Why You Still Can't Understand Basic Grammar 

How many people got the reference behind why I used the Pokemon clips??? First person to properly explain the reference gets a high five. NOTE: Something I should have mentioned in the video is that not all persistent puzzles are caused by a word or structure having an underlying "core concept" that unifies all usages. Although this is often the case, there are also cases where a persistent puzzle is caused by a word or structure actually having multiple unrelated meanings. In these cases, the key to solving the puzzle is learning to use context to determine which meaning is being used (which will happen over time through immersion).

This is such an old-school mattvsjapan video essay. Love it

"can't learn this one part of the language? learn it with this one easy tip!" the tip: LEARN THE WHOLE REST OF LANGUAGE FIRST

Fun fact: while Japanese "kakeru" has couple of dozen of meanings, English "run" has couple of... HUNDREDS. The highest number I've found is 645 meanings but this number varies based on sources. The next word "set" has more than a hundred as well

*Watches a lot of Anime* Subconcious-kun: I solved the puzzle for you. Me: Huh? when the fuck did you do that? Subconcious-kun: 4 months ago. Me: Why didn’t you tell me? Subconcious-kun: Because I’m busy solving puzzles.

Native Japanese here. Hmmm, as always very interesting video, Matt! Here's my two cents. One such persistent puzzle in English might me the word "put." I mean it's such a simple word, but so versatile, like the Japanese かける. Put something on, put something off, put up with something, put something on the table, put something into words etc. etc. I mean, the struggling English learner can go insane! And indeed for any language learner this type of word might appear like puzzles, especially at the beginning, but I suspect these aren't really puzzles at all. At least not in the common sense of the word. I think all one needs to do--and which comes with time, with countless hours of studying and immersion and spending time with the target language--is just to memorise each and every use of the word, one by one. That's it, really. Because in the end there is no logic behind it, no magic key which solves these "puzzles." Even Japanese people use the word かける correctly, not because they have solved any puzzle or possess some secret key, but because they have internalised each and every use of this word from childhood.... At least that's what I think. Keep up the good work! 👍

Definitely the 了 particle in Chinese. Every time I think I have a grasp of it, it’ll come up in a situation where I never would have thought to use it.

I can't be the only one that gets a smile on my face when I see a new matt vs japan video when I open the youtube app.

I never realized that persistent puzzles were that until now, I just thought certain verbs were confusing and I focused way too hard on them haha thanks Matt

Dude I missed this style; I was literally watching some of your old videos yesterday. GZ on the 100k man, you deserve it.

Never in my language learning life have I encountered someone who can so accurately and succinctly articulate the realizations that have been bubbling under the surface of my awareness, in my case, while reaching fluency in mandarin. I truly believe that Matt's baseline level of intelligence and insight have been a big boost in his own language learning, as I've found that while immersion is indeed necessary, that doesn't preclude analytical/higher level conceptual breakthroughs from serving as speed boosters on the path to mastery.

Congrats on 100k!! And also, you instantly gave me a confidence in myself that I have never had since the beginning when it comes to these persistent puzzles so now I can enjoy my immersion more! You really are a genius Matt, thanks for everything.

oh man - super pumped. Pre-watch guess - "Immerse more bro!" :D Seriously tho that works.

Matt you are a huge inspiration to me! I have been watching your videos and have been a subscriber for around 3-4 years now and I have a lot of my success in learning Japanese is a result of finding your channel. I have had countless amazing memories because of what you do. I have never commented before, but I wanted to let you know the impact you have had on my life. Keep going strong!

This was one of the best videos I have watched, the HMs being displayed and used as well as some of the *meanings* behind the word 掛ける were very carefully thought out and its awesome. Great video.

Make more videos like this. These are my favorites! You are extremely talented in doing this style. EXTREMELY talented

Your way of presenting an abstract concept so clearly and concisely is truly impressive! Japanese learners of the English language struggle with lots of those persistent puzzles as well.

I think in Korean, something akin to your kakeru is 내다 - it has 31 English definitions, but most of them can be abstractly boiled down to ‘making something come out from something else’. But even viewing the word through that lens, in a lot of sentences, you have to abstract it down really really far in order to apply that meaning. It’s easy when coming across a persistent puzzle like 내다 at the beginning of your studies to think “ugh, 31 definitions for one word?? Why does Korean have to make things so complicated?” but one eye-opening thing I realised a while ago is that actually, the better question would be: “why does English need 31 definitions for something that’s able to be communicated and understood as one singular concept in Korean?”. Makes you think.

"Doch", "mal", "wohl" and other modal particles in German, that are used to reflect the mood or the attitude of the speaker and to highlight the sentence's focus.

Great video! Classic MattvsJapan style, with engaging illustrations and insights. Glad to see you are still making videos like this. It reminds of your old video on Kanji and RTK, which is what really got me started on my Japanese language learning journey.

Hell yeah, been waiting for more video essay style videos like this, always loved them.

Matt's analogies are so good and accurate for language learning and honestly in my opinion the best in the language learning community. Not only is it easy to understand but it also directly explains the topic to a perfect level.

Great video, using refold has helped me realize that understanding something in the language its supposed to be in makes it make so much more sense and easier. plus, congrats on 100k 🎉

thank you so much for this video matto

Happy 100k Matt, much love and support from the Philippines !!

I really needed this thanks matt.

I am relatively new to your channel and as I have never studied Japanese I just knew about your existence passively. I needed to know why your reputation was so good and oh boy are you crystal clear and accurate when explaining these processes. This is partly talent but it is also evident that you have spent so much time studying and caring for languages. Thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge, man. Subscribing has been an excellent idea.

Really encouraging video. This definitely eased my mind. Thanks Matt.

This was very insightful, thankyou for this video!

Always exciting when you upload a new video, keep up the good work.

I am so thankful for your effort and help! この動画, ありがとう。

As always, very interesting and helpful video Matt ! Keep it up !

Bro awesome vid, thanks! I've been trying to get my head around this for years so you just cut through all the confusion and gave me a lot of clarity on these never ending persistent puzzles. Please keep making videos! They're so informative and helpful - Azuss : )

i appreciate these videos so much, your genuinely an inspiration

Love this format; classic Matt format, new Matt insights/editing.

I LOVE the new video format! Very engaging, keep it up!

This was very helpful. Thank you

Hi. I studied linguistics with a focus on second language acquisition at uni. The immersion-based advice is great for some. But if this way of phrasing it doesn't work out for you, don't worry. There are lots and lots of ways to get over this in a way that works for your learning style. One way is treating words and concepts you don't quite understand as chunks. Instead of getting hung up on the 1000 English translations, learn how to say the thing you want to say as a chunk. That you use 掛ける when talking about putting you glasses on. That's one chunk. The next time you come across something with it, that's another chunk. Memorise them separately. Put the entire phrase into anki, write it down, make an exercise out of it where you make as many sentences with that word/concept as you can, whatever works for you. The goal is just to trick your brain into not getting overwhelmed by tackling it one chunk, phrase, word, or concept at a time. How you do that is entirely up to you.

Great video with amazing points!! I've been learning Korean for 5 years, and I got a good understanding of how to use 이/가, 을/를, and 은/는 after about a year and a half. But then about 3 years later, I started to get confused about it again because I noticed how natives would use it. They would sometimes take out 이/가 (similar to わ in Japanese, correct?), and I beat myself up for not understanding that for a week or so. But afterwards I took the approach of just immersing and seeing how they use it, and over time I just naturally figured out how they used it like the native Koreans. Again, love the video!! I like that you did it in your style too. 😇

This cheat sheet is excellent. As an intermediate learner, I was pretty lost on some of this (like かける), and it’s nice to have it finally properly introduced. The video is A+ too. This is why Refold is one of only two Patreons to which I’m subscribed.

I really appreciate your content, your work is really useful and I'm grateful you were in my recommendations about a year ago

I remember the first language puzzle I solved. It was the Japanese word こと, which means "the matter". I looked at the sentences containing it and wondered why it was there. What's the matter with the matter they are discussing here? Isn't every sentence about at least one matter anyway. The word seemed to pop in and out seemingly at random. I remember one sentence in Bakemonogatari that had 3 こと in it, I thought I was going crazy. Then it finally clicked why I wasn't able to solve it, no matter how much I focused on trying to understand that one sentence/Anki card. こと meant "the matter we discussed/are discussing", which means it is a callback to something said one or two sentences earlier, I couldn't understand it by just focusing in on one sentence alone.

Great vid as always, and congrats on reaching 100k subs. Watched your channel grow for a few years now. Its so great to see small content creators like you and Dogen become so big.

yet another great video, i was obsessing a little too much over some jp1k definitions and now i'll just chill out a bit and just get a general idea of the definition (even if it's a bit wrong) because immersion will teach me the proper "definition"

"I have reached enlightenment." "Yes."

This is really excellent content… such a joy to watch & learn from.

Thank you for the high quality and informative content. I find your explanations very easy to understand. I'm feeling especially lucky to be studying a language you have so much framiliuarity with. Thanks for the cheat sheet!

Nice, I like this style of video too. Your talking in the background with images and videos to illustrate your points. Good explanation of Japanese grammar and unusual word usage too. Great work Matt!

Another great video. Stoked to see you at 100k subs too. Well deserved, man.

Your teaching has been really influential for my Japanese learning journey, Congratulation for 100K Subs, Cheers from Indonesia.

Thanks for clearing things up man i felt so stupid when I come across stuff like this but know I realize its part of the process Happy 100k btw

Congrats on 100k! Your videos are always so helpful - ありがとうMatt先生！

Very useful video matt!!

Congratulations on 100k, Matt! Smashing it! 🥳

This might be your best video yet, I felt like I was watching Vsauce, except not getting lost.

Jeez already 100k subs! Matt’s video quality has stayed consistently good since the very beginning. I feel like the videos I go back and watch the most are the very first ones.

I love your content....Congratulations on 100k! Cheers from Australia :)

As someone fitting the description of being constantly worried about making so-called "basic" mistakes - this video was a godsend. It really puts things into perspective. The idea that contextual inference is the key to bridging conceptual gaps between languages, and to know that all we need to do is simply be aware of this, and be okay with the ambiguity we may encounter along the way is reassuring. Great video as always Matt!

I read your cheatsheet. It was helpful. And a fun way of getting it.

Thanks so much for this, pretty good Lofi choice for the background music as well

Thanks indeed for the cheat sheet. It really crystallizes all the vague understandings I've been slowly developing over the years. I agree completely with the explanation in the video. As other people have commented, English has lots of these one-word-with-a-million-"definitions" -- think about "get" or "have".

I can't really think of a great example in Swedish but one that trips up English native speakers for ages is all the words for "before". To a Swede, it's weird that we express so many different concepts with just one word. Off the top of my head I can think of 5 Swedish words that we'd replace with "before", so a lot of English speakers who don't immerse enough end up just picking one at random for the rest of their life.

Thanks ! Great video …I’ll just keep moving forward in my learning and not worry about things I don’t fully understand yet

Great video, please make more of these old school Matt vs Japan videos they are awesome

おめでとう on 100k subs! Thanks for the vids!

This was wonderful. Thank you. I've found this happening the more I immerse.

Great video again Matt! I like the way you are using the video to underline your points abstractly or alluding to them. For example when you showed the meditating monks when talking about listening and listening to the persistent puzzles "until they suddenly make sense". I think that learning a language has a lot of parallels to meditation actually.

This is exactly what I needed, I've done dedicated grammar study before immersion learning but recently thought I was an idiot for still not understanding it all and was contemplating redoing the grammar study again, now I will put more trust in immersion. Also, the editing is brilliant :)

Korean also has an infamous, super similar は/が curse in its particles itself. 은/는 are taught as the topic particles, while 이/가 are taught as the subject particles. A lot of learners don’t know when to use which. Beginner learners cry over this just like how Japanese learners cry over は/が. Unfortunately, as a Korean-American, I am unable to empathize with their suffering. ;)

Been binge watching Matt's videos. Just picked up japanese after 10 years of letting go. Love the whole immersion idea. Learned english this exact same way when I was a kid: mom used to watch everything with subs (in our native language, but 90% of people I know used to watch the dubbed version), english songs, then MMORPGs (ever got scammed by someone on Tibia or MU? lol). And when me and my sister were like 4-5 we used to watch over and over the same 3 Disney VHS tapes that taught english using songs. I still don't know all the technical stuff about grammar and I still have a pretty strong accent, but it was all natural. I never sat down to actually study english. Gonna try to replicate this with japanese (but with way more intent and effort). Thank you for all the videos!

This is exactly what I needed to hear. When I encounter one of these puzzles and can't understand them through immersion, I default to reading a grammar article about them and end up being more confused. I will try to put more faith in my immersion this time and hope for the best. Thanks as always Matt!

Dude, Im in completely love with your editing!

Thank you Matt for being so intelligent and dedicated to helping us self-learners with your explanations. I'm learning German but get so much from your videos.

Great video man, those analogies are perfect!

Another well done video... Keep up the good work! Thanks! :)

Thank you, this video was very helpful and deep.

Lately one of my favorite immersion activities for reading are the 4k Tokyo walking videos all over youtube. I'm finally starting to make some sense of all the signs and advertisements. It's fun, engaging, and it's useful immersion since I'm trying to learn as much as I can before a trip.

I'm always amazed at how you can break down and then sum up so clearly the psychological issues of language learning. People who are learning a language (I assume most people watching) can't help but nod their head and say "mm" to themselves. (That looks weird now that I type that but whatever) Another great video, Matt.

Wow, excellent explanation!

This is fantastic. I have some advice for others that is quite similar to the message of this video. For learners still struggling with understanding sentences, do your best to increase your verb vocabulary. It will help you identify structure of sentences when you hear them, and knowing verbs helps a whole lot in getting a sense of what the sentence is trying to say. It helped me a lot!

exactly the video I needed Matt. The timing couldn't be better

This is an excellent point. I've often had this thought when I was learning certain concepts in Spanish although I never put it into words quite this well.

Thanks Matt. I’ve been wondering about those verbs with many meanings but haven’t actually made many Anki cards for every meaning. Turns out that was the right course of action after all!

Oh and I just realized the play you did with 逃げるは恥だが役に立つ when you were talking about 掛ける lol

I'm not really learning Spanish (since I'm a native speaker), but the only Spanish persistent puzzle I can think of is that all inanimate objects and nouns, in general, have to be referred to by gender. So you have to use male or female pronouns depending on the noun, we native speakers don't think much about it, but when asking some of my family members they didn't know why we do that. Kind of funny how a month into studying my third language I start to notice interesting things about my native one.

Recently I've been having that exact same question myself as well, what great timing! (Also, nice editing!)

Wow. Matt that was really good. I've been studying languages for all my life (42y/o now 🤟) and I have never listened to such a clear explanation for such a common problem for lunguage learners. Amazing job. Btw....for Chinese Mandarin learners I guess the biggest persistent puzzle is probably ”了“.

Great video, Matt! Thanks!

Thank you for this it gave me confidence

Great video Matt!!!

This video is beautiful and very optimistic. Thank you!

This video is a great illustration of one of the biggest problems faced when learning a language by comprehensible input! The answer to any problem is almost always more comprehensible input. However, weirdly as humans we don’t like this answer, despite it being the easier option to learning something new to overcome a problem. I also think it’s one of the reasons it’s hard to persuade people to learn through comprehensible input, as they almost always want specific answers to specific problems and don’t just want to hear “‘more comprehensible input!”

this is very useful. not only for learning japanese language but to understand how language learning works in general. very well explained. i was feeling upset because it does seem like no matter how much I study I'm getting nowhere! but now that I've watched this video I feel better. thx for sharing :)

I am finishing my Psychology Ph.D. dissertation on second language acquisition based on the Comprehensible Input Theory Framework. I discovered your channel and your advice and methodology are really spot on. I'd love to send it to you when I'm done but great work on your content on language acquisition A+. (The study target language is Japanese)

I’m learning Korean and I noticed early on that 는/가 had a larger concept beyond the grammar or syntax. I’m super curious so I tried to understand that. The way we organize ideas in English/Spanish is from this subject/object view of the world and that has implications beyond language while most Asian languages organize the world from a topic/comment perspective. Understanding information at that level really helped me. I also check the dictionary a lot, and when I notice a word with 20+ meanings I write it down, not to learn all the meanings but to remember I eventually need to figure out their core concept, 하다 is one of those. When we “enter” a language that has a completely different way to organize concepts is like entering a new dimension.

Happy 100k bro you deserve it 💪

Yaaay matt video Congrats on 100k

Old school Matt vs Japan vibe. I like it man, very comfy.

Being brought up bilingual then studying English and now studying Japanese, I've been thinking for a while about this. How even native speakers of your L2 fluent in your L1 can fail to explain some concept in the target language to you. Your metaphor, "The specific way that the world is divided up into concepts is fundamentally different for each language" is really on point. It's like a huge continent with a great variety of features and a lot of cities and smaller settlements being divided into counties. Sometimes the division is evident, like when you have a great river of mountain range, and most languages will do that concept similarly. And sometimes it's all arbitrary and fascinating how different the approaches are. And not a continent even, but some 3D thing like stars or constellations. From the perspective of your native language, you see, oh, twenty stars just randomly scattered through space. And then your L2 gives you a hyperspace kick in the butt to some planet from where you see they form a perfect design of a flower, and say "ah, now I see".

CHRIS BROAD COLAB WHEN! Dogen is your only common link, please 🙏😢