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+-- Forum: Learning Japanese (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: General discussion (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-8.html)
+--- Thread: The AJATT Method (/thread-682.html)
The AJATT Method - mentat_kgs - 2009-06-02
Whow, aparently even yahoo dict doesn't have an entry for it. It has only entries for it separatedly. Using them together has a special meaning, other than simple concatenation?
The AJATT Method - magamo - 2009-06-02
Jarvik7 Wrote:What I meant by the girlfriends & yakuza movies bit is that he seems to be parroting stuff he hears without really understanding what kind of language it is (politeness level, regional dialect, old-style language, age specific language, social dialects, etc).Isn't that the way we all learned our first languages? I remember when I was a little kid, I picked up dirty phrases from TV and kept using it when it's inappropriate. Sometimes I used a word repeatedly, not knowing what it actually means, just because it sounded cool. But people eventually learn meaning, usage, politeness level, regional dialect, etc. through immersing themselves into the language.
Certainly formal education is crucial to polish your language. But I guess it's not too late to learn finer points after you intuitively learn grammar and vocabulary through massive exposure. I think your first language had also been corrected at school even though you already got the hang of it and were considered to have native fluency.
I know different methods work for different students. I respect traditional language courses too. But I don't think there is any reason to despise a method that actually worked for someone just because you think an advocate is arrogant.
Aijin Wrote:Most people will understand the common ones of course (堂々, etc) but usually only the ones that have become fundamental vocabulary to the point where many people begin to actually mis-treat them as ナ adjectives.Are 学生たる者, 堂々たる, その状況たる idioms? I don't think so. You can swap the noun before たる with virtually anything if you want, e.g., 彼の表情たるまさしく鬼の形相であった。
Aijin Wrote:Less common ones such as 絢爛華麗 tend to go over peoples' heads.Wait. You said before young Japanese folks might not recognize "綺麗." Do you know what "瀟洒" means? Are you the kind of person who thinks "いかが相成りましょうか" is old? How about "日々努力を重ねてきたわけで、今回の成功もさもありなんと思われる"? Is "さもありなん" difficult for your friends? If that's the case, um, kids these days...
The AJATT Method - Jarvik7 - 2009-06-02
magamo Wrote:Indeed, but he has been learning for a long time now (self described as completely fluent as of 2004 or so). He also seems to have the opinion that he is "finished" Japanese.Jarvik7 Wrote:What I meant by the girlfriends & yakuza movies bit is that he seems to be parroting stuff he hears without really understanding what kind of language it is (politeness level, regional dialect, old-style language, age specific language, social dialects, etc).Isn't that the way we all learned our first languages? I remember when I was a little kid, I picked up dirty phrases from TV and keep using it when it's inappropriate. Sometimes I used a word repeatedly, not knowing what it actually means, just because it sounded cool. But people eventually learn meaning, usage, politeness level, regional dialect, etc. through immersing themselves into the language.
Fluent is a really overused word, to the point that it is meaningless. Highschool kids with a year of French under their belts say that they are fluent because they can ask "Ou est la bibliotheque?".
The AJATT Method - drivers99 - 2009-06-02
Look, I took Japanese classes for 3 years in college, yet I could not carry on a conversation in Japanese, I could not understand anime or any other spoken Japanese, and I couldn't read anything unless it was in hiragana only, with spaces around the words. Then I found a post by this guy Tynan, who posted about how he followed a method by Khatz/AJATT to learn how to write all the jo-yo- kanji in 2 months. Then I read AJATT, and here was a guy who went to Japan and had a job interview after 18 months. Whatever he did, he did something right, and he had fun while he did it. Of course, some people have a vested interest that everyone should take classes for 10 years. With all respect to my old sensei, the teaching profession doesn't know how to teach languages. I wish people would stop bashing AJATT.
The AJATT Method - Jarvik7 - 2009-06-02
drivers99 Wrote:Look, I took Japanese classes for 3 years in college, yet I could not carry on a conversation in Japanese, I could not understand anime or any other spoken Japanese, and I couldn't read anything unless it was in hiragana only, with spaces around the words.Then I suggest that you had a bad teacher and/or you didn't put enough effort into it. You don't become fluent by JUST doing homework. A classroom is a tool just like a dictionary. Simply owning a dictionary won't make you fluent will it?
If Khatz inspired you then great. That doesn't change anything that I wrote. He might be inspiring to some but he didn't invent the idea of immersion, which is common sense. Hell, even "kryptonite for learning" schools know this. I learned French by going to a French immersion school.
The AJATT Method - drivers99 - 2009-06-02
There's lot more to AJATT than immersion. It's also Heisig, SRS, and sentences, plus the other background behind what works and what doesn't. Of course I could have done more in college. I was working on my actual degree in computer science at the time. If I had known what was possible though, I'm sure I would have done it at the time.
The AJATT Method - kazelee - 2009-06-02
Jarvik7 Wrote:He might be inspiring to some but he didn't invent the idea of immersion, which is common sense. Hell, even "kryptonite for learning" schools know this. I learned French by going to a French immersion school.If immersion is common sense then the world is filled with idiots.
Immersion may make sense, but it is far from common.
The AJATT Method - bodhisamaya - 2009-06-02
Yea! He did pave the way for acceptance of a black man being in the White House after all (Am I over-reaching with the good Katsuo has done in this world?).
The AJATT Method - Jarvik7 - 2009-06-02
kazelee Wrote:If immersion is common sense then the world is filled with idiots.It's more a matter of people being lazy than not knowing what the best method is. If you can get an A in French201 by doing 1 worksheet a week, then why do more? It doesn't help that many people are incredibly insular and don't even care about watching French movies or reading German novels.
Immersion may make sense, but it is far from common.
Most people seem to study languages because they have to (school requirement) or because it seems like something one should probably do (or so they don't ripped off by the taxi driver on their next trip to Mexico). That is why almost every single book in a bookstore about language is a phrasebook or has a title like "Learn Russian in 24 hours". Most language learners are casual learners. That is why most get nowhere.
Immersion is very common among people who actually care about learning a language.
The AJATT Method - blackmacros - 2009-06-02
Personally I'm glad I stumbled onto the AJATT site; it introduced me to the world of Heisig and SRS+ sentence mining. I think it is fair to say that Heisig+SRS+sentence mining is the best thing that ever happened to my language learning. Heck SRS'ing is the best thing that has happened to my learning (of anything) full stop. Regardless of what else you might think of AJATT, the fact that it promotes these concepts trumps everything else imo. Everything else he writes could be utter nonsense; the fact that he introduced me to those concepts is of paramount importance.
Plus the concept that 'hey, I actually *can* immerse myself in native media from the start- its not all just a waste of time, or something to be put off until I'm good enough' comes through strongly from AJATT, and I don't necessarily think its common sense for most people.
The AJATT Method - Sebastian - 2009-06-02
kazelee Wrote:If immersion is common sense then the world is filled with idiots.Welcome to the real world.
The AJATT Method - bodhisamaya - 2009-06-02
common sense ≠ realistic view
It is what is most commonly sensed as correct.
The AJATT Method - kazelee - 2009-06-03
Jarvik7 Wrote:Common within a select group of people and common sense are two different things.kazelee Wrote:If immersion is common sense then the world is filled with idiots.It's more a matter of people being lazy than not knowing what the best method is. If you can get an A in French201 by doing 1 worksheet a week, then why do more? It doesn't help that many people are incredibly insular and don't even care about watching French movies or reading German novels.
Immersion may make sense, but it is far from common.
....
Immersion is very common among people who actually care about learning a language.
It's easy to say the person who gave up out of frustration wasn't really interested. Who knows how far such an individual would have gone if they just had the right tools. Now if they are given the right tools and still quit then one might assume such an individual did not care about learning the language.
I can fully understand why a person would want to quit.
When I was studying French I would try to read through a book while learning the vocabulary only to forget the vocabulary within a few days... Re-learn the vocabulary.... Get raped by grammar... Study the vocabulary. Get the grammar...Forget some. Re-learn... Study some more... get raped by more grammar...thus getting nowhere very slowly and painfully.
It wasn't until I heard a song by Jacques Brel that it occurred to me to apply "immersion techniques" to studying the language. It took two years of piano study and 4 1/2 years of French before the idea came to me. Jacques Brel has a lot of songs where he sings to piano. I listened to piano music almost 24/7. This Jacques Brel songs came on right as I was about to go to sleep, and I thought to myself why not try to learn French the same way I'm learning piano.
The methods I used to study piano came about through reading dozens of books and spending hours scavenging through piano forums, soaking up knowledge that others had to learn the hard way.
By immersing myself in French I was able to take myself far enough to actually understand my favorite songs, but my grasp of French was still poo.
About a year later I started to study Japanese. I tried to write my own program to review the kanji. It was crude, so I figured there had to be someone who's tried this before and done it better. I found a flash card program made specifically for studying RTK1. Reviewing in the program got kind of annoying so, I started searching for a better program to help"review the kanji". I found this site. Through this site I learn of of immersion (to the extreme), sentence mining, SRSing, shadowing, and the like. My Japanese, in 1 year, now surpasses my French.
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There are those who know and those who don't know. The one's who know were either taught or found out the hard way. The one's who know are also the minority, yet, somehow, this is called common sense.
The information contained within this forum and the AJATT site is out there if you search hard enough, but that doesn't make it anything close to common sense.
Edit: and yet, by boshisamaya's definition it is. Waste of post? Perhaps. Hmm. Tricky.
Strangely it wasn't common sense that led me down this path, but laziness. Not in the sense that I didn't want to do work, as I obviously do. I just wanted to find the most efficient method possible - which, coincidently, is the method where I have to do the least amount of work. Or the most, depending on how you look at it.
Sebastien Wrote:Welcome to the real world.This might be one perspective of the world but it certainly not the real world.
bodhisamaya Wrote:common sense ≠ realistic viewInteresting... what would be commonly sensed as correct while studying a language?
It is what is most commonly sensed as correct.
The AJATT Method - Jarvik7 - 2009-06-03
Actually the real world is filled with idiots. That's why we need warning labels that coffee is hot or not to use a chainsaw on your genitals.
Think of this.. If you are learning math, you use the formulas and techniques as you learn them to help you practice. You don't just study a big list of them until one day you are good enough to solve Fermat's last theorem, at which point you can start using math to count your pocket change. It is of course common sense to use what you learn and not wait for some ambiguous point at which you can say よしっ！これから話せるぞ！
..at least for me and everyone else I know who is multilingual...
The AJATT Method - kazelee - 2009-06-03
Jarvik7 Wrote:Actually the real world is filled with idiots. That's why we need warning labels that coffee is hot or not to use a chainsaw on your genitals.The chainsaw thing is idiotic. The coffee thing is more a reminder, as even the smartest people in the world burn themselves from time to time. Accident does not make idiot. Idiot makes idiot.
The AJATT Method - Codexus - 2009-06-03
Jarvik7 Wrote:Actually the real world is filled with idiots. That's why we need warning labels that coffee is hot or not to use a chainsaw on your genitals.I thought those ones were because the world is filled with lawyers.
The AJATT Method - Jarvik7 - 2009-06-03
Codexus Wrote:I thought those ones were because the world is filled with lawyers.Synonym
harhar
The AJATT Method - bodhisamaya - 2009-06-03
People are idiots? Well, compared to what? Until ET comes down and makes him/herself know, we are still the smartest living creature we are aware of.
For the most part, we are a pretty good species I think
kazelee Wrote:It is common sense that the ideal place to learn language is in a classroom setting. Most on this forum would probably view this as incorrect.bodhisamaya Wrote:common sense ≠ realistic viewInteresting... what would be commonly sensed as correct while studying a language?
It is what is most commonly sensed as correct.
The AJATT Method - blackmacros - 2009-06-03
bodhisamaya Wrote:People are idiots? Well, compared to what? Until ET comes down and makes him/herself know, we are still the smartest living creature we are aware of.I agree. I think the common-sense approach to language learning is "i'll take a class for it" not "I'm going to just immerse myself in the language and wait for it to work its way through via osmosis". The 2nd option doesn't really sound all too appealing or even effective. I think *most* people view native media or immersing themselves in the language as something that is done afterwards as a show of success. Most people here, on the other hand, view it as an essential part of the process.
For the most part, we are a pretty good species I think
kazelee Wrote:It is common sense that the ideal place to learn language is in a classroom setting. Most on this forum would probably view this as incorrect.bodhisamaya Wrote:common sense ≠ realistic viewInteresting... what would be commonly sensed as correct while studying a language?
It is what is most commonly sensed as correct.
The AJATT Method - bodhisamaya - 2009-06-03
Well, I didn't say I agree with common sense. Most people who know me will say I have very little common sense. I usually take that as a compliment.
The AJATT Method - nac_est - 2009-06-03
Jarvik7 Wrote:Basically, if he wants to act like a god, he'd better be god-like.If you had read his posts you would know that most of his "god-like" attitude is ironical, and he often makes fun of himself. The rest is functional.
I'm not saying you should go and read his posts, since they make your eyes twitch. And it is not surprising or bad that you don't know much about this Khatzumoto guy. What is surprising is that you keep declaring your judgement about someone you don't know about. That could become a very bad habit.
I'm sorry for my insolence. Really, there is no offence intended though.
The AJATT Method - Tobberoth - 2009-06-03
Jarvik is right, as usual, I've been saying it since I came to this site (I came to this site before AJATT): immersion is common sense. The whole idea of going abroad to learn a language comes from the simple fact that everyone knows you learn better and faster in an immersion environment. The difference is that going abroad is tons of fun in a billion ways. Forcing yourself to immerse at home isn't. That's why most people don't. They don't have the money nor the time to go abroad and learn and they are too lazy to change their environment at home.
The AJATT Method - Jarvik7 - 2009-06-03
nac_est Wrote:If you had read his posts you would know that most of his "god-like" attitude is ironical, and he often makes fun of himself. The rest is functional.I said that I don't follow his blog. I have read enough to know what he is like (at least on the internet) though. Just look at the 'grammar doesn't exist' posts.
I'm not saying you should go and read his posts, since they make your eyes twitch. And it is not surprising or bad that you don't know much about this Khatzumoto guy. What is surprising is that you keep declaring your judgement about someone you don't know about. That could become a very bad habit.
I'm sorry for my insolence. Really, there is no offence intended though.
That was a nice ad hominem though
That said, I am not entirely against AJATT. Immersion is common sense and SRS is an obviously good thing. People have been doing "AJATT" for ages before Khatz even thought about learning Japanese. I just think Khatz himself has done nothing worthy of praise and am stumped at why everyone falls over themselves to lick his boots. At best he is a role model to show that yes foreigners can learn Japanese, but many have learned Japanese before him.
The AJATT Method - blackmacros - 2009-06-03
Tobberoth Wrote:Jarvik is right, as usual, I've been saying it since I came to this site (I came to this site before AJATT): immersion is common sense. The whole idea of going abroad to learn a language comes from the simple fact that everyone knows you learn better and faster in an immersion environment. The difference is that going abroad is tons of fun in a billion ways. Forcing yourself to immerse at home isn't. That's why most people don't. They don't have the money nor the time to go abroad and learn and they are too lazy to change their environment at home.I think you're right, to a degree. "The best way to learn a language is to live in the country" is certainly a commonly held, and common-sense belief. So in this way, immersion is a common-sense idea.
On the other hand, I don't think failure to create an immersion environment at home is due to laziness. I think it is mostly due to ignorance. People just don't realise that it can be done (succesfully). It doesn't even enter into most people's minds as a possibility, because immerison is intrinsically associated with living in a foreign country (and nothing else).
The AJATT Method - Jarvik7 - 2009-06-03
Most people don't realize it because most people don't care about the cultural products of whatever country's language they are learning. I've never met a person learning French who was obsessed with French soap operas etc. They just dream about one day maybe moving to France and getting a romantic boyfriend who wears a beret. They don't imagine it's possible to immerse themselves at home because they don't really care about it. In that respect they are right, they can't immerse themselves because they don't want to. Even if they went to France they would likely form themselves a gaijin bubble.
Japanese learners are a lot different from just about any other language learner (other than those doing ESL). Most (who aren't taking classes on a whim or something) already spend tons of time listening to jp music, watching anime, etc. The problem is that they are STILL lazy and don't do any actual studying outside of what they need to pass the test, and the test likely isn't very hard (unless you went to a good school like 関西外大 o/) because the classes are filled with other lazy students who would have to all drop otherwise. Immersion is one of the best things to help you learn, but it's also not the only thing. Cue the expat who has been in-country for 35 years and can't say a word of Japanese. Immersion is only really possible/effective if you have genuine interest and the willingness to put in effort.
Little known fact: people don't generally like hard work.