CreepyAF Wrote:So I wonder, would I really have never discovered RTK without Khatz? Would I never have come across the idea of electronic flashcards (didn't Antimoon bring up SRS before Khatz anyway)?

I guess I'll never know for sure...

drdunlap Wrote:RTK is certainly not just for writing. I would go so far as to say that it may have been far more helpful for me with reading and learning vocabulary from that reading than it was with writing. At least 50/50 on the usefulness.

datrukup Wrote: I've never bought AJATT Plus (although I've been tempted before), but that's a $30 per month subscription, isn't it? Maybe someone who has AJATT Plus could give us a rough estimate of how many active users there are.

drdunlap Wrote:

kameden Wrote:I am against RTK because it doesn't really teach anything useful beyond memorization of the radicals, which is really only useful for writing. If you don't want to physically write the characters then RTK is not worth it. You essentially just forget the mnemonics and with that the ability to write them anyway if you don't use them. I would imagine most people 3 years after completing RTK cannot write much.

When it comes to reading and typing it is based on recognition, something that I do not believe RTK is very efficient at helping with. It takes more or less the same amount of time to go from RTK mnemonic deconstructing to the almost instant recognition that you'd want for reading as it does starting from scratch and getting to that instant recognition point.

Even if you want to write I do not believe it is a good idea to start with RTK but rather go through it after you can read at a decent level. There is little reason to learn to write all the kanji before you can do anything else.

Personal experience story incoming.

RTK is certainly not just for writing. I would go so far as to say that it may have been far more helpful for me with reading and learning vocabulary from that reading than it was with writing. At least 50/50 on the usefulness.

RTK directly helped me dive into adult reading material in Japanese (Murakami Haruki novels) because it gave me a foothold in meaning. Even without knowing the readings, I was able to guess the meaning of many unknown words and keep going when I just wanted to get in some good, quality tadoku. (I did, however, write down many of them to save for later look-uppage. Another feat that wouldn't have been possible without having done RTK). I knew how to write them all, too, so that helped differentiate similar kanji and made it no trouble at all to look unknown kanji up in the dictionary with a writing tool.

I can't say I'd suggest doing it before (and to the exclusion of) everything else but it's definitely an invaluable tool.

And of course you lose it if you don't use it. That's how memory works.

ryuudou Wrote:

buonaparte Wrote:

ryuudou Wrote:They're not remotely impossible (the mathematics easily check out), and certainty not "stupid". I've seen your Japanese and it's about as heavily foreign sounding as your English. On what basis is this critique coming from?

They ARE impossible and stupid.

Objectively incorrect. You said "10k hours and 10k sentences in 18 months". Both of these things are mathematically possible even if you don't play music while you sleep.

buonaparte Wrote:Try to listen while you're asleep.

If you had read the site, which you clearly haven't, you'd know that playing it while sleeping was intended as a way to minimize the dead time in immersion that generally happens before you sleep and when you wake up. Khatz talked about how sometimes the Japanese wouldn't come back on until noon, and how leaving it on before bed fixed that problem.

Read the site before you type. It will do wonders. There's no point in you angrily attacking something you're demonstrating complete ignorance about. Danchan put it very well about you: "You don't need to like his writing, or the guy himself. But every time you dismiss everything he said out of hand you only show to me that you haven't actually really read what he wrote or tried to understand what position he is coming from."

buonaparte Wrote:

ryuudou Wrote:I've seen your Japanese and it's about as heavily foreign sounding as your English. On what basis is this critique coming from?

As to my English and Japanese - I've never claimed otherwise.

Good. As long as know we're all of this vitriol is coming from.

kill4food Wrote:r reading a Japanese book while your wife is giving labour to get those 10,000 hours in 18 months of (passive) studying still isn't practical for obvious reasons.

kapalama Wrote:

kill4food Wrote:r reading a Japanese book while your wife is giving labour to get those 10,000 hours in 18 months of (passive) studying still isn't practical for obvious reasons.

But if she leaves you, and takes the kid, think how much more free time you would have!

kill4food Wrote:Sure it's mostly passive studying, but even then, listening to podcasts while in a business meeting, adressing clients in Japanese, or reading a Japanese book while your wife is giving labour to get those 10,000 hours in 18 months of (passive) studying still isn't practical for obvious reasons.

kill4food Wrote:Yes, 22 months or even longer would be more ideal, but that wasn't being discussed. To get to those 10,000 hours in 18 months you have to study 18+ hours per day, which ain't gonna happen (not if you have a job/school and any other responsibilities at least). So I agree with that person who said it was impossible.

vix86 Wrote:Christ, this AJATT thread has turned into every AJATT thread before it.

Bickering over the "do-ability" of stuff on AJATT. I'm pretty sure its been stated before, but to state it again. There are good ideas on AJATT and then some ideas on AJATT that really only apply to people that are OCD Japanese.

10k hours in 18 months. Possible? Sure, but probably just about as possible as graduating with your Ph.D by time you're 18 years old. People have done it, some people have done it even earlier, but most people can't hope to accomplish that. Whether you think giving that advice to [new] learners is constructive or not, is your own opinion and its one of the things that tends to ruffle feathers around here.

Vix86 Wrote:10k hours in 18 months. Possible? Sure, but probably just about as possible as graduating with your Ph.D by time you're 18 years old. People have done it, some people have done it even earlier, but most people can't hope to accomplish that. Whether you think giving that advice to [new] learners is constructive or not, is your own opinion and its one of the things that tends to ruffle feathers around here.

buonaparte Wrote:It doesn't matter what his results were, if he passed any exams.
His ideas were STUPID. IMPOSSIBLE.

cae99v Wrote:sigh... so "Where's Khatzumoto?" has turned into another AJATT flame war.... lol, gotta love the internet...

buonaparte Wrote:What flame war? A healthy discussion.
I've enjoyed every bit of it.

Thequadehunter Wrote:

buonaparte Wrote:What flame war? A healthy discussion.
I've enjoyed every bit of it.

Same.

Also, I really don't understand what there is to discuss about whether AJATT works or not anyways. It clearly helped some people, so what's the problem? It works for some, doesn't for others, and some people (Like me) like the ideology but simply don't have time for it.

People seem to forget that his method is not a strict rigid guide to learning Japanese. It's what Khatz did in his experience, and it's just a mindset and some ideas and methods that may help you along the way.