Learning Japanese By Ear

I'm trying to learn Japanese, and the process of doing so has been very interesting because I'm not doing it in any of the conventional manners, even as far as the outer reaches of the internet are concerned. I'm taking a completely different approach based on a random advert I saw on the internet. Said advertisement was flaunting a product called the Pimsleur Language Approach. The video briefly explained that humans don't normally learn a language from the top down, but from the bottom up, from hearing and speaking to writing rather than the reverse. It was really interesting and something I'd never thought about. They offered one of their products that promised to teach a language using auditory methods, and I was actually going to buy it until I found out that the cheap price they were offering was actually just the start-up price for a subscription of mail-in audio cds. It was a bummer, but I decided hey, why not implement their idea anyways, just to satisfy my curiosity? Why not see whether or not their approach was bullshit?

So, to emulate the Pimsleur approach, I've started listening to Japanese podcasts while attempting to repeat what they say and understand what it means through the contexts of the conversations alone. It's been interesting enough. I can't say I've learned anything solid yet, but I have a feeling that certain knowledge I'm gaining about Japanese is completely sub-conscious (or maybe I'm just trying to come up with an excuse to keep listening to the podcasts; a lot of them are interesting even though I have no idea what's being said). I think I'm learning the basic speech patterns of the language and how it's used in common conversation. I'm going to try doing this podcast listening thing for at least half a year. If I have no results by then, I may continue because I'm a stubborn bastard who wants this thing to work. (or perhaps I just know that it's going to work somewhere in my heart, heh heh heh)

I'll let you know how it goes somewhere around September if it's anything worth saying.

Yeah, I'm lazy right now, but at least I got this shit out.

Have fun in life.