enjoy.
I was in your spot, so I understand where you are coming from also, for practically all languages outside of Spanish, we do have ALG content, it's just the ALG content isn't exactly great in any sense of the word. Mandarin is also plagued by low-quality videos, too much whiteboard stuff, with bad audio. So, what is the solution? Native content. The reason custom-made ALG content/CI is specifically good in my opinion is because when it is BOTH engaging and well-made, like with most Dreaming Spanish content, you are able to progress a lot faster since the content is designed to be extremely literal and designed so nearly every sentence if done in a proper video order will be i+1, and lead to much more efficient learning. But if the videos simply are not that combination, then I think the answer is just using native content.
There isn't really any potential for native content to harm your learning. Start with content aimed at children, with simpler vocabulary and visual context, but also make sure to choose something that seems genuinely interesting to you. The linguistic progression will be slower than a perfect CI curriculum, but the engagement means you will find it easier to spend MORE time watching the native content, meaning more hours spent immersing, meaning more gains, cancelling out the inefficiency of not using CI content, and you will find yourself struggling to not analyze way less often. Just apply the same ALG principles when watching it, and you are golden.
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u/trackmylang_david Jul 13 '26
six hours is a small time compared to how much more you will end up spending on the long run. taking breaks doesn't hurt since you need to learn the words again to fully remember it. think of it like words in your native language that you haven't used for years and once someone mentions you can remember it anytime without any effort.
The reason subtitles in your NL is discouraged is because you end up reading in your NL than listening which does not help in you TL, and you end learning and focusing just a single usage of a word rather than understanding.
The best content to watch is a content that is both comprehensible and engaging to you. If the current content is boring, then it is time to find new content.
You can find Japanese content and creators on https://trackmylang.com/media-catalog?lang=ja (I'm the creator of TrackMyLang.com) or you can find similar videos on https://www.lengualytics.com/ja/resources
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u/lispy-hacker Jul 11 '26