Subs or dubs?

I never said I rely on a dictionary for my Japanese. I study Japanese in school as much as I possibly can to gain as much as I possibly can. However, Jisho.org isn't just a dictionary for you to look up words and memorize them, it actually helps with Kanji, the number of strokes in the kanji, how to write the kanji, it helps with grammar (sentences section), etc. I don't rely on it, but when I'm stumbled on something, Jisho.org is a very handy tool to use (mainly with formal, honorific, and slightly casual forms of Japanese).

You took my post the wrong way. But ok, I know what you mean. But I can tell you something, learning the language on paper is a lot more different than using it in real life, and that's one thing I observe from your posts was that you really do lack real life use of Japanese. By spending 3 years in Japan as a primary school student still didn't really make me perfectly proficient in the language, and I still have trouble with Kanji reading sometimes. But by reading raw manga and watch drama/anime and conversing with my Japanese friends. Can you do Japanese proficiency Exam in your area? I think you should try taking it. It's a good experience in your studies.

Ok, enough off-topicness...

When I was little I didn't mind dubs, I watched most of Sailor Moon in English dub on morning kids shows. But the older I got, and my contact with Japanese deepened, I started to find dubs unbearable. Not only with the voices, but just the unnatural nature of dubs made it unbearable. How sometimes the censor placed in English dubs are plain stupid as well. They sometimes even hack and cut the series so that it was completely different from how it was meant to be. *cough* Card Captors*cough*

Once I wrote an essay years ago about why the dubs were the way it was and publushed it on a forum somewhere. I mentioned that the reason dubs is the way it is, is because of the difference between the Japanese and Western culture. in Japan, there exist anime for all ages, from Powerpuff girls to really hard to understand anime for older audiences like Neon Genesis. Japanese takes anime industry really seriously, and all voice actors put a lot of effort into making their role come to life(as much as an onscreen actor would), because voices are the life of an anime. Where in North America, especially, they began buying Japanese series and dubbing them about over a decade ago, they were not aware of such seriousness in regards to the series, and just dubbed them the way they liked it, and try to "Americanise" them as much as they could. Why was that? Like I said, culture differences. Where in Japan, parents are not really concerned about what goes on in animes, the American parents, with the "parent guidence" in mind, are paranoid about what their kids grow up watching. Why did shows like Shaman King, where actual killing (e.g. beheading) and violence occur ends up in morning shows for kids is not beyond understanding. Older Americans regard anime as the same as cartoons, something for kids to watch. But when they started seeing stuff like homo-sexualality, violence and nudity, the production companies, getting sued like crazy for releasing such series by angry parents, began censoring them, or simply stopped dubbing it altogether. Resulting in a good serie being hacked and cut to pieces that is nearly totally unreconisable as the original.

Why did they think stuff like croquett (French style fried potatoes) are dumplings anyway? Too lazy to look it up? =______=