今回は呼んでいただきありがとうございました! Thanks for having me on, Matt! Here’s the link to the first half of our convo where we did a language swap. Not gonna lie, I’m a little jealous of his Japanese. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rBJTaL_xXs4.html
I just watched that video, your english is pretty good aye, like I heard your accent and though "sounds Australian" and then you said you worked in Australia, so I got respect for your language skills
I'm Australian so I thought you sounded amazingly neutral, but once you said (in the video on your channel) that you'd spent time in Australia, I did begin to notice your vowels were quite Australian. Your English level is AMAZING and very comfortable to listen to; it takes absolutely no effort at all to understand you.
I really like the premise behind your book. There are a TON of expressions and phrases we use all the time in English. That has to be the hardest part of getting past an intermediate comprehension level. Even "all the time" sounds like an expression haha. I would like a Japanese version of this book actually!
Krashen's "comprehensive input" theory is fine but I think there is a lack in the emphasis on production. I may be misremembering but I think he claims that the only real benefit of "output" for 2nd language learners is the "input" one gets in terms of the response from the native speaker. Obviously, there is a benefit from that in terms of correction or confirmation that one has used the appropriate speech etc. but he ignores the actual production as a necessary part of the acquisition process. That is, one has to pull from one's mind the words and phrases one needs to communicate and that takes some effort and focus, especially in the early stages of acquisition. Also, when learning a 2nd language one is constantly generating those newly learned words and phrases in order to retain them. For example, I would narrate simple tasks in my head, like doing the laundry or buying a train ticket, daily in order to not only "activate" my ability to produce what I had taken in as "comprehensive input", but in order to retain what I had learned through practice. It's like learning a musical instrument. You can have all the "comprehensive input" in the world, but if you never sit down in front of a piano and actually practice, then, as the line in Good Will Hunting goes, a piano will just be "a bunch of keys, three pedals and a box of wood". The point being in order to be able to "play", you have to actually "play".
@@gordonbgraham there is also the sheer muscle strength and dexterity in the right parts of your mouth to produce the sounds that are different from your native language(s). After a good pronunciation practice session for Korean, my mouth is so fatigued that I even stumble over and slur English a bit
My favorite thing about this video was where atsu was code switching when he found that he could express some things easier with English idioms than in his native Japanese. I think that was really fun and important to see
I find myself doing that a lot with Hindi and English. Though Hindi is my first language, when talking about complex concepts, say, in programming, I find myself having no option but to switch to English, at least for that phrase. And I feel like this is true for a lot of Indians, speakers of different Indian languages, not just Hindi.
@@PogMcDogborrowed words are harder to pronounce than the originals for me. I just say them in my best approximation of katakana speak so to say. Intuitively knowing exactly what katakana sound maps to what English sound is difficult.
It must've been a hell of a lot of work, I mean translating Japanese into English, and then putting subs in both languages. This was so interesting and fun to watch!
@@doxo9597 Maybe, though I've heard that translating never really becomes super easy, because making a proper translation from one language to the other required more creative or logical thinking than just being able to understand the words being said for yourself.
@@doxo9597 Or maybe it was fun for them because they're both so good at both languages and because it was a novel and clever way to present the information. I suspect they both liked the challenge of it. They both did a great job.
This was one of the most fascinating conversations about language learning I think I’ve listened to in years. I just wanted to say thank you both for sharing your thoughts, I’m definitely going to watch the other side of the conversation. Thanks for taking the time to do this!
Atsu is a great listener, you could really see him taking in what you're saying. A nice conversation indeed. I also think it's important to put time into all the different ways of learning. I see improvements in some aspects after putting time into others.
After falling down the rabbit holes of Japanese English learning RU-vid and of course English Japanese learning RU-vid, this is so cool to see these very different teachers interact.
I love this so much. I can relate to both of their methods because my "method" is to follow my whims, so i do both all the time lol. I've read so many heated arguments online about how either is horrible or that one should never learn from this or that, but when you both presented your reasoning, I was just blown away like I'd been finally understood. thank you for this video!
I can relate to Matt's method of learning a language, since i've mostly learned english and german by watching cartoons spoken in both languages and without subtitles. Sure, the grammar of these languages i've learned in school (english) and private lessons (german), but hearing them spoken and making logical connections by myself over and over again, was the most rewarding thing that i could've experienced, which kept me curious and made me push on when things got tough. Also, the way a sentence is structured in a different language helps you in developing a different point of view about things in life. It's amazing. Btw, i've landed here through the channel What I've Learned. :)
Atsu had an aim which is living and working as an accountant in the English speaking country. He needed high score in TOEIC and IELTS, and he had to prepare some vocabulary and grammar knowledge for work. You need them in the situation. People have different situation such as having fun or working.
Interesting debate! My preferred method is towards Atsu when learning a language, but your method makes sense as well. I guess there's no perfect answer for everyone and that's the beauty of learning a language ;)
This was so informative and plain fun to watch! I taught ESL for three years and hearing this discussion in this format has my brain on fire in a good way. So well done!
A very important thing I want to point out in defense of each side of the debate is that English is a high density language, and Japanese is a lot density language. Something I found when studying Portuguese and Japanese is that I could miss a lot of what I was hearing, and still understand the meaning of the sentence or the word. Meanwhile when teaching my girlfriend english, if she misses one word in english, the whole sentence changes meaning, and it's easy to miss one word when every word in english is only 1 or 2 syllables with little vowels being used, instead in english we choose to use 21 different vowels, it's really similar to how tones work in chinese. I think when learning a language with lower density, it helps to work on context and just learning to understand what's being said. But when you want to learn a high information density language like english, it's probably better to make sure you master the fundamentals of the grammars logical struvture, and get familliar with those words and sounds if you want to be accurate in your communications. A great example of this is when Matt said you can just learn the て form of verbs, and while I used that method with portuguese for things like "endo" it just doesn't work in a language like english with our rules for conjugating verbs, as instead we like to pair a word with a verb to change it's meaning, and apply rules to when those words force conjugation. In english it's hard to understand a sentence like "if you can't speak, then tap" if you don't hear the word "speak" then you might just have to hope you can get the context correctly. Like with everything this is very contextual, and an argument can be made for how language learning will NEVER be simple or cut and dry. But I feel this video was a great insight on the way that different people approach language as an idividual (background, naive language, personal motivations). It seems really if you are someone with goals in the long run, and to master something, then Matt's method for learning is great. If you're someone that loves language learning, but don't have the long term motivation to go along with a deep passion, then finding instant use out of a language is a much better way to keep on track. Great video as always Matt, I look forward to more of these colabs!
I have never been to this channel before but I came after a Xiaoma collaboration with Matt, and when watching this video I was hit with my own preconception of language and accents because when Atsueigo spoke a full sentence in English at 9:18 I was expecting an American accent but instead it was an Australian one and that made me do a double take but it makes sense because he was just talking about idioms he heard in Australia, so an Australian accent should have been expected. This was such a cool video, I was just shocked by my own preconception of language and how it was not what I was expecting subconsciously because even though I was not really thinking of what Atsueigo's accent would be in English it was not Australian.
lol I copied down all the Japanese sentences that are relevant to me so I can have a conversation with my Japanese friend about language acquisition. Both really interesting and different approaches, thank you so much for this Anime episode Matt!
It's so interesting that Atsu throws in some English words while speaking Japanese but you (Matt) speak in full English, I know you're both speaking your own native language but it seems like Atsu used a few English words to explain things just because you're a native English speaker. If he was speaking to a Japanese person he'd probably use Japanese words to explain all the concepts he was talking about. I'm curious to know if this happens a lot: Japanese people using more 外来語 (gairaigo - foreign borrowed words) or English words when speaking to someone they know is a native English speaker.
その通りだと思います。Atsu さんは英語が好きすぎるあまり,日本語を忘れちゃってるかもしれません。普通の日本語話者は,専門用語などを除いて,外来語を使うことは少ないかなあって思います。 Atsu might have forgot Japanese that he love English so much. For other Japanese, borrowed words are more limited in using technical terms, and using borrowed words might be felt sometimes how you snobbish(気取っている) because such words are difficult to understand immediately for general Japanese speakers. For example, "ドラスティックに", which means "drastically", is usually paraphrased to "劇的に" which is more common for Japanese.
I don't think so, I speak 4 languages and something that happens a lot is you remember an idea in language X and forgets or just don't quite remember how to properly say it in language Y (even if Y is your native language), then you use the one that will best convey your ideas if you know the other party is also fluent in it, I am sure other polyglots will confirm. In the end language is merely a tool to convey the concept of ideas.
@@roufas7595 this and also at 3:35, he mentions that he "can't actually think of the Japanese word for 'inductive'" so I think he's using words he happens to only know/remember in English and that best fit what he's trying to say.
Was pleased to be able to follow both sides of this conversation both ways without too much difficulty. Matt the obsessive natural vs Atsu the professional control freak, each with his own perspective, and reaching a lot of the same conclusions nonetheless. :+ )
In my opinion about 単語帳 (vocabulary book), I think beginners who are not used to listening can't pick up words they don't know. In that sense, learning Longman Communication 3000 first helped me a lot, and after mastering that I became to be able to listen unknown words.
I loved this debate! I really appreciated hearing the different perspectives. I left Japan at an upper intermediate N3 working on N2 level. It's been 5 years since I've gotten away from daily study and I am definitely lower N3 now. I've forgotten a lot of basic grammar and words are coming back to me as a study. But I was discouraged wondering if I should just start consuming a lot of content (I started listening to more music but couldn't do much more than that with my schedule) or just start ramping up the vocab and eventually fit in some grammar. I settled on the latter but was doubting it was enough. I think I appreciated hearing that there is more than one way to approach it. I think I definitely need a period of time where I am just loading down on the "analytical" stuff again. It gave me permission to continue that way and just make sure to stop and analyze along the way what phase I am in and what my needs are at that point. Maybe that was confusing, but I just appreciated both views! It helped me better understand where I'm at and what I need, because language learning can be so ambiguous... especially when you are self-studying between N3 and N2 in Japanese lol. That huuugggeee gap. xD
I started studying Japanese again about 3 months ago after taking a break from my studies for about 3 years after college and this time around I'm increasing my listening comprehension by quite a bit and I find my spoken pronunciation and ability to listen and pick up on fluent Japanese to be way better than before. I still have a lonnnngggg way to go but I feel ownership over my study method and so glad to not be in the class room anymore. Finding your ideal study method is critical cause everyone is different and thinks different. Glad you're back at it 頑張れ!
Omg this was super interesting!! As a Japanese English learner, I have all those basic methods or logic that Atsu mentioned in this video, but at the same time I’ve shifted to the comprehension style you mentioned to get to where I’m currently at. So like I used to do adjusting things, but somehow I’ve got to the point where I just know it and don’t even know why. Anyway this was really great video and I hope you guys have another debate sometime!! I’ll try to sophisticate my theory about how to learn a second language efficiently haha
your english is good, and i mean this in the real nonfake way that japanese people say, great job Some minor mistakes: "Anyway this was really great video" should be "Anyway this *a* was really great video" "So like I used to do adjusting things" should be "So like I used to adjust things" or "I was constantly adjusting things" "this was really great video" --- > "this was a really great video"
You’re on another level. I sweat you so bad. Thank you for being such an inspiration for people like me who absolutely suck at learning a foreign language. I’ve been so scared of trying to speak another language because of bad experiences in high school, plus being introverted, but I love watching you and Oriental Pearl. You guys are so relatable and kind.
I have long wanted a podcast like this. This structure where they each primarily speak their native language while being fluent in one anothers' is so wonderful, and the code switching for maximum expression is beautiful ❤️ I could listen to these two converse every day.
I've been teaching a few languages in Japan for 13 years, and this whole video seems like a pretty classic summary of "international linguistic thought" vs "Japanese foreign language thought". My students often ask me about HOW to become fluent, since they see me being fluent in Japanese and know that I speak other languages. But hearing Atsu's opinions, I wonder if the average Japanese student could even really learn by my method. ...
I've been in Japan for 13 years as well, and agree that a lot of students seem to take closer to Atsu's method, but I don't think he sounds the same exactly as those (NOT ALL LEARNERS) I've met who are still struggling after many years. He seems like he made more of an effort to express himself and use the words he learned than those I meet who focus on vocabulary AND are not successful. The unsuccessful long-term English students I meet fall under what Matt described, trying to memorize sentences other people made, and not analyzing all the bits and pieces and how the puzzle fits together. I don't think they see it as a puzzle. Thankfully younger learners seem to be doing great, I thank youtube for that!
I've seen a lot of your videos now and I've got to say - your Japanese is perfect. I showed the VR Chat videos of you to my Japanese friend Kentaro, and he said 'Oh, that guy must have been raised in Japan', and when I said you weren't, Kentaro responded with 'Well then he must be half Japanese', and he couldn't believe it when I said you had studied and learnt Japanese from the ground up.
Matt's comprehension with Atsu's explanations is just super impressive. The way he acknowledges his speeches and responds instantly to certain statements. It's as if he was raised around these expressions. How does he get his input to such a high level like this? I've been immersing for almost 2 years and I can confidently say there was maybe 2 words I never heard of in Atsu's speeches but a lot of these phrases I either misinterpreted or wasn't able to process it into meaning. How do I go about this? The ambiguity within this is harder to tolerate because I feel like I should know all the shit he's saying.
Ever since our daughter was 16 months old or so this is pretty much exactly how I've spoken with my wife (I speak English and she speaks Polish) when our children are around. I am not famous or anything like that but I would love to talk to you, Matt. I think I have quite an interesting story to share. Let me know if you're interested!
Thanks for making lots of vids like this Matt. After light learning for a few years, you've managed to re-spark my desire completely to learn Japanese, and at the same time I've gained an interest in linguistics on their own through trying some of Krashen's books!
You can't imagine how useful your videos are for me. I'm French and teaching English in France, constantly wondering what's the good equilibrium to teach to a crowd with huge disparities in interest and abilities. As for my personal experience I guess I agree with you both. The intuitivity is a huge part to aim for fluency. But the academic work is still much needed to feed your brain to level up IRL. In any case, I'm not sure you really get to choose when to get intuitive vs academic once you start talking to natives / travelling. Sometimes you're in an academic kind of learning and you suddenly get confronted to reality and real practice and you don't have a choice. Either way I love both and in the end, it probably is the "intuitive" part of the learning that follows you for the rest of your life.
The point about picking the low-hanging fruit and moving on if you don't understand something is key in achieving maximum learning efficiency and avoiding burnout.
Both of these approaches are very interesting. Atsu’s formulaic and foundational approach appeals to the part of me that has always been captivated by the etymology of words. As a native English speaker you come across words from so many different root languages but they are comprised of words you might have heard components of which aids in comprehension, I wonder if the same is true for Asian languages.
2人の話を聞いてて、日本語と英語の難しい部分の違いがアプローチの違いになってるように感じました。(Here is the English text below.) 英語は文法が比較的簡単で発音が難しいので、日本人は英語をかなり読めるのにリスニングもスピーキングもかなり苦手。 日本語は発音が簡単だけれど文法がかなり難しいし、文字が複雑だから、文法やリーディングよりもリスニングから始める方が簡単なのかも知れない。 Listening to both of you, I felt that the difference between the challenging aspects of Japanese and English lies in their approach. English has relatively simple grammar but difficult pronunciation, so Japanese people can read English fairly well but struggle with listening and speaking. On the other hand, Japanese has easy pronunciation and quite challenging grammar and characters, so starting with listening might be easier than focusing on grammar and reading.
I'd love to see you do a similar thing again where you try to teach him the grammar rules of Japanese as an English speaker learns them, and have him teach you some grammar rules of English as a Japanese speaker learns them.
I totally dig this idea! The way a person explains a grammar rule is so interesting. There are sometimes shortcuts I cannot come up with because my way of thinking is just different.
I was interested to see the reaction to finding out stuff about the grammar of your own language that you didn't even know because you learned the language before you even knew what grammar is. For example, I was at uni before someone told me that we use "an" before a noun/adjective/adverb that starts with a vowel (e.g. an elephant) and "a" before a noun/adjective/adverb that starts with a consonant (e.g. a cement wall). And of course there are exceptions (words starting with y and h, for example). I'm interested in both the reaction to the lesson but also just simply to see how it's explained. I'd go to English-teaching channels but stuff this basic is always taught in another language and my listening skills in other languages is too low to understand.
That would be a fun way for everyone to cringe a lot, the native English speakers would be cringing at the way Japanese people learn and Native Japanese speakers would be cringing at how we would learn at first. It would be good times.
Really cool video! It's funny cause i'm italian and i'm actually searching for how to deal with japanese, from an english native speaker. So for now, i'm improving my english skills as well 😂 (thinking in italian, understanding english to find a way to learn japanese) 🤯🤣
Thank you so much for pushing your theory " massive imersion" !! Your theory is a literally game-changer for me. I am a Japanese having been living in Chaina and Taiwan for ten years. I have been persuing to mater English and Manderin. After knowing your channel my attitude to aquire foreign lungauge has been dramatically changed. I really appreciate your peresence !! I would like to demonstrate your theory is correct by becoming a fluent English speakers !
How is this a debate? Seems like a fruitful discussion on how to understand and learn a new language (through utilizing both perspectives of two given langauges). Very interesting and well done!
Hi Matt, I'm a Japanese English learner who loves learning English. Atsu's video has brought me to this channel. And your Japanese blows my mind. In terms of this video, it is pretty interesting to hear different opinions about how to get along with different languages. Thank you for making this wonderful video which comes in handy for all language learners!!
@@cevcena6692 Thank you for your comment, first of all!! Basically, I've been learning English through listening because it is easy way to get exposure to English for me. It also gives me a chance to output by imitating. So looking back, I think that was a worth a shot. In addition to this, "Distinction" which was written by ATSU who is a guest of this video also has made a huge contribution to my English learning because Distinction has lots of interesting phrases which show up among English native speakers' talk. I believe "Distinction" is hands down the best vocabulary book. I also use online English conversation system to brush up my speaking skill. This is a crash course how I learn English. I hope this would be helpful for you. I am a still learner so please take this with a grain of salt. Let's keep learning languages with each other!!!
This is interesting. I learnt English at a pretty young age, and I consider it my main language. That being said English isn't my first language. I didn't know it at the time, but development in English took longer than my peers because of this, especially with my listening ability. One thing I wanted to mention is that even with idioms and expressions, books are amazing for this. I read an insane amount of fiction novels when I was young, and I'm pretty sure my reading ability was way above my listening ability. These novels love using these expressions, in order to make the story more colourful and vibrant. Because of this, I had a fascination with expressions and idioms and I wanted to use them in real life. Probably the same fascination that Atsu has. I would read all these expressions and try to use these in real-life, with varying degrees of success. The funny thing though is that most people wouldn't understand me when I used these expressions except for the book-worm type class mates or intellectual type of people. Granted they were early middle schoolers to high schoolers. So my recommendation to Atsu is to read a lot of fiction books! It's a gold mine of idioms and expressions. Even at his stage of fluency, he'd get a clearer picture of the nuances. Plus it's fun to do.
英語の文法がすっきりしてると感じるのは日本語よりも需要が高く使用者も多いことから研究が進んでてより体系化されてるのと、言語を勉強してる人のほとんどがその体系化された範囲の中から抜け出せてないからだと個人的には思ったりもします。オックスフォードで英語専攻してそれこそ英語の文法のより優れた体系化を目指してる人と話したりすると、English doesn't make any sense.とか言ってたりするので。 実際のところどうなんでしょうね。どっちのほうがシステマチックなのか、どうしてそう言えるのか知りたいものです。
Atsu`s language learning method makes more sense . I found it efficient to learning grammar, words and pronounciation repeatedly and it definitely boosted my ability to understand Japanese music , anime...
What most important though is as Matt said it before that one needs to listen /hear before you can respond. You must understand first of all or you are going nowhere. Hearing Hearing Hearing !!!! then enunciate.
I think it's easy to tell who wins this debate based on their actual competency. The winner is clearly Matt! So his method is definitely the best, also if you watch both of these guys you'll find out that Matt's ideas are research based (applied linguistics), but Atsushi is just going off the anecdote of his personal experience!
I think he makes *a lot* of sense. His approach is this because he had to live abroad and this kinda forces you to go about learning this way: getting lots of thematic vocab and then activating it right away (going to a bank, a hardware store, etc.). Otherwise, some layers of vocab would only be retrieved years and years into immersion as they are very specific and obscure and are not really covered by your slice-of-life material, but you may need them pretty much on day 1 to be able to function in society. Given that you need to speak quickly and you need to operate in this foreign society, your learning journey becomes: shove a bunch of thematic vocab / expressions into your brain; go where you need to go and activate it through speaking; go back home and maybe start noticing this vocab in the content that surrounds you to further solidify its use in various contexts.
@@丛雨线 yeah, you will probably pick it up. The question is when. You'll arrive there in maybe 2 or 3 years, but you need to know all the context surrounding banking operations *now*. Or you shower just got broken and you need to go to a hardware store and ask for some obscure things you barely know in your own language (oftentimes you in fact don't). So you don't have a choice: you need several dozen words and phrases, all put into context, that you can kinda memorize and use to navigate in the upcoming conversation. Only then will you probably start seeing some of that vocab in your immersion (aka your daily life when living abroad)
Your comment makes no sense, living in a country is THE immersion method, what we do by immersing through media and using flascards is basically an attempt to emulate that. If you are really needing/using those words in your daily life, you WILL pick those up very quickly, you don't need to shove a bunch of thematic vocab in an artificial manner, the "theme" is your life. That's the number one concept of learning through immersion and probably the situation in which you need "artificial" input the least.
@@fangornthewise I agree with Nero. If you need a certain subset of vocabulary, you'll study them and pick them up. For example, if I knew I was going to move to Japan next week, I'd pick up a phrase book for living in Japan (banking, office etiquette, shopping, insurance, etc). However, right now, none of that applies to me - why would I want to learn vocabulary that doesn't apply to me? Better to use content you enjoy instead of something you don't necessarily need.
@@fangornthewise I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding here. First off, when you live abroad you may or may not immerse (I think we all know plenty of people who have lived abroad for years but barely speak the language), but this is not the point. But even when you do actively immerse, your whole process is reversed as compared to what Refold and similar methods suggest: in many situations you *need* to actively memorize large chunks of vocabulary thematically (not from any content you've immersed in). Here, you have to make an active effort and gather everything you need in one place by looking up stuff in topic-structured dictionaries with context or similar resources, then activate it immediately in conversation and THEN you will acquire it as a result of this exercise and solidify this knowledge through passive immersion later where (maybe) you'll some day meet these words in different contexts. This is pretty much in the exact opposite order of how you'd normally immerse (passive - and maybe a bit of active - content consumption; mining *some* sentences; getting exposed to the same words and expressions in other contexts; finally, starting to use them in oral communication).
@@Eric-le3uu Very simple example: in Brazil, my shower gets broken. Now, I have to navigate several situations. Situation 1: talking to the neighbour downstairs about an expected flooding of her apartment. For that I need to know words like "flooding", "seep through", "emergency", specific parts of the bathroom to be able to pinpoint where the water will trickle down from. Situation 2: I need to speak with my insurance company and now I need to figure out terms I don't even know in my mother tongue to make sure we arrive at a viable solution. Situation 3: I need to go to the hardware store where I need to explain to them what parts exactly are broken, for which I now need to know how to say "shower head", "joint", "insulation", "nut", "washer" and about a dozen other words. I also need to anticipate what will feature in the responses, so I need to look up a lot more than just that. And so on, and so forth. Nothing in my immersion until this point has prepared me for this, I now need to quickly research, prepare and memorize a list of 30-40 words and expressions that I will need to activate right away. I should be able to navigate all three of these conversations and I don't have a choice to wait for two years until in some show I like there will be a plumber and an insurance agent speaking in their professional lingo.
私は昔ガチガチに文法理論タイプだったのですが、最近はマットさんと同じ(?)ような感じで英語を勉強してます。大量にインプットして感覚を取り入れると文法云々に関わらず、違和感に気づくようになるというか...。例えば、she are Japanese.っていうのは、聞いたことないからなんか変だな間違ってるなと直感でわかるという感じですかね😮このレベルだと、ロジックで考える前に、ほとんどの人が感覚で変だとわかると思います。そして、そのレベルを徐々に上げていけばいいのかな、、、と。日本人でさえ日本語をうまく使いこなせない時とか、意味を間違って解釈してたとかもあると思います😅だから母国語と同じように、間違いに気づいたときにその都度改善していけばいいかな、、、くらいの気持ちでいると、割とラフに勉強できます!😌約1年youtubeで外国人の色々なチャンネル見まくってたら、ニュースも映画も聞き取れるし、普通に喋れるようになりました☺︎
Great discussion. I’m more on the “Matt” side. No question that individual learning style is a huge factor. But as an ESL teacher I have witnessed so many learners unable to transfer knowledge to practice, I feel that the analytical approach can become an obstacle at times. Reading and listening widely I feel is the best vocabulary approach. If you encounter a word frequently you know it’s worth mastering. Most vocabulary books don’t adequately consider frequency. I often wonder at their choices of words and idioms. I’d be interested to hear Matt’s comments on getting input through reading vs listening. Aside from the script issue, I feel that reading in Japanese is less helpful for language building unless you have academic goals. I also liked the comments that you need to vary your approach depending on level and goals. Great work guys! Keep at it.
I really enjoyed watching this video and opening up the comment section. Everyone here is very thorough with their comments and send respectful opinions about the video. I'm currently trying to switch my major into linguistics so watching this video really motivated and reminded me to continue my dreams to understand and learn new languages!