Learn Japanese from Anime by Utilizing Free Software

You may familiar with the word anime, which refers to Japanese animation. An anime that we see can be in SUB version (the sound in Japanese, but with subtitle in certain language), DUB version (the sound is already dubbed in certain language other than Japanese), or RAW (the sound is still in Japanese and there is no subtitle). Since we want to learn Japanese from anime, so it is better to use RAW version or SUB version.

Use RAW/SUB Version (video with subtitle that can be turned on/off)

It is better to watch anime in RAW version for learning. Even though it can be very boring since there could be a lot of conversations even all of the words that we don't know the meaning. So in order to keep the enjoyment of watching and learning, I think it is better to watch anime videos that support both RAW and SUB; we can turn on and off the subtitle. Normally this feature can be applied for all kind of videos, but some anime videos have subtitles that is stuck together with the video as part of the video; in this case, video player doesn't recognize the subtitle as subtitle.
Tips: Do not download anime videos in .mp4 format that is come from video streaming. It is better that you download it directly from fansubs websites.

Use Potplayer
I recommend this because we can add second subtitle to the video and we can select and copy or search the description of some words in the subtitle on the Internet while the video is still opened. In practice, we can place a subtitle in Japanese on the bottom and a subtitle in English on the top; or only choose Japanese subtitle to be displayed. With Potplayer subtitle default setting when you pause the video, we can right click a word in the subtitle and then copy it or search it on the Internet; maybe to find the exact meaning of a certain word in the subtitle.
Click here to download Potplayer

Get Subtitle in Japanese
Actually there are fansubs that work on Japanese subtitles. http://kitsunekko.net/subtitles/japanese is a directory web page that contains a collection of Japanese subtitles.

Use Aegisub to Synchronize Subtitle with Video
When adding subtitles from a fansub that is not a packet with the video, the subtitle may not synchronous with the video. We can use Aegisub to modify the subtitle. From menu Timing in Aegisub, we can use Shift Times... to synchronize timing of the subtitle.
Click here to download Aegisub

Convertion between Kana, Kanji and Romaji
Japanese subtitles may contain a lot of kanji letter that we didn't know. Or even we didn't know anything about Japanese letters and we just want Japanese words written in Romaji. There are some website that provide this feature - conversion between kana, kanji and romaji. I recommend you to use http://nihongo.j-talk.com/ to handle this task. Then how do we replace a type of writing with another type of writing in the subtitle file. We just need to replace the non-converted writing with converted writing by using a simple text editor since I think it is quite difficult to use Aegisub to handle this (Aegisub divides every line in the subtitle to be like a table). But we need to keep the format of text in the subtitle file unchanged. We can use Find & Replace feature of the text editor to replace part of subtitle that the format has changed with the original format.

English <> Japanese Offline Dictionary
I recommend you to use Tagaini Jisho for your offline Japanese dictionary. You can search the word in romaji, set tags, add notes, set "already known" attribute on a word, add a word to study list, and a lot more. You also can learn about Japanese writing with Tagaini Jisho. Every letter, including kanji has explanation about its step by step writing process - explained in an animation.
Click here to download 


Print Friendly Japanese Subtitle
Actually since you are learning while watching anime, it isn't needed to print the subtitle. But sometimes you may need to print it to learn how to read kana and how to pronounce it correctly by comparing with the sound in the anime. Printing the subtitle is just like printing a text file. Some subtitle may contain a lot of information that we don't need. To just get subtitle text, we can export a subtitle file into a plain text file by using Aegisub; from menu File > Export Subtitles.... After you click Export in the Export dialog box, you can export the subtitle with another file type. If you need both subtitle text and the time, you can export it into Adobe Encore (*.encore.txt) file type, but if you only need the subtitle text, you can just choose Plain-Text (*.txt) file type.

And then as the method that you may use in learning is up to you. As an example, you can watch an episode with Japanese subtitle only and then watch it again with both subtitle in Japanese and your own language. The most important thing here is that how you can enjoy your learning.