Dubbed Movies & TV

Many movies, television and other media in English are often dubbed for the Japanese market... perhaps not best for the English learner in Japan but perfect sources of Japanese input. If you're going to watch Star Trek, 90210, Die Hard, or PBS News Hours all the time anyway, it might as well be in Japanese.

A few phrases to look for on boxes, product listing pages:

言語：日本語　(language: Japanese)

吹き替え (dub)

字幕 (subtitles)

Careful for DVDs that do not have dubs (吹き替えなし), though subtitles only can be good reading practice.

DVD rental shops like Tsutaya are good for borrowing, but if you are looking to buy cheap inside of Japan look for used DVD/BlueRay shops. They are everywhere.

Living in Japan gives you be the best access to media, though if you are outside of the country... where there is a will, there is a way. Amazon.co.jp often will ship overseas. If not, forwarding services like Tenso (never tried myself) may help. Make friends with someone in Japan and have them make purchases and forward them to you (be sure to return the favor!). Make a trip to Japan and buy as much media as your return flight luggage weight limits will allow.

If your don't have much free time to actually sit down and watch things then rip the audio to a portable medium and take it with you to listen when you can. The tools page can help you with that.

Remember, language learning should be enjoyable. Star Trek is fun. Textbooks, not as much.