My thoughts on this video one year later (please watch!!): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Z6AWM9ueYHM.html PS, I know I pronounce pronunciation wrong
Dude its okay to have a 160 IQ and have what I call sometimes, mental farts of the mouth, I get em all the time, and I also love Japan and am from Portland, I want to meet you someday. I pretended I'm a college graduate from Japan by the way, I get the drift(9:00) or something like that.
I really appreciate you leaving this video up, Matt, and allowing us to see you at your darkest hour. You were incredibly insightful/thoughtful despite feeling so low. When you mentioned feeling neither Japanese nor American (being half Korean, I've felt this for over 30 years) and trying to find what distinguishes you while also finding where you belong really resonated with me. It occurred to me while listening to this video that you're playing a pivotal role in transitioning people over to actual systems that work for language acquisition (which is where you mentioned the human race will be one day). I'm confident you will continue to refine MIA and guide people all along the way through your videos, and I want to thank you for sharing them with the world.
Why bother? After reading some Hideo Levy's novels (like 'Room Where the Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard" or 千々にくだけて) or Shusaku Endo's work (like 'Silence', 'Deep river' or 'Samurai') I came to the conclusion that fluency is a bit useless in the context of Japan. It's ok for your own satisfaction I guess, but there's no point for a Westerner in becoming a part of their unbelievably petty, close-minded society! There are 2 reasons for that: number 1: they'll never accept you as their own anyway! (Levy's work talks at length about that) number 2: their culture is too cruel, distrustful of intellectual questioning and lacking in transcendence for us (Endo's novels do a great job at describing how spiritually and intellectually bankrupt Japanese culture is)
Ma/ Prz/ 🌚 Tradition is not merely conservative... it is over-protective to a fault. You say there is a lack of transcendence in their culture, and if I am to infer your meaning, you must know that it’s by design. Those that are “transcended” are hidden among not only Japanese society but also other societies. If you actually got the culturally protected and hidden benefits of the Japanese people, and some of their old ways, or some of their most sacred practices, you would understand from a top-down and a bottom-up perspective why it’s so well-protected in the first place. The fault is cynicism. Not even most of the Japanese people have “access” to these hidden practices, ways, and tools. It’s the same for China. I’m a proponent for healthy change and blind optimism, while navigating the conflict of honoring tradition (not wholly subverting the culture at its roots). It is a very long and arduous road... the worst thing we can do is take shortcuts. The not-so-bad route to take is to give up entirely... rendering all prior efforts null.
Compared to the more "professional" way that Matt presents himself nowadays, it's kind of refreshing to listen to such an unfiltered version of Matt describing his language learning process.
There were times during the video where i started dying laughing. Like when he just randomly calls the japanese that were at his uni retarded. It was so unexpected.
no way lmao, im at a decent point in my life and if you disregard his "biases" or the parts where he's just ranting there is a gold mine of information in this video, especially towards the middle to end point
@@zachsilva6201 im glad youre doing better bro. at some points i could understand needing to be in a place place to relate, especially from the beginning to around halfway through but i havent brought myself to watch that part yet
Yeah this video is a bit of a wake up call. It makes you think about why you want to learn japanese (presumably your target language). But if you can get over the existential plea in the beginning to contemplate your life choices, or better yet skip to the middle, then it still seems like he has some pretty good advise.
This is the longest video I've ever watched on RU-vid. I enjoyed it very much. This is so raw and speaks from the heart. This got me think a lot about my own language learning journey and my life as a whole. I've MASSIVE respect and admiration for you. Your dedication and commitment are crazy. Attempting to learn Mandarin for the sake of Japanese is unbelievably dedicated. You gotta realize that your L1 is English and L2 is Japanese. Your L2 will never be L1. I don’t mean that your L2 can’t be as good as your L1 but you were too harsh on yourself and this perfectionism almost killed your enthusiasm for the Japanese language.
I still respect Matt, but a lot of his story was pretty arrogant. He said it was just a phase he grew out of, but the later part of his story he keeps talking about how great he is and how bad everyone else is (Americans and Japanese). Like yea, I'll give him pushing his study methods, but his past self sounds like a total asshole even if its just thoughts he had in his head. He sounds kinda proud of it too...
@@SpencerLemay It didn't matter if he was the best Japanese speaker in the block. What mattered was his personality. Japanese people are very humble in everything they do and they shame people for acting differently, and in this case, showing arrogance.
Spencer Lemay you can be good at something, confident, and still be humble about it. So yeah it is arrogance. 🤷🏼♀️ Buuuht yeeeh... still gotta respect the man for the dedication. Don’t have to like the attitude but gotta respect the method 😂
my god.....i've been binging your videos for the past 2 days (oops) and my mind is just entirely blown...I can't express my gratitude afflskj i'm not even joking!!! i can't believe I've been studying the wrong way for three entire years!!!!! the things i could've achieved in that time if Ihad done AJATT!!???? i'm so glad i found your channel, i owned RTK (the first book) since my first year but I thought it wasn't a good book bc it didn't give the readings of the kanji etc so I never used it...now i realise how ignorant i was. I taught myself english purely by listening to it..not even speaking it. i've never realised that that's how I became fluent in this language. I'm just so shocked at all of this knowkedge i'm suddenly receiving about methods of language learning and i'm truly just utterly fucking goddamn speechless. Thank you so so much for actually giving me a goal in life jkdflk i just....wow. Thank you. I know what I'm going to do from now on :)
Hey you, you're finally awake you should watch stranger things it’s a great show but it is only on Netflix but it is very interesting I’m a native English speaker so I don’t know if it’s good for Learning English but I enjoy the show
This video made me realise how i learned English by using ajatt stuff unconsciously. I sucked at english during middle school, awful grades and shit, and around that time I got my first computer and internet access. I started playing an online game that was only in English, so I had to start reading and interacting with other players mostly in English with my very very awful English i had at the time. Gradually I started to get better at it, just because I spent most of my free time playing and interacting in English. At some point I got an acceptable level of written English, but my listening was awful because all my input was written, barely any listening. So, again without knowing about ajatt or anything, I started to follow and see videos from popular English RU-vidrs at the time like Smosh or PewDiePie because at the time the RU-vid content on my main language wasn't that interesting. I had a lot of trouble at the beginning understanding most things but without being conscious I started to get better and better, to the point now that I'm able to watch this video at x2 speed and have no issues understanding at all. In fact i wasn't able to practice my speaking skills until I moved to Ireland, 5 years after I started consuming most of my content in English, and I was able to understand and speak right away. Of course my accent was terrible and there where tons of words that I didn't know how to pronounce properly because I've only seen them in written form. I'm still getting better at that part tho. Now I'm preparing to consciously repeat the process for Japanese, because I've experienced by myself that it actually works. Just wanted to share my experience to confirm that this method works, and is valid for any language that you want to learn
I was writing a separate comment but decided to reply to you because I'm exactly in the same boat... My opinion is that you know you've become truly good at a language when understanding it doesn't feel like a big achievement. This is what happened to me with English and it's so fucking weird. Knowing English in today's world is like being able to walk, it's the greatest toolbox worth having, it's the main language of the internet. I learned English between the ages 15 and 18 and my process was pretty much the same. I remember sucking so bad at English during all my school life, it was painful. At age 14 I had an internet connection for the first time and everything I consumed was pretty much in Spanish. Around that time I started to watch a lot of American TV shows and movies, but always with Spanish subs. So what happened was, many shows I was watching (that were being aired at the time) didn't have subs available, and I just said "fuck it, I'll watch 'em raw then". Little did I know, I was AJATT-ing myself without knowing. Combine that with hours upon hours of online gaming, reddit, 9gag, 4chan, and let's not forget all the RU-vid content ranging from Vsauce, Veritasium, Filthy Frank, Key and Peele, Boyinaband, H3H3, Jackfilms, Jordan Peterson talks, TedX talks, I mean there are so fucking many I can't list them all here... At some point around age 16 (almost 17) something just clicked. I had never actually practiced speaking English with anyone on a daily basis and I found myself being able to understand so many things, it really shocked me. It felt as if someone had injected me with the English serum. From that point I still had a lot to learn, but the main structure of the English language, its inner workings, were already cemented in my head. Fast forward 6 more years into the future and I may occasionally learn a new phrase or word... like recently I learned that: ''not playing with a full deck" is a slang for being "mentally ill". And the funny thing is, I understood that phrase without even looking it up, but just did it anyway to double check it. Regarding Japanese, I also started it around 14, because of anime ofc. But it never occurred to me to just say ''fuck it'' and immerse myself. Instead I watched lesson upon lesson, treated it as something unrelated to my life, as ''study'', and now I can clearly see that that was the main problem. I got to learn many grammar points, and what good did that do? Absolutely nothing. I'm now going into my second month of AJATT. It has been really hard to find material that I'm actually interested in watching/reading but I'm getting there. I can already see how many words and phrases just keep popping up and I can't help but notice them over and over. I can notice words I already know even if the person is talking quite fast which is really nice. And just to finish up... immersing in Japanese has showed me that my brain really feels "safe" thinking in English (WHICH ISN'T EVEN MY FIRST LANGUAGE WTF). I've wasted about an hour writing this instead of AJATT-ing... AAAHHH くそ！！！！今から日本人だ！！外人やない、日本人だ！！！！！
i watched this a second time lol and i kinda understand your trap now. you wanted to be perfect in every aspect, and every time you encountered something that little thing that didnt make you perfect or set you apart that would bother you to death. i really respect your striving to perfection work ethic but by embracing perfection as a goal you kinda shoot yourself in the foot. i think having peace with the level you had once you realized you were insanely fluent and just stopped then wouldve done you better.
I totally agree with you. "Being good at Japanese" was such a big part of my identity that it caused me to suffer each time my lack of perfection was revealed. Now that I don't identity with my Japanese ability at all, there is no pain in those moments where I don't understand something or find something that I don't know, like there used to be. In fact, this "not giving a fuck"ness actually makes me a more effective learner: I spend much less time feeling bad and getting caught up in little unimportant aspects. Also all the things I hate about Japan used to really piss me off since, "I chose Japan" and "I put so much time and effort into Japanese", so when I didn't like what I paid for, I felt ripped off. Basically I was identifying with Japan as well, which I have also stopped completely. Now I can interact with Japanese suffer free, which is really quite nice, since after all I do have quite a rare ability (although my contact is no where close to "all the time" anymore). That said, I doubt I would have ever have been able to get as good as I am without all of that identification and suffering.
Its funny that you said as a AJATT-er we should feel guilty for listening to you speak english for 3 hours cause a little under 2 hours in i was thinking "damn, i really should be listening to japanese right now" but im glad i didnt just cut you off cause ive definitely learned a few xtra tips from you and your experience that'll really kickstart my own AJATT experience! Thanks for sharing man
This video is the ultimate struggle for people beginning AJATT, imo. On one hand, I know enough about AJATT to know that I should be watching something in Japanese instead, while on the other hand, I don't know enough about AJATT to know what I should actually be doing.😂
@@chopperman2122 lmaoo for sure! Definitely a good step if youre feeling lost lol get a push in the right direction. In a perfect world, this video would be the last 3 hours of english you listen to lmao
@@jon9428 i admittedly dont actively listen as much as i should, but i do read quite often (basically everyday) and i find myself recognizing more and more words in my passive listening. Its slow but its definitely coming along nicely and im okay with the slow pace lol
This video is the most helpful ressource I've found in over 2 years of language learning. I've watched all 3 hours twice now. Japanese isn't even my target language. Thank you Matt
I’m about 1.5 hours in right now and this was really nice and refreshing. Like sitting with a friend who’s walking you through their experience & articulating things for you. Thank you for the honesty
Watched the whole bloody thing and enjoyed every second of it. Matt, you are such a wholesome human being, I can't help but love you and your amazing life story. P.S.: Added 'equanimity' to my AEATT Anki deck.
I just wanna say that I appreciate the rawness of this content! A lot of people wouldn't talk about the truth of the overall experience acquiring a language as an outsider
Not sure if you're gonna read this but, if you wanna have Japanese friends that are chill to hang out with, you're gonna need to hang out with the "Yankees" or more Western oriented Japanese guys. They're more open to cultural differences and don't suffer from the "archetypal" social structure rules you mentioned. I have very cool Japanese friends that are like you and me. Very deep and interesting video, btw, you're very honest and objectively analytical about your own feelings and shortcomings.
I don't know how I got here...but when I heard you say that your personality changes when you switch languages it reminded me: there are studies that show that *anyone who speaks multiple languages* has a different personality associated with each language. Something about the acquisition of language & cultural connections doing neural rewiring.
i left my chromebook playing last night and woke up to this video playing! I ended up listening to it all the way through! actually excellent! I'll watch the next one now
Thank you man for taking the time to make this, the intermediate blues are hard, but this just gave me a better perspective/mindset to keep on fighting.
Matt this video is such a treasure for the language learners like us! Please make more videos like this where you just talking from your heart! I learned Mandarin to a very good level and still learning! A lot of things you talked about I could relate! I watched the whole video and really enjoyed it!
Just wanted to thank you for this video! I watched large parts of it - I'm actually currently studying at Meiji University and am an absolute beginner and have been trying to make videos to practice and get better at speaking (terribly), and I've just known that I've not been doing the right thing to learn. What you said about there only being "one true way" to say things really blew my mind, really helped me understand what I was feeling regarding the barrier of being able to practice speaking. Also, I've had similar feelings about realizing I'll never fully fit in here. I want to learn Japanese, and know that it only is useful if I know it well, but I also know that it won't be my entire life and I don't plan on living here. Somehow that realisation has allowed me to relax and just have fun with it more. Now, on to RTK... :)
Hey Matt, I know I'm 3 years late to the party, but I wanted to thank you for making this video and leaving it up. I've been learning Mandarin for over a year now, and while I have made significant progress, I'm still struggling. Obsession, perfectionism, and other issues get in the way. Your story was surprisingly relatable and gave me a better understanding of things. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you sharing this with us. Thanks.
I actually knew about AJATT already, not because of the blog though. English is not my first language. Here it is being taught at a pretty high level. When I had to go to secondary school I was sceptical myself about language learning át school. But we have these bilingual schools here, where about 80% of the subjects are taught in English. The other 20% were actually subjects like German, French and Dutch (my mother language) since it wouldn't make sense to learn them from English. Even subjects like physical education and art were taught in English. The teachers all were required to have a certain English degree (though that doesn't say much) or they have to have lived in the country. But there was the mistake, because my geography teacher didn't have a certain English degree but she did live for 10 years in America. So her English sucked pretty bad. But she was the only one. My English teacher was amazing. She was like the AJATT goddess. She told us to read a book everyday, don't use subtitles on movies and TV shows. Don't translate words to your mother's language, but try to explain them in the language itself. That was also what her tests were like, ONLY in English. And she said, if you want to get good, at a native's level, immerse, talk English in the corridors talk English at home, keep an English diary. Most of her lessons also didn't contain boring grammar subjects but she just talked, told stories and tried to make us engage in the conversation. She was really amazing. The only thing that most schools do that she did was hammering the irregular verbs, because that's just something you should know. After 3 weeks, I would even THINK in English and now I know certain words only in English. But yeah, I knew all of that but still, I didn't know that that would work for Japanese. For some reason I thought it wouldn't. And it's so stupid because I already learned a language this way, so why wouldn't it? After two years I had to move to another city, there was no bilingual school there and it sucked. There is something about a bilingual school that makes you feel a connection with other kids, because there's one thing you all have in common. At a regular school you all have something different. But this bilingual stuff really bonded you. And the children were like ten times more motivated. I've seen other Dutch people in my class, who SUCK at English. And why? The English lessons are in DUTCH (like wtf), the tests are in Dutch, they have to literally translate stuff. It's awful. My marks for English dropped enormously, just because I didn't know most meanings in Dutch. Like, we won't become interpreters, we just want to become a speaker, we want to become English. But most kids also just don't have the motivation to get good at the language. They just say, I don't understand, I will never understand. And how fast do they even talk? And I'm like bruh, if you just paid a little bit more attention, you would understand them. But they won't because they're lazy. But now I fully understand the power of AJATT. I'm not fluent in English yet. But I know it's possible. Probably if I had put more effort in AEATT (that just doesn't look right) then I would've been. Well, that was way too long of a comment. But that's just what I wanted to tell. Some schools and teachers don't suck, but most do 😑
Marloes Oosterhoff i learned english and french the same way. Jammer genoeg doet mijn school wel gewone Engels lessen (dus het gemiddelde niveau is pittig laag). Maar ik heb geleerd door zonder het te weten AETT te doen. Door gewoon Minecraft RU-vid filmpjes te kijken sinds ik 8 was. En mijn Frans lessen op school zijn 100% Frans al sinds de eerste les. Dus ook gewoon AFATT. Dus ik geloof er wel in. Maar dat wel allemaal talen die dicht bij elkaar liggen dus we zullen wel zien hoe het zal gaan voor mijn Japans.
me too. other than enjoying philosophy i only really got a sense of identity in highschool out of being impressive at english. the past last year i've been going at japanese. i only really listen to music, watch asmr and watch interviews. unfortunately japan seems to lack things like analysis channels mostly. I'm not into anime anymore either pretty much. edit: oh cool I see you also watch some korean stuff. my discord is: BlackJoe23 #4518 if you wanna talk about language passion things. Seems like bilingual school would've been cool. I'd have joined cambridge at school if not for heavier translation tests that i didnt bother studying for. also this song is currently stuck in my head: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1zHqS789tYE.html
Same here. I'm not a native speaker either and I view my English as being pretty much just as good as my native language. I'm 17 right now and I started to watch youtube in English when I was 9. I was essentially AJATT:ing without even knowing it and 8 years later, it really does work. It's unfortunate that more people haven't caught on yet and are wasting their time studying grammatical rules and vocabulary, when all it would take for them to become proficient is to sit down and watch a movie.
Ik heb nooit echt een probleem met engels gehad, kon het rond mijn 13e al redelijk vloeiend, Duits was het probleem.. ik haat de taal en wil het ook niet leren
Thanks for posting such an in-depth experience and overview of AJATT! Your own additions and cautions from experience make perfect sense, even though I am still at the very beginning of my own AJATT journey. I feel your pain with respect to getting to where you had once thought would be your destination and realizing that it isn’t. I hope you have since really found where you want to be - it’s an ongoing process. Thank you again for providing what feels like a really good trail-guide for this multi-year hike. You’ve got me looking forward to the changes in the scenery - even the boring ones. :P
Awesome video man! I am a beginner, dabling in every method there is trying to find the best use of my time, I always come back to the ajatt basics. I'm learning the kanji now and ya it's tough but it's the key to being able to put in the work of translating what i see, say on the news or something. Thanks again for your uploads!
Man, coming to this video after discovering the immersion method of language learning and watching all of your latest videos and interviews on other channels. Its really night and day, you seem so much happier now and I hope you're truly feeling that way too these days. Although I love how raw this is. This video is super interesting, I feel like this could've been me when I was a lot younger had I not come across some very unfortunate facts about Japan and the culture. Early on I saw Japan through the lens of anime and cute j-fashion, and totally believed it was some magical cute wacky wonderland. Though, eventually getting deeper into the roots of Tokyo street fashion and hearing anecdotes about societal issues and the history of the country really made it clear that Japan was just another developed country. Like, I've probably watched every "10 things about Japanese culture that suck!!!" video on yt. For example their treatment of Australian prisoners of war during WW2 that most Aussies should have learned about in school - it wasn't very kawaii desu. Although, the one that still gets is the story of my boyfriend's cousin's wife who's Japanese. She grew up in a small rural town, and was sort of like a star child and would go to a great university and become a doctor etc. or something like that (idk I got this part of the story second hand). Feeling trapped and wanting to leave to go do something else, she came here (to Australia) and for that she became a total disgrace to her family, her parents completely exiled her and they haven't spoken in well over 10 years and act like she doesn't exist. They apparently won't even mention they have a daughter. I've met her a couple times and she really hates a lot about Japanese culture and doesn't even like talking about the place, let alone her past. So yeah, hearing that was extremely eye opening - that a native Japanese person could hate their home country just like many weebs hate theirs too. Anyway, really appreciate all your content, it's been very inspiring! Despite some of my clarity about Japan, there are still a lot of things I love about the country and language, and have loved travelling there. It would be nice to be able to learn to a higher level for when I go again, even just so I understand all the rides and shows at Tokyo Disney lmao.
I've spent many years inefficiently studying Japanese, and I've spent just over a year total living in Japan struggling with slow progress but only recently realized the input method, somewhat on accident, really made a shift in my learning. I put myself in situations purposely where people didn't know English, like in the countryside, and forced myself to just accept that I didn't know what was going on at all times. Then I tried to switch to only Japanese on my phone, tv shows, etc. I was getting kind of discouraged because it was indeed boring sitting through hours and hours (and hours) of native media listening to and reading Japanese subtitles, and I was questioning if it was actually doing anything because at my university I'm still not acing every Japanese test. That being said I had a feeling that it was important and I was looking for a reason to keep doing it. I didn't want to just study the textbook for the sake of acing tests but not feeling the improvement in Japanese comprehension. Maybe you won't see this comment but this video just gave me that wake up call and helped me more than I can ever explain. I'm going to keep trying to avoid the gaijin bubble and focus on native input. I'm really happy that I found an explanation and a method that I can look to for direction instead of feeling like I'm just a weirdo watching Japanese stuff I don't understand yet. Thank you for your personal story too, I can really relate to the feeling of escapism and how hard it is to go to high school here. I wasn't depressed on my high school exchange but it was definitely one of the hardest things I've ever done.
@@sanglish18 Oh wow I can't believe how much this takes me back! I forgot I had commented on this. I'm happy to say that the AJATT method worked and I am conversationally/business level fluent and just took n2 for the second time, I failed by just a few points in December but this time in July I felt good about it. I'm reading light Japanese novels and my ability to write kanji has improved dramatically from RTK anki decks. Listening and speaking is easy and I have several monolingual Japanese speaking friends that I see regularly. Pretty much all I watch for entertainment or read is in Japanese for the past year. Feels great! My next mountain to climb is n1~
@@Mizuki_ Oh I'm so happy for you! Most people don't seem to reply again so I was a bit supreised! I've started doing intense immersion recently mostly because that's how I magically learn English lol (I always did since I started Japanese but not so focused), so I'm glad that it worked out for you, when I'm watching content I'm always worried if I'm not progressing since there are lots of words I don't understand, but I hope that it works out, your comment will certainly serve as an incentive!.
YOU ARE CRAZY. I just started learning Japanese and I'm glad I found your channel. You help me a lot to keep going and be motivated. You got another subscriber.
This is a great vid! Watched all of it ! Learned about ajatt and thought about many ways you can apply it and not just learning language. You Rock Matt, thanks for sharing your knowledge.
31:40 ish when you're talking about perfecting the formula, it's crazy how much I can relate to that. Looking forward to finishing the rest of the video xD
It sounds like your host mom was actually rather nice. The family was "poor" and yet she still offered to take you to see places on the weekends. Sure, she may have given you leftovers for your bento, but to me it sounds like she was doing her best. I know you have likely reflected on that, but I just wanted to leave a comment about it. Have a nice day. :)
When I think about it, you’ve probably saved people like myself a lot of money. A lot of people were familiar with immersion and know from experience with other languages that it’s the best way to reach native-like fluency in other languages. BUT most of us would’ve gone to whatever country to immerse in the language and culture. Instead, we can just take your advice, use the internet to immerse, and maybe throw you some patreon money for the valuable content and all the money you’ve saved us.
Hi Matt, I'm also fluent in Japanese. I started learning in 2013 and while I didn't specifically use AJATT, a lot of what I did was very similar and I based most of my study methods on Stephen Krashen's lectures. I think one of the reasons I had so much success with Japanese was because of all the material / media there is (specifically anime). I've been wanting to take up a third language for a couple years now but the wall I'm running into is that I can't find the same sort of resources I had when I learned Japanese. Do you have any recommendations for other languages?
1:15:50 do you think this is something specific for japanese or languages in general that have a grammar structure that differs significantly from your native language or does it have to do with what age you start learning the language at? English is my second language but i dont notice anything like that at all. When i speak english i can say pretty much anything that comes to my mind without having to think about it at all and it doesnt feel any different from when im speaking my native language.
Man, I relate to so much of what you're talking about in this video. "I didn't like the most archetypal Japanese person". I have also realized over time that what I love is the Japanese language itself and improving my ability to speak it, not so much the Japanese people, let alone (work)life in Japan.
@@bygaming3518 I know what you mean. I began studying in 2011, and I am already in this deep, there is no way I'm letting all of that go to waste, after all I do love the language. Even though I'm not in Japan anymore right now, I maintain close contact with (the few) true Japanese friends I have and I study actively every day, but I now feel much more detached from the whole Japan experience and am looking for other ways to make good use of my knowledge. I do translation and interpreting jobs, I enjoy all sorts of media in Japanese, and I have multiple ideas for future youtube content revolving around Japanese and my experience in Japan. Matt's been a great influence and inspiration.
Thank you for making this available. The honesty is much appreciated. The obvious answer is that It is wise to have your identity resolved before immersing in another culture. Even if you are impressed by their ways, you are still you and they are them.
Your story is very relatable to me. Me too I got to a "near native" level but at some point it started to down on me that I didn't particularly like their culture or their mentality. These days I can rarely enjoy a J drama or truly get anything special from reading a Japanese novel. I've had Japanese friends over the years, but none of them was a true friend. I'd simply regurgitate some learned patters in order to fit in with their way of communicating. But I never sincerely shared their outlook on life nor felt truly concerned by what mattered to them.
I had a really weird feeling while watching this video. You are a really particular character and you both excite me and scare me at the same time. I was always drawn to Japanese culture since I was a kid, not so much because of anime (never used to watch them that much) but mostly because of their nature and weird culture. I took a trip to Japan 2 years ago and I had learned hiragana, katakana and a few phrases about a month before my trip and it really helped me a lot even though I couldn't really communicate that well. I've wanted to learn the language from a really young age but after realising how difficult it is I kinda gave up. At the end of the day I was never planning to fully learn the language or move there I just thought it was cool to be able and have basic conversation and understanding (and I still do). I admire this full immersion approach but you really need to be extremely motivated and basically have zero social life which is something I could never do at this stage of my life. However, I am really stubborn and if I had put my mind into it while I was younger I could (probably) do it. Now it's probably impossible simply because my native language is Greek, I've lived in UK for 5 years and I speak to my wife in English, live in Italy for the last 5 years and I speak Italian (and I have a kid, which takes most of your time (not finding excuses, it's just a fact). I am reading now and then remembering the kanji simply to try and memorise a few characters but I am not planning to ever learn it in that level. However, as I said it's really interesting seeing people choosing this approach and seeing how far they can go. I am interested in learning the basic 2000 kanji at my own pace and possibly get some easy novels to try and practice in the near future. So if by any chance you could suggest any beginner's level novel I would appreciate it.
Great video Matt. It's really good to hear about your experiences with AJATT, I think it will empower many current AJATTers to work harder and power through. Btw, if you every make any more videos after this recent batch in the future, would you consider making a video about how to think in a different language? Because in my opinion, it is one of the most difficult aspects of learning any foreign language when you're starting out.
When you are starting out, you shouldn't be trying to think in the language. That would be no different than forcing output, which you should know leads to no good. Once you are immersing enough and understanding that immersion, you will start to find yourself thinking in the language naturally. It shouldn't require any effort, and therefore shouldn't be difficult at all.
This video was instrumental for my Japanese journey. This is the video that convinced me to take immersion seriously. Best decision I made for my Japanese! I started in 2020, and it's been 3 years, so did it work? もちろんです！私の日本語はまだまだですけど、3年前からずいぶんと上達しましたよ！！ I am not very good at speaking or writing yet, so my output probably sounds bad. However, I can fake my way through a conversation, I can sometimes understand 90% of what I hear in anime and I now read light novels and manga. It's made the difference between being crippled with broken limbs, and being able to go to the gym and work out to become stronger. I now know it works, and I can continue to increase the gains any time. I have tangible ability and a study routine that far, far, far exceeds most of the poor souls who exited school with nothing. I don't use textbooks much, I just study media/immerse. I have a flashcard deck I made myself, I programmed every card to make a sentence and word card, and I study for the meaning from one sentence, pitch accent and kanji all at once. I can recall so much information by assigning custom characters to the primitives, and texturing the words with stories that suggest the pitch and meaning. So, 別れる is nakadaka, and I have an image of someone having his head swiped off in a circular pattern, separating it from the torso. わ➚かれ➘る 額縁 is heiban, and I have one anime character throwing a paper airplaine from her house to her school, hitting the top of a picture frame, getting stuck, on the wall of her club room. 学 がく school, 部 ぶ club, and I just remember the last sound intuitively. が➚くぶち 気分 I have a piece of someone's feelings on the ground き➘ぶん。 And for odaka I imagine something falling. So I have someone falling in a deceptive hole for 村, む➚ら➘〇 to symbolize the sudden drop at the end. And for similar words like 平気 I can imagine someone standing up へ➚いき, because they're well, vs. 兵器 へ➘いき, a weapon on the ground. This information does not become cumbersome in reviewing Anki, and allows me to rebuild words if I don't immediately remember them. I fail maybe 2-3 cards a day, and mostly intuitively remember most of them. If I fail it multiple times, I make an mnemonic like these I listed. It's like compressing the information, it's really easy. And yeah, I have a lot to be grateful for with this video. The one day where I'll be fluent is not really on my mind because I've fallen in love with this routine. I also love having a practical reason to rewatch my favorite anime/reread my favorite literature over and over again. One day I'll have an absurd sense for these shows/books, and I already shock people with how accurately I remember Lucky Star. Anyway, I'm headed back to finish my Anki for today and read some 日溜まりの街、so thank you, Matt. Really important video. I hope to one day teach my process for remembering pitch, because I personally think I have an above-average memory for it with the method I described. Thanks again! PS: If I could give anyone one piece of advice for listening immersion it's this: Turn off your brain, stop translating in your head, just follow the story and let the words flow. They're not going anywhere.
I only watched this after watching some of your other content. But had I watched this as my first video on your channel, I would have thought some of your views as extreme. But I now understand more of your philosophy on languages.
Hi Matt, great video! If you would be so kind, I have a couple of questions. Regarding pitch accent: for someone who has quite a large repository of cards built up, do you recommend just adding pitch accent numbers to any new cards I create, and patch up some of the more common words I encounter in my reviews of old cards. Also, is it enough to just read, understand, and be aware of the pitch accent number so I can pick up on it during listening immersion. Or should I be reading my sentences aloud, emulating the pitch accent as best I can. Any other advice regarding studying pitch accent would be super helpful. Last question, as a staunch follower of the AJATT method, I find it curious that you recommend against reading your SRS aloud, as that is one of the 4 things AJATT says you should be doing; reading the card aloud in full, comprehending the whole sentence, understanding words individually, writing out forgotten parts of sentences, and A direct quote for reference: " if you cannot do any one of these 4 things, then you have not learned the sentence." Correct me if I'm wrong, but I am under the impression that you support shadowing/reading out loud only AFTER perfecting your listening ability, which contrasts with Khatz view somewhat. www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/no-one-will-ever-love-you-again/ www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/10000-sentences-how/ In hindsight, do you refute any of the statements above. Note, don't misconstrue this as any kind of criticism. Your recent statements have merely piqued my curiosity. It's completely normal to have some differing opinions to your 'teacher' after reaching mastery. Compounding on that, are there any other points of difference you have with the original (prior to MCD, sellout stuff) AJATT method post fluency? Sorry for the long-winded comment. Thanks a lot! Your expertise and mentorship are greatly appreciated.
No need to go back and edit old cards. Those common words will come up again in new cards, so you can learn their pitch accents then. I learned the pitch accent for most words from just looking up accents while reading and listening. I would reference Chinese learners when it comes to dealing with acquiring pitch accent, since successful Chinese leaners get to a point where they use correct tones effortlessly. I think it’s mostly just learning the pitch accent of the words you know, and then paying extra attention to them while listening to see how they actually play out. If you are going to read your sentences out loud, then yea, I wouldn’t get anal about it but you might as well try to get the accents right. Remember, it’s important to not take any of AJATT as dogma. I’m not saying that shadowing and reading out loud early on will be harmful, I am just saying that they aren’t likely to be helpful in terms of improving your accent. Like I explain in the newest video on my channel, the problem with accent acquisition is not the tongue but the ear. If you haven’t internalized an accurate model of how the Japanese language is supposed to sound, including pronunciation, accent, and intonation, then you will be like a blind man trying to paint a portrait when it comes to trying to sound like a native. Beginners in the language are literally “blind”: they can’t even properly hear all the subtleties of pronunciation, accent, and intonation. The entire premise of shadowing is that you will actually HEAR the discrepancy between your voice and the recording, allowing you to adjust accordingly, so you can see why doing this as a beginner doesn’t make much sense. I don’t think Khatz actually did very much shadowing during his early Japanese years; it’s one of the things he added on after, once it was “a thing” within the language learning community. "if you cannot do any one of these 4 things, then you have not learned the sentence."…. Yes, you should BE ABLE to read the card out loud for sure. All that means is that you should know the reading of each word in the sentence. As beginner, your pronunciation, accent, and intonation are guaranteed to suck, and because the “internal model of how the Japanese language is supposed to sound” is lacking, no improvement will be able to be made in that area just by practicing reading things out loud. On the other hand, it most likely won’t be too harmful either because any accent quirks will straighten themselves out naturally later once the “internal model” is updated through input. Separate from accent, reading your sentences out loud might help you internalize the content of cards, which is most likely why Khatz recommended it. I never said you shouldn’t do this while reviewing, all I said was that as a beginner, taking specific time out just to practice read books out loud will be mostly a waste of time. Khatz never worried about pitch accents, but he seems to have a natural knack for accents in general (not to mention that his accent is not completely perfect). Most Japanese learners have a shitty accent, where as many Chinese learners who pay conscious attention to tones have very impressive accents, which is why I think people should pay attention to pitch accents from early on. Other things I disagree with: I have always thought that listening to music in your L2 is mostly a waste of time, as most people won’t actually listen to the lyrics and music sounds nothing like real speech. Your time is better spent listening to actual speech in the language. Also, I think that learning basic grammar at the beginning is useful. Not because it helps you output, but because it helps you comprehend input.
Thanks for the advice on pitch accent. I won't continue adding them to old cards. But I will add them to new cards since it's no extra effort. I've also noticed that since I've started to understand them, you automatically generate the pitch in your head. Like with (0) pitch, you know it's a gentle low pitch start with a gentle rise the whole way through. Or with (1) pitch you start out high and drop the pitch substantially on the second mora. It becomes effortless, so to speak. I managed to develop this ability in mere days, just by choosing a few different pitch words and writing out their pitches and their illustration (drawing the pitch curve with a line). Definitely worth the little effort required. I've also noticed I'm picking up on pitch accent when I immerse now (perhaps because I'm actually fucking aware of it?). I am so damn glad you made that video on pitch accent, you legend. OK, it appears I merely misinterpreted/missed some of the nuance in your previous statements. I now realise that you meant they are inefficient uses of time, with little gains early on, and don't really benefit correct output, pitch accent or intonation as much as awareness and concentration with active listening immersion(on reading out loud/shadowing). I realise that you actually see value of reading SRS outloud as a way to remember readings and reinforce your memory of the comprehension. Cheers for clearing that up Hehe, I've tried to avoid that kind of dogmatic thinking regarding the 'cultish' aspects of AJATT by remaining as pragmatic as possible, i.e. asking successful and awesome guys like you to clarify. Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, I can't express my gratitude enough through words (lest attempt to through a youtube comment). Your knowledge, rationalisation, and illustration of Japanese acquisition methods are unprecedented amongst the language learning community. I just want you to know you are actually making a difference. Even if your reach isn't the same as some of the more... questionable sources. *cough* fluent in three months. PS. if you delete your videos again, I will cry.
Right now I am doing RTK properly (got the book lol) since I started out with lazy kanji, rtk lite, and kanji in context which never really sticked in my brain well... so I was wondering if during your "redo Kanji" phase did you halt your sentence mining as well?
no i didn't halt sentence mining, but by that point i was already fluent and "knew" the kanji very well in terms of recognizing them, reading them, and knowing their meaning. plus I was only doing new 10 kanji a day
I love this video! Watched the whole thing in one sitting! I’ve started RTK with Anki and then i came across your video. You mentioned RTK and Tae Kim but not any course books (like minna no nihongo or genki) so do you not think they are worth it? If you had to do it all again would you even consider going through them?
The issue with textbooks and classes (in anything: language learning, drawing, programming, math, etc.) is that, even though they teach some extremely essential information, they usually just give you a few basic examples of each thing that should be enough for you to do the assignments provided in them, but they're not really enough for you to actually make something yourself. You can go through the entirety of Minna no Nihongo, and be able to order food at a restaurant, ask for train tickets, or have a 30 second chitchat about today's weather, but even trying to talk to a native Japanese speaker about what your life is like, or how you feel might just be slightly out of range, let alone reading novels or writing essays. Likewise, you won't become Michelangelo just by reading some book on the basics of drawing and painting, and making a few paintings of naked men and fruit bowls, but maybe you might get there one day after 10 years of daily practice with a variety of objects, constantly trying to improve both by imitating techniques used by great artists and by coming up with your own tricks.
Wow, long video, haha. Cool to hear your experience. Thanks for sharing. One question, maybe you explained this, but I'm wondering about pitch. You mentioned something about there being 3 pitches? Wondering how to look up pitch info for words or sentences. Thanks!
Maybe you mean that your overall accent is created from the three components of pronunciation, pitch accent, and intonation. The weblio 三省堂大辞林 online dictionary has the pitch accent for every word. あい-さつ[1] 【挨拶】; 1 = pitch accent. You will have to do your own research to learn how those numbers correspond to how hey are pronounced.
hey matt! im 15 right now, and i’ve been planning to do the EXACT same shit you did at this age (before ive seen this video) but when i go to japan for a year, do you recommend I stay for the year, or do i sign up for only 6 months?
I did watch it all, man. Thanks for bringing the videos back. Had your channel open in a tab for a month wondering what happened. Hope you don't mind that I even downloaded some of them now for quick reference. I finished the table of contents a while ago, and have a decent number of my daily things set to Japanese, but I'm not starting immersion or RTK until my house is sorted out. Hopefully won't take long. I'm kinda worried about how I'd balance it if I get a job, since that means it'd just take longer. And that just means longer before I have really achieve something important to me. But my savings can probably hold me for a while. Thanks for that bit on grammar by the way. I felt guilty with my current knowledge since I've attempt a little of other things. Basic particles, most tenses, about 200 kanji and multiple words for each one. Weird day number jukugos, etc. And it wasn't that they were bad, or that I didn't enjoy them, but I when I discovered AJATT I realised it'd have to be this, despite difficulty. I wanted to use a certain particle book even Khatz recommends one I started sentences, but I felt guilty because that didn't seem like really learning from "understanding before memorizing" or "learning grammar from context". But now I don't feel so bad, since you probably needed Tae Kim to really understand the basics. (Although I do wonder about how far things like BritvsJapan "knowing TE form without knowing it" can really get you) I actually really like the particle structure of Japanese, and the conjugations. Kinda makes me want to become a linguist. Although I won't be learning the language through literature describing it. Things like agglutinates have become really interesting lately. Sometimes I've experimenting with kind of "rewinding" and wondering how AJATT would've tackled certain tasks. Like there's certain forms that are like verbs made combined with another verb in a general sort of way (like how you can add IKU to verbs to mean a certain thing) that Jisho can straight up not recognise, or only takes note of one of the more common forms present (like masu or ta). And I just get concerned that if I didn't already know that's wrong then I'd just falsely take the base verb in whatever form Jisho said it was as the meaning. Experimented with the Japanese dictionaries too, and I don't think it keeps many entries for specific forms of a word because they don't matter if you know the dictionary form. Was mainly surprised I couldn't search 「よかった」on the Japanese to Japanese dictionaries because that seems like such an evolved ritualistic set phrase as to have gone beyond it's simple conjugation in meaning. I know enough that like with mnemonics, your understanding of even grammar structures or words in a language falls away slightly to how you see it used in the world. Which feels good. (Although you saying 「すごいだよ」isn't grammatical, it had me worried, since I'd probably make that mistake, and actually couldn't say why it's wrong...) Just from being able to listen in on things I currently watch with subs I get the real feeling of "A word means the word, not the translation", with a lot of "Ah, I get why they translated it like that". Like with the wide use of 「だめ」etc. You made the point of not noticing things until you know them, which is a bit of a blow to immersion, but of course it's noticeable in things like kanji and pitch accent. I'm a bit worried about rushing too hard to understand things. In some cases it's relieving to learn i+1 sentences are rare at first, because otherwise I might ask myself things like "Do I really understand this word? Am I doing myself a disservice from adding it to my deck after just recognising it once?". It's hard for me to judge what the beginning of AJATT does for you since I already have enough of a foothold in the language to catch words I know and hear when the verb is for instance, so I guess my kind of questions are a bit weird. I guess the grammar stuff handles a big one I was going to ask. And that was merely "What were your first sentences like?" i+1 usually means like one extra word, but I assume since your first sentences would've come from grammar guides themselves then at least those were something like memorizing a lot at first so you could i+1 later, since any first sentence will probably need multiple words and at least one particle. But I could see cheating that with a kana load word, like 「ぺん」 Similarly, since people speak in different ways to different people, and different people speak different ways as you said (some of which I know of course, although really only from formal explanations), was there noticeable gaps between the type of people you could understand? Or was it just rarer character archetypes that caused that? Thanks for the drop about pitch accent. Seen other people mention it. Will get on that hopefully around the time of the monolingual transition. I've got the same dictionaries you use. Do entries include the pitch number or will I need to do more research? You also did bring up a decent thing I wondered myself. I always got the impression that music wasn't really work. I mean I hear more and more of the words each time, but I could just be watching a series, so that guilt may get to me. I think the positives out of taking the lyrics as sentences is basically as good or worse than plain reading, with the disadvantage that you're not getting some normal hearing in. Knowing enough about "normal grammatical sentences" as I do, what with "verb ALWAYS comes at the end" that songs certainly get a bit more interpretive in Japanese. I dunno. I know that sometimes in natural speech they'll break it up to move things before the verb after it. Naturally, I am a worrier. And a bit of a quitter. So this matters to me. I'm going to use this experience to as you said, prove that I can accomplish something like this. I failed at things before because I never really had a plan, and couldn't enjoy the step by step. I certainly enjoy all the little victories so far, but I think if I had actually started with AJATT before realising the things I would end up liking about Japanese as a language I would've quit, so I'm quite mixed on regretting it. It's relieving that shows can be interesting for their educational value in this sense. I am concerned that with so many hours I will quickly run out of content I find engaging... But for better or worse I think I'm the type of person for this. I don't have any present commitments, and really want to prove to myself that I can have a skill. Since I left university I haven't actually hung out with friends, and now I wish that time could've been spent on this, or that I'd done in it university to make it the easiest to work around. But I was a different person then, so it's probably for the best. Days before AJATT have actually been hard because I can't find something to do. Emptying things out I don't need has been very helpful. I worry about finding something good in the mean time, but ultimately I think I'll be able to let it go. Lots of the things I like can be enjoyed in Japanese.
dude you are going to worry yourself to death. chill out. i read your essay but couldn't keep track of the specific questions. ask me what you want directly in a reply to this comment lol
Sorry. I don't blame you if this is too dense too. If it's too much of a hassle it's fine. I mean almost everyone else just did AJATT from literally nothing. Were your first sentences examples sentences from Tae Kim? Did you consciously learn particle usage from those sentences (either from the context of them or the explanations accompanying them)? Jisho can be quite dense in explaining particles so I was wondering whether you gave yourself a foundation in them. How much of that after the first sentences months of listening you'd done during the kanji phase was like "Duh", or "Oh that's what Desu means. I had a feeling"? Do you feel like you could refer to a dictionary too much, and end up "learning" something before giving your brain a chance to understand it, so you could unconsciously know it rather than refer to translations? AJATT gets really simple to me when I just reduce to always listening and then looking stuff up, but I wonder if my eagerness to look things up might miss out on the more subtle positives that only immersion will give. Do you think you actually learn much meaning from the kanji phase where you only listen, or just for listening comprehension and structure? Khatz mentions things like not knowing what the verb forms are, and the only grammar concept he uses consciously is transitive and intransitive, and that's only because it was so easy to understand when he looked it up. So it actually holds him back because he then knows to think about it. So I wouldn't want conscious studying to hold back what could be made more natural if I just avoided it until I understood, so it could become innate instead of a repeated explanation in my mind. If you couldn't understand a new grammar structure but knew all the words involved, did you just leave it and wait for immersion to make it more obvious, or did you use a grammar explanation right away if one could be easily found and used? Were there ever points where a verb showed up made of two verbs (but you didn't know it was obviously), where Jisho seems to not recognise that form as different from the base verb, and you made the mistake of blindly following it? Maybe assuming it was just a weird way to say the same thing? Did you have enough of an instinct to say "I don't think that's the same thing" and just drop it until you really knew what it was later? Did it take until you knew all the verbs separately to understand this? I'm also curious as how you managed to discern the meaning of potential forms like 読める for 読む, when Jisho can't recognise them. Or more complex ones. Did you learn tenses of verbs from context, or from some of the basic grammar you studied?
As you should know from the video lol, I took Japanese classes before I knew about AJATT so already knew about the basics of particles. When I went through Tae Kim when I first started sentences and read all of the explanations, and understood all of the grammatical concepts consciously. Like I say in the video, grammar knowledge is an excellent tool in making input comprehensible (although useless when outputting). Again, I already knew basic Japanese from classes when I first started kanji, so I had no moments like you describe. I wouldn’t worry about that though, just start listening so your brain will get better at parsing the language, and focus on kanji. After kanji, read Tae Kims guide and understand as much of the grammar as you want. You have to understand that all real acquisition happens unconsciously, separate from conscious knowledge. In many cases, like when making sentence cards, you first consciously “learn” the meaning of a word. Then the next time it comes up in your input, the “learning” you have done actually makes the input comprehensible, so that the actual acquisition can take place. This is why immersion is so important and flashcards alone get you nowhere; you will have acquired nothing. Other times you will get lucky and acquire things spontaneously without first learning. When you are doing look-ups, you are not focusing on actual immersion, so yea, spending too much time looking shit up is not good (also boring and neurotic). The listening you do in the kanji phase is mostly to gain parsing and processing abilities. This is crucial, because before you have these, acquisition is impossible. How could you be picking up the meaning of words when you can’t even tell them apart from each other? Consciously studying isn’t going to hold you back, I used to worry about that stuff too but I can tell you that it won’t be a problem. Of course too much is a waste of time and might encourage discursive thinking about language and bog you down, but Tae Kim’s guide should be the perfect amount. Think about it, would learning about English grammar get in the way of your ability to read and write? For me, I actually slowly forgot the grammar rules over time once I didn’t need them anymore. You forget whatever you don’t review. Once you stop needing the grammar, it naturally falls away. When I knew all of the words but couldn’t understand the grammar, I would try to look it up quickly, but if I didn’t find anything I would drop it right away. Spending too much time on things that are not i+1 is a trap. Many things I just waited until context made the meaning clear. Not sure what you mean about potential forms, they all mean the same thing, just add “can” in front. 読む= read, 読める= can read. 食べる=eat, 食べられる= can eat. I learned the basics of verb conjugation from Tae Kim. “Like there's certain forms that are like verbs made combined with another verb in a general sort of way (like how you can add IKU to verbs to mean a certain thing) that Jisho can straight up not recognize” There is nothing to “recognize”; that “add on verb” does the same exact thing every time. IKU makes the verb into a “going towards”. 走っていく= go run towards. You pick up on the patterns pretty early on, it’s not a problem. Any misunderstandings will sort themselves out naturally over time. “Similarly, since people speak in different ways to different people, and different people speak different ways as you said (some of which I know of course, although really only from formal explanations), was there noticeable gaps between the type of people you could understand? Or was it just rarer character archetypes that caused that? It was harder to understand old people who mumble and people who speak weird regional dialects. I’m fine with popular ones like kansai ben but weirds and rare ones are hard. For the most part everyone in real life talks the same way, plus or minus desu’s and masu’s. If you can understand anime than real life is easy. The 三省堂 スーパー大辞林 shows the pitch accent numbers. You will have to do your own research to find out how the numbers actually work though. Verbs don’t always come at the end… it quite common for them to be at the beginning and the middle, even in daily speech, and it’s perfectly grammatical. 走る犬がいる=there is a dog running. But yes, song lyrics are more like poems which are slightly less grammatical.
Thanks for the reassurance. I wonder how people without lessons got them. But surely it sorts itself out. The point about sentences is appreciated. They shouldn't be the end of understanding, just the beginning, allowing you to use them on later sentences from being reminded of them. You know what I actually knew about sentences like that with a dog, but I didn't really think of them as the verb being a different place because when it comes before a noun to describe it I always think of it as using it as an adjective. I was more thinking things like where people say things with verbs, then say the subject immediately after, after like a comma. Like saying somethings and then 君 or お前ら afterwards, to make it clear who or what they meant. Which is more common in songs etc. because you want to move around the location of objects for the sake of presentation.
When you were talking about thinking too hard to speak japanese, I can clarify. I know you might have figured this out 4 years later but just in case you haven't here goes. I think I am very qualified to say this since my native language is french (spoken at home) and my surroundings are mostly english outside of home. I could technically consider myself native at 2 languages. Nowadays, I think in english and not in french and have done so for a few years. What I noticed is that if I go long periods of time without speaking one or the other, I get cluncky and overthink and it comes out entirely unnatural. By now, I consider my english a lot better than my french. What I notice is, I have 0 issue speaking in french at school because I have always gone to a french school thus, the context of everything I learned is french, meaning I could actually convey what I'm thinking related to those subjects better. When speaking to friends, we talk about our hobbies, which I have always learned in english, meaning that when I try to speak in french about it (for any reason), it sounds terrible (as if I'm not even a native speaker). Since I consume most content in english, and probably always will, it will most likely always be my dominent language. If I were to spend a summer entirely consumed by french, and re learn all my hobbies in french, I could easily revert this and become as natural as I used to be when I was younger. You clearly recognized that you could become near native level if you actually spent a lot more time speaking, but the reason I'm posting this comment is that I want to help you clear your doubt (or anyone else reading who is going through something similar). I may be wrong since I was not an adult learning these two languages, but I do know what it's like to still have to improve despite being native. Even native people struggle on their own language, it's just that they don't worry about being perfect (that's why they are not uncomfortable like you are when tackling new subjects). I am honestly sometimes embarassed to speak in french just like you are afraid to mess up in japanese, explaining why you spend 20% of your brain power on not messing up. I do the same in my NATIVE LANGUAGE, I overthink and it comes out less natural. I have that same aching feeling of why the fuck is it so hard when I know so much of the language. All this is just to say that if you really did go live in Japan, it would go away, I could almost guarantee it, if it does not, it's most likely your mind playing games on itself because subconsciously you may not accept any small mistakes (when native speakers make just as many dumb mistakes). Sorry for not revising this paragraph and not correcting the grammar, I just really wanted to ramble and share my experience. If anyone actually read this, I can't believe u just read this entire block of rambling, good for you. also small side note/edit: i make most mistakes when i just randomly switch between my two languages, because then I make the mistake of thinking in one language, and outputting in the other, which as we all know, not everything is 1-1 translation. This especially happens with expressions. Some thoughts are best expressed (and only ever expressed) in one language, which may explain part of why you never really felt connected with those japanese people, as you could never truly express yourself as some things could only be expressed in english, making you lonely. (im sure u realized that already tho). Also thank you for being dead honest in this video, a lot of the things u said were embarrassing but honestly had to be said as a big wake up call to everyone. It really opened my eyes to the reality of learning japanese and how I may never truly connect with some people as I was hoping to. I won't give up on japanese though, I'll push through.
Quick question. On my sentence cards, I want to add a picture from the scene in the anime where I found the sentence. Should I put that on the front of the card for context, or is that too big of a hint.
"practice like you play". In real life there isn't going to be a picture to remind you what the word means, so I wouldn't put it on the front of the card.
Hey, thanks for the detailed video! You gave a great insight into the psychological aspect of AJATT! I am just getting started with the sentences, and I am wondering about something. When reviewing them with Anki, I can guess the meaning of the word based on the context of the sentence, but I am not sure I could recognize that same word in another context. What is your take on that?
Yea, that happens, it's kind of しかたない, but I don't think it's really something to worry about. It will still stick in your memory to some degree. When you come across it in the wild, for the first couple times you might go, "Oh shit, I have a card for this word but can't remember what it means". When that happens, just look the word up on the spot. You will have a, "Of yea! I remember now" moment, and after that, you will probably never have trouble remembering it again. This is why people who do nothing but SRS and slack on immersion never get anywhere. I compare learning words to glow sticks. Once you have memorized an anki card for a word, you now have a UN-lit glow stick. You break and shake up the glow stick by then coming across the word a few times in the wild, until it is completely glowing and you can comprehend the word effortlessly. At the end of the day, language acquisition is an unconsciousness process, so ideally conscious study like SRSing only functions as a support for the real work.
Yo thanks for the detailed answer. I guess Anki just sets up the foundation then. I am curious to know your opinion about something else. You said you were completely fluent after 2.5 years of AJATTing, when you worked as a guide for those Japanese girls. But what about your level after 18 months (I guess 6 months after you came back from Japan)?
I could have basic conversations, and could follow the plot of most basic anime, but I was nowhere near where Khatzumoto SAID he was after 18 months, that's for sure. But more importantly, by that point I already had a deep intuitive understanding of the entire process, and knew exactly what I had to do in order to reach a high level of fluency. Honestly, I don't think Khatz was actually that fluent after 18 months. The only video we have of him speaking was taken after he had been studying Japanese for 5 years. I don't think he had the intention of lying or showing off, I think he just needed to attract people's attention and get them to listen. Also, I highly doubt that the British Matt who AJATTs is nearly as good as he says he is either. Notice that he has not released a video of him actually speaking Japanese lol. I read his Lang8 posts a while ago and he was still making tons of basic mistakes. I would say the average person doing AJATT alongside real life can expect REAL fluency in around 3 years.
Yeah, I guess him saying he could easily read software engineering books after 1.5 years kind of looked suspicious. Thanks for the answers, I am sure you'll be able to put your ability to good use someday!
Hey Matt, when studying Kanji in Anki, do you recommend to change the settings of the intervals etc? If yes how and to what degree? The problem is, first I started using Kanji Koohii but when I was at 300 Kanji I switched to Anki (I transferred the review stats of the cards ofc too). That was not even a week ago. I add around 30 Kanji per day and I have the feeling that I don't really keep the Kanji in me. I also have a strangely high cards to review per day (today I hit 100). This is after I played around with the settings and I'm not sure how I can improve this state
I never changed the anki settings for the intervals myself, so I don't really have any advice there. maybe something went wrong when you transferred the review stats.... Also could be that you just need to make better stories. Make sure you are creating all of your own stories, get getting really creative when doing so
Yes, you mentioned that in your video. Unfortunately I'm already using a premade deck and I'm not sure if it is worth it to start all over again. I'm also thinking of switch the RTK version from english to my native language (german), which would include a restart. The alternative would be to just put more time into studing the kanji with other apps e.g. an app I found, where I can practice writing
Why don't you just start over, making your own deck. That way you can use German keywords as well. 300 is not that much, if you do 30 a day it take you 10 days. Kanji are the foundation for the rest of your Japanese learning, so you want to take all the time you need to really learn them correctly. I wouldn't use other apps.
I just watched this all lol. It was cool to hear your insights and tips though. Can you help me with the pitch accent stuff? It seems rather complex and even google isn't helping me. Like what should I take from the pitch numbers in the dictionary.
Everything you need to know is in these two: www5a.biglobe.ne.jp/accent/accent.htm drive.google.com/open?id=0B9IvEJSefnhyNTF5aVZfT2NMMWc You actually have to have a basic understanding of 学校文法 (look it up, in contrast to 日本語文法 which you probably know) to understand pitch accent completely, but if you just want to get started with the basics just read the first one. If you can't read Japanese yet then go through this: drive.google.com/open?id=0B9IvEJSefnhyUERpOEV1NGYtWGM
Have you changed any of your Anki review settings? Cant imagine that it takes 2 hours/day since eventually cards will show up again in 1-4 year intervals.
Like I said in the video, not only did I have a very large number of cards, both new and old, but when I reviewed a word I made sure to recall the etymology of the world along with how it came to mean different things throughout time. It took me from 30 seconds to an entire minute per card. It would usually take me 90 minutes to 2 hours to finish all my decks, which included all of my learning, not just Japanese cards.
Thank God, I'm not that obsessed with learning languages. speaking in matt's words I actually suck at english but I'm contented with my level and skills I have got. and it seems to me I've been ajatting without even knowing that
I really enjoyed this video. Thank you very much for sharing. I have been researching different method of language learning, and I will definitely consider using this one. I had a question about listening. I know it was mentioned that listening is meant to be done without subtitles (passively), but when you say active listening and working your way up to reading, would you use Japanese subtitles? Thank you
When I say "active" I mean doing the activity with full focus and effort, without trying to multitask. active listening meanings sitting down, listening to raw japanese, and trying to understand it, no subtitles. passive listening is listening to the language in the background while you doing something else like cook, clean, or drive. The human mind can't truly do two things at once, only switch back and forth rapidly. If you are reading subtitles, you are not actually listening very attentively. If you always look at the answer first, you will never become able to solve math problems by yourself. It's the same thing: listening with subtitles is like cheating to get the answer; it doesn't actually help improve your listening ability. That is why I say listening with subtitles is actually reading practice, not listening practice
Okay, I see. Thank you so much, Matt ^^ So I could use reading Japanese anime subtitles as a way of reading practice? or would reading manga be better? Your videos are very helpful, and congratulations on achieving fluency. I have been learning Japanese on and off for about three years. My listening and writing skills are very good, but my speaking and reading skills still need work. After coming back to this method, I have been really inspired to start practicing it. Keep up the great work and I wish you all the best!
Manga is probably better suited for reading practice, but subtitles work fine as well if you like. If you are listening to the anime WHILE read the subtitles, you are not giving your full attention to either, so I wouldn't spend too much time doing this though. "My listening and writing skills are very good, but my speaking and reading skills still need work."...Be careful to make sure that you are not just thinking in your native language, then translating it into Japanese, because it will sound extremely unnatural to a native speaker. The only way to truly speak and write like a native is to do lots of listening and reading, and then mimic. That is why it is nearly impossible to truly be proficient in writing without strong reading ability (sorry to doubt your abilities)
No, no it's fine :) I completely understand. I used to think that I needed more output, but now I see that I need more input. I have another thing that I wanted to mention. Because I am a college student, I mainly listen. I have been researching and trying out different methods, and I unknowingly was trying this method. The only difference was that I was trying to use a notebook. It was in this format: 新しい【あたらしい】new-i-adj これは新しいです。(This is new) I was learning from different resources (mainly media like anime and Japanese RU-vid videos), however I would find example sentences online (from weblio or Japanese for IOS). I then tried to make my own sentences, but that got frustrating. Somehow I was still improving, even though I was using example sentences. I think the reason for this was that I started referencing the original source that I was getting the new vocabulary from. I was always scared to use the original sentences that I found to learn from, because I felt as if it would make my Japanese sound like where the expressions came from. The only problem with learning Japanese in this format with that I would always remember just the word, despite the example sentence being right below it. So, by learning the expressions from the source, learning sentences that you understand, and using those sentences to work up to fluency sounds much more inviting. In terms of writing, I will make an effort to write out all of my sentences in a separate notebook (to review) and then have the sentences, with translation, in an SRS/flashcard app. My question is: With learning from manga or short novels, do you recommend using the given English translation (if any) or coming up with my own? Thank you so much for you response! ^^ P.S- sorry for the long reply. I really appreciate any advice or feedback that you could give me.
You want to drop all translation as soon as possible. Translation is a crutch that will slow you down and hold you back. The only way to start thinking in Japanese is to learn Japanese IN Japanese. The only time you should be using full english translations for your sentences is when you are learning basic grammar as a complete beginner. After that, when learning from native material, you should be looking for i+1 sentences and using a Japanese-English dictionary for the new word of the sentence, but never worry about trying to translate the entire sentence into English; understand it in Japanese. Switch to using a Japanese-Japanese monolingual dictionary as soon as possible and banish English from your studies. "I will make an effort to write out all of my sentences in a separate notebook"... Don't do this, it's a waste of time. Try to collect sentences from digital sources like aozora bunko books, internet pages, or subtitle files, and copy and paste them directly into the SRS to save time and effort. Put only the sentence on the front of cards, and understand and read and the entire sentence out loud. "I was always scared to use the original sentences that I found to learn from, because I felt as if it would make my Japanese sound like where the expressions came from." You hear different kinds of English everyday: cartoon english, black english, news english, slang english, literary english, etc., yet you still speak normally right? Same with Japanese. You want to be able to understand EVERYTHING, so you can't be avoiding learning from particular resources. You will pick up how to speak naturally over time.
As someone who leads a busy life that involves working almost 40 hours a week as well as having a long term relationship to maintain, is AJATT possible/worth my time? I already own Genki, Japanese from Zero and RTK but have never really attempeted either of them, I am also travelling to Japan in 2019 (just for two weeks, a little vacation). All this considered is AJATT worth my time or should I just stick to more tradional methods?
