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+--- Thread: The AJATT Method (/thread-682.html)
The AJATT Method - nac_est - 2009-02-27
His English is like a roller coaster ride! You have to like that particular kind of roller coaster to enjoy it though...
The AJATT Method - bodhisamaya - 2009-02-27
The real question is weather or not any one else has achieved fluency in 18 months using his system. I like his website. I have picked up some good tips and links from it. I kind of like his English writing style as well. The 18 month claim with three part time jobs seems far-fetched. If a claim like that is being made and people are making extreme adjustments in their lifestyle hoping to achieve similar results, those claims should be broken down and examined. No religion should be followed with blind faith. Examine the Guru closely with an open yet discriminating mind.
The AJATT Method - mr_hans_moleman - 2009-02-28
That's what I'm trying to figure out. I'm I just finished my one year of hardcore Japanese studying. Well, I have 6 months to go, so I can't really say much yet. But, I definitely improved a lot. I definitely study more than Khatz. I can say this just because I'm out of school this year, work only two days a week(a job where I can literally do whatever I want, so I study Japanese for 8 hours per shift), and I have no other responsibilities.
The problem is also, not many people have this much free time. Well, I'm really curious as how my Japanese is going to be 6 months from now. I'll make a topic explaining all the things I did, and then people can use it as a standard(if even lol) for their Japanese studies.
The AJATT Method - nac_est - 2009-02-28
That's cool, mr_hans_moleman, let us know! It'll be interesting to compare, whether you use the same methods as him or not.
The AJATT Method - bodhisamaya - 2009-02-28
Yea mr_hans_moleman, it would be very interesting to see how someone who has taken AJATT to heart with plenty of free time to dedicate towards it fairs over an 18 month period.
Anyone else with similar experience?
The AJATT Method - cracky - 2009-02-28
nac_est Wrote:That's cool, mr_hans_moleman, let us know! It'll be interesting to compare, whether you use the same methods as him or not.No pressure.
The AJATT Method - Harrow - 2009-02-28
In reply to bodhisamaya, here's a thought. I have no reason to disbelieve that Khatzumoto taught himself Japanese in 18 months using his method. I also have no reason to disbelieve that Bruce Lee created a spectacularly effective new martial art by mixing and matching whatever he found that was valuable from other styles.
However, I doubt if anyone else will achieve the same results by copying either Khatzumoto or Bruce Lee's "system" exactly, if system means "do exactly what they did in a concrete sense"
Why? Because part of what makes each system so amazingly effective for those two people is that they each developed it THEMSELVES in a way that was ESPECIALLY TAILORED to their own learning style / body type / talent / limitations.
What we should learn is to do as they did -- attack the task via total commitment and immersion and craft an individualized system that fits your own needs, strengths, preferences, and weakness as completely as possible.
People who love movies will find the movie system wonderful. People who are really strong on narrative will find stringing together sentences and elaborate stories effective. People who are highly visual will need really concrete elements that create a striking picture and get rid of anything remotely abstract and hard to visualize. And so on.
One of the tremendous strengths of the Heisig + RTK system is that he lays out the principles and then people create their own stories/images or mix and match from what others have offered.
I feel I can support others best by encouraging them to GO FOR IT without getting hung up on arguing whose system is better or best in general.... the real question is, what's working for you?
The AJATT Method - bodhisamaya - 2009-02-28
There really is no pressure because it would be a pleasant shock if he or anyone else doing AJATT became fluent in 18 months even given the ideal environment mr_hans_moleman has. I am not knocking the AJATT system. I am trying to incorporate it as much as possible into my own life. 18 months is an unrealistic goal to set for people. Kind of a "Get smart quick" scheme. But shoot for the stars! What ever level is reached will most likely be higher than that of a university student in America with four years of traditional study.
The AJATT Method - nac_est - 2009-03-01
Harrow, you're saying good stuff.
The AJATT Method - kazelee - 2009-03-01
Harrow Wrote:However, I doubt if anyone else will achieve the same results by copying either Khatzumoto or Bruce Lee's "system" exactly, if system means "do exactly what they did in a concrete sense"People often, mistakenly, consider Jeet Kun Do to be a fighting style rather than an ideology (any other parallels?). I think you said this well. Find the methods that work best "for you" and utilize them to maximize your potential.
Why? Because part of what makes each system so amazingly effective for those two people is that they each developed it THEMSELVES in a way that was ESPECIALLY TAILORED to their own learning style / body type / talent / limitations.
What we should learn is to do as they did -- attack the task via total commitment and immersion and craft an individualized system that fits your own needs, strengths, preferences, and weakness as completely as possible.
The AJATT Method - mr_hans_moleman - 2009-03-01
That's true. Take what you need from something, and discard the rest lol. Well one thing I like to do is watch dramas without subtitles and then look at the script online. I make sure that I understand about 95% of the dialogues in the drama. I guess that's an example of "my way" (kinda of sounds like I've achieve something, lol not yet). This way, there's an emotional attachment to the Japanese I hear(hence, the sentences I put in the SRS). Btw, I'm starting to realize SRS is not the big cacoon. It's maybe about 10%. The rest is reading real Japanese.
The AJATT Method - theasianpleaser - 2009-03-01
mr_hans_moleman Wrote:Btw, I'm starting to realize SRS is not the big cacoon. It's maybe about 10%. The rest is reading real Japanese.The SRS can also be a great help if you get bored with whatever you're reading. I've been reading Japanese manga and just like books I've read in English, there are many parts with boring details I just want to skip.
So I use the SRS to keep up on the kanji readings when I'm not reading "real" Japanese or I've been too lazy to read start reading something else
The AJATT Method - mentat_kgs - 2009-03-01
That's how I think. The SRS is good when you can't get enough exposure, for instance, when you still cannot read ore listen well.
When I got good enough to listen, I stopped to add cards in my SRS to understand grammar points.
Now I'm starting to drop it for reading.
The AJATT Method - yukamina - 2009-03-01
mentat_kgs Wrote:That's how I think. The SRS is good when you can't get enough exposure, for instance, when you still cannot read ore listen well.A lot of words just don't appear often. So even if you read a lot, you won't come across the uncommon words often enough to remember, and I think that's where the SRS comes in.
When I got good enough to listen, I stopped to add cards in my SRS to understand grammar points.
Now I'm starting to drop it for reading.
The AJATT Method - QuackingShoe - 2009-03-01
yukamina Wrote:A lot of words just don't appear often. So even if you read a lot, you won't come across the uncommon words often enough to remember, and I think that's where the SRS comes in.Of course, if the words come by so seldomly that they'd be difficult to remember...
...they might not be that worth remembering.
The AJATT Method - phauna - 2009-03-01
QuackingShoe Wrote:I totally disagree. Some words are really uncommonly used but you would think someone was a moron if they didn't know these words. A good example comes from my three year old daughter. She has some plastic animals, a great variety of them, and she can name every one of them. However I know many adult Japanese people who use English all day for work and don't know some of these names, and are amazed that a three year old can reel them off when she can barely form a sentence.yukamina Wrote:A lot of words just don't appear often. So even if you read a lot, you won't come across the uncommon words often enough to remember, and I think that's where the SRS comes in.Of course, if the words come by so seldomly that they'd be difficult to remember...
...they might not be that worth remembering.
These adults, who have studied for twenty years, do not know some animal names, for example, seal, walrus, antelope, buffalo, llama, etc. It got me thinking that I didn't know those words in Japanese either, although we would consider that stuff toddler material for a native. A similar problem is learning food and ingredient names, not commonly spoken about but necessary when you go shopping in Japan.
The AJATT Method - Ampharos64 - 2009-03-01
Thanks for the clarification, Jarvik. That does make sense considering what a large variety of different materials it sounds like Khatz used, so it's definitely a point I'll bear in mind.
I'll be interested to hear how you studied, mr_hans_moleman. When I finish my degree (which should hopefully coincide with finishing RTK), I should also have a lot of free time (about 4 months) before my MA starts (provided I actually get accepted. Fingers crossed). Unfortunately, a requirement on the MA is that I have to study Latin (apparently, they get you to 'readable' level in a year. I'm not sure precisely what they classify as that, but it is interesting in terms of how fast it might be possible to learn if studying intensively, especially seeing as Latin such a heavily inflected language, which to me makes it far harder than Japanese). I will not give up Japanese to study Latin when my MA (touch wood, fingers crossed) starts, but I think the best way to ensure it survives contact with Latin is to ensure I learn as much as possible in the free time I will have.
What I intend to do is to try AJATT, most likely starting with working through Tae Kim's guide and All About Particles. I could perhaps try mirroring my path to literacy in my native language by reading fairy stories (which I still love) - I see thejapanesepage.com has a version of Issun boushi:
http://thejapanesepage.com/ebooks/issunboushi
aimed at upper beginners, and I know I've seen some more online somewhere．
I've no idea what my Japanese will be like after the four months, but I hope it will at least be enough to cope with things like that, even if I have to look up words.
So, anyone who's interested will be able to see how I do (or don't). I'll be working pretty much from scratch – I do have a class (which I regret taking, and would drop out of if it hadn't been so expensive), but I'm really not learning more than how to say set phrases like 'I am a foreign exchange student' from that >_< (I also learnt a very (very) little beforehand from, weirdly enough, 'My Japanese Coach' on Nintendo DS).
Good point that it's important to find what works for you. I guess I'll find that out when I start.
P.S. Glad to hear it's not just me, QuakingShoe! XD
The AJATT Method - tokyostyle - 2009-03-01
phauna Wrote:These adults, who have studied for twenty years, do not know some animal names, for example, seal, walrus, antelope, buffalo, llama, etc. It got me thinking that I didn't know those words in Japanese either.The ones you already know:
antelope: アンテロープ
buffalo: バッファロー
llama: ラマ
lion: ライオン
The two you probably don't:
seal: アザラシ、オットセイ
walrus: セイウチ
You reminded me that I haven't been to the zoo in a while!
The AJATT Method - QuackingShoe - 2009-03-01
phauna Wrote:I totally disagree. Some words are really uncommonly used but you would think someone was a moron if they didn't know these words. A good example comes from my three year old daughter. She has some plastic animals, a great variety of them, and she can name every one of them. However I know many adult Japanese people who use English all day for work and don't know some of these names, and are amazed that a three year old can reel them off when she can barely form a sentence.I figured this would come up, but it's a bit of a misunderstanding of what I mean.
These adults, who have studied for twenty years, do not know some animal names, for example, seal, walrus, antelope, buffalo, llama, etc. It got me thinking that I didn't know those words in Japanese either, although we would consider that stuff toddler material for a native. A similar problem is learning food and ingredient names, not commonly spoken about but necessary when you go shopping in Japan.
Right now, I don't know most animal names either, because I don't encounter them particularly frequently. There are many advanced vocabulary items and grammatical construction that I don't see very commonly right now either. So, if I wanted to learn them well right now, it would probably be in my best interest to put them in an SRS.
However, the fact that these words are so low-frequency for me is merely a reflection of what materials I read and in what volume. That is to say, even if you only read a paragraph of English a day, a word like "I" is going to be 'high-frequency' for you, and you're going to pick it up. On the other hand, a word like 'cat' may not be, and you might actually struggle to remember it.
On the other end of the spectrum, if you're reading novels or watching television at a decent rate and regularly, as a regular individual does, words like 'existentialism' and 'laceration' become pretty high-frequency for you. As a result, you're going to pick them up.
So, this is what I'm trying to say here. I'm not saying that using an SRS is a bad idea; I use one. But thinking that you necessarily need to use one to memorize uncommon words is just faulty, in my opinion; objectively uncommon words are unnecessary, and subjectively uncommon words are unnecessary for now. Words that are important at an individuals given proficiency in a language will always be relatively high frequency for the individual, given that they're actually exposing themselves to appropriately high volumes of material.
An SRS is essentially a replacement for actual exposure, or an artificial exposure. The question of how much the SRS is necessary is based on how much you really need to replace your exposure.
The AJATT Method - Nukemarine - 2009-03-01
My thinking has been mirroring what Quackingshoe and Phauna has posted.
Frequency lists: Kanji, Vocabulary, Grammar. I actually think there's merit to frequency lists. However, I think it should be in blocks like (completely arbitrary choice of numbers on my part) 500 kanji, 30 to 50 grammar points of 3 or 4 sentences per point, 1000 vocabulary of 1 sentence per vocabulary. However, I think that once you have a block of the most frequent items, you organize them is a pattern that enhances learning. We experienced this with Heisig for Kanji, Tae Kim for Grammar, and KO2001 for vocabulary.
This can be further refined in that the vocabulary, kanji and grammar list could be culled from areas that interest you (science, medical, anime series, sports, etc). Imagine how many extra Kanji and Vocabulary you'd need to know to be a chef in Japan.
The thing is diminishing returns. As you loop through the cycle: less common kanji, less common vocabulary, less common grammar points (which probably leads to area dialects); then you get diminished benefits for each individual point. However, when those points pop up, it's the difference between Phauna's three year old and one trying to learn the language.
Exposure: Quacking again put it best. This is not about an SRS. This is getting that passive increase in knowledge that you just cannot actively study for. These are the random bits and bobs that pop up that you start putting in the back of your mind.
It's the above that's had me learning vocabulary from frequency lists. My theory is I get more bang for the buck as I read and watch more Japanese. It is artificial, controlled exposure. At a certain point, I'm going to stop the controlled studying (no more kanji, no more vocabulary sentences, no more grammar sentences). At a certain point the investment will not be worth the returns. Does that mean I'll stop learning more? No, it just means it'll come from the environment and not through determined means.
Best thing though, it's not the only way. Khatzumoto and Alyks report success with sentence mining from stuff they like. Tobberoth learned from conversation with his girlfriend. Others learned from classes. That's the controlled method. But I honestly think (thanks to Khatzumoto's blog) that watching and reading lots of Japanese smooths out the controlled learning.
The AJATT Method - pm215 - 2009-03-02
phauna Wrote:A good example comes from my three year old daughter. She has some plastic animals, a great variety of them, and she can name every one of them.Clearly what we need is a set of plastic animals with their Japanese names painted on their sides. Scatter them around your house/desk at work/whatever, and I bet in three months you'd know them all :-)
The AJATT Method - Tobberoth - 2009-03-02
Personally, I don't read the kind of stuff where JLPT2 and especially JLPT1 vocabulary comes up because I think it's boring as hell. Economic news and crap like that. That's where the SRS comes in for me, to learn words that I can't be bothered to expose myself to but need to know for a career in Japan or whatever.
When I read manga, I sometimes put words I want to know in the SRS to be sure I get enough exposure, but generally I just ignore it and keep reading.
The AJATT Method - howtwosavealif3 - 2009-03-02
I abused SRs like crazy 1 month during the winter breka. my goal was adding 200 sentences a day. now this worked for like a week or a two maybe i did 100-200 cause you know somebody whatever. basically i had to read a s***load of japanese to be able to add that much. but as the 4weeks went on i added less and less. Like last weeek I only added 20 sentences or less a dya. in the end i think i averaged 40 sentences a day because towrads i just couldn't add as much anymore. I guess I was reading less but i was still reading a lot.
of course I didn't keep all the sentences but I kept a majority of them (since it was from me reading stuff and I learned which kinds of sentences/words are harder to learn for me so I learned avoid stuff like that unless the sentence was mad interesting/good.
as of right now, I don't have time. I am aiming for adding 10 a day but i'm honestly trying my best to add 10 a week and hopefully during spring break i can go back to adding 200/100 a day.
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but the srs adding thing isn't from leveel 0, i was already at intermediate so adding 200 sentences is not a big deal, i just use it to learn words/verbs/expressions/etc. If I was learnin basics etc obviously i can't 200 a day etc.
++
not sure how I felt as far improvement from begginning of that month to the end. but i mena i learned lots of words.
The AJATT Method - mr_hans_moleman - 2009-03-03
I used to add over 100 per day. But then again, there would be days when I wouldn't add anything. It got to the point where I was practically adding everything in site. It drove me crazy too. I was spending about 3-4 hours per day SRS'ing. Right now, I can't stand to use an SRS for too long. I add about 10 per day. So far, my reviews per day are about 50 cards.
Btw, I get the sentences from random places(internet, alc.co.jp, dramas, stuff I read etc..). It seems most people mine them from grammar books.
The AJATT Method - cjlacz - 2009-03-03
Since I work full time I can't imagine adding 100+ items a day. Right now I added a lot of older/easier vocabulary from some pre-made lists. It's been great for review since I've forgotten some words, but it does mean I end up with a lot of cards to review some days. That's been going down.
I just review what I have for a given day. That's always my top priority. Time I have afterward I use to study and/or add more cards. Days where I don't have much to review I get more new material added and other days I spend more time reviewing. It's slowly evening out. Relying on Anki to manage my review time is working out well. It's keeping new material coming at a rate I can handle and I know if all I can do in a day is review, then that's what I need to do. I'm moving more toward a AJATT method of studying (real sentences vs individual words/textbook), but I still use normal vocab and grammar cards for more immediate and specific goals. Sentences I'm using for more long term goals and understanding. The last several years have been erratic for studying and I'm trying to even out my skill levels in the areas I want to study.
I haven't read all of K's site closely, but I tend to think you should spend some time studying grammar in addition to sentences. As I get more advanced I'm finding understanding and remembering the nuances between similar grammar points difficult. I think looking up new grammar in a good grammar dictionary is important (and maybe reviewing it sometimes) Sentences often don't make these differences clear enough, although I'm still not how best to add this into my routine.
I know people bash classes here, but having a good teacher can be immensely helpful. I don't find group classes to be as useful after a beginner and sometimes intermediate level (depending on the other students). A teacher that pulls in other material and strong at illustrating differences between words and grammar is great. If anyone in Dallas is looking for a teacher I know one I recommend highly. I think I finally found one in Tokyo that I'm going to be very happy with. Never push yourself too hard with any private teacher or class. Make sure you have time to study your own material outside of class.