nadiatims Wrote:I'd rather people just attempted to explain their ideas but whatever.

buonaparte Wrote:

nadiatims Wrote:I'd rather people just attempted to explain their ideas but whatever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog

We're not people, we're cyberspace ghosts.

I'd rather Khatz produced something interesting and tangeable, then I could rip his site.

nadiatims Wrote:I don't really give a crap if someone on the internet calls me a troll or not, I'd rather people just attempted to explain their ideas but whatever.

TheKorv Wrote:Now, you may not be a troll, but as seen in that banner ^^^ there are trolls in this forum.

IceCream Wrote:.then, again, why do you ignore posts which actually contain responses to the serious things you talk about in favour of responding to the more dramatic posts. And why do you exaggerate and put up straw men even in your "serious" posts?

nest0r Wrote:Bravo to Thora and Tzadeck, et al.

dtcamero Wrote:at least AJATT has no bitter trolls

nadia Wrote:Bitter trolls are the price one pays for balanced information.

matto Wrote:

nadiatims Wrote:nadiatims wrote:
Will you ask for your time back too?

I don't get this at all. Will my Japanese get worse by doing SilverSpoon?

nadiatims Wrote:That depends what you would otherwise be doing with your time. Since I believe there are more effective and less time (time=money, money=time) consuming ways to learn a language than what would appear to be the core of the AJATT method (and I used to read his blog and follow his methods) yes I believe it is detrimental to your progress.

aphasiac Wrote:Can you post a link to a fully fleshed out detailed plan, that ends with fluency? (bare in mind these guys don't want to do the planning part - so posting links to vague methods or forums and telling them to work it out for themselves wont help)

Amset Wrote:I thought the point was that there is no such plan. If people can't dedicate themselves to planning how they are going to learn a language there is no way they will dedicate the effort to actually studying (in my opinion).

TheKorv Wrote:The main thing is, this argument is petty and unnecessary.

Amset Wrote:I thought the point was that there is no such plan. If people can't dedicate themselves to planning how they are going to learn a language there is no way they will dedicate the effort to actually studying (in my opinion).

Amset Wrote:The other thing is what people often say, that people learn differently from one another. One plan may end in fluency for one person but not for another, without one person being "better" in any way than the other, just different.

chair Wrote:Anyway, after reading this thread I was wondering if any of the Silverspoon progress blogs has posted any of the daily emails in whole or in part.

bodhisamaya Wrote:Had Silverspoon been put into book form rather than daily emails with a retail price of $600, would anyone buy it? I think anyone who did would be thought of as insane.

aphasiac Wrote:

nadiatims Wrote:That depends what you would otherwise be doing with your time. Since I believe there are more effective and less time (time=money, money=time) consuming ways to learn a language than what would appear to be the core of the AJATT method (and I used to read his blog and follow his methods) yes I believe it is detrimental to your progress.

This is a criticism we keep hearing; silverspoon isn't worth it, as there are better more effective methods out there. Yet no one can ever provide a single URL.

Can you post a link to a fully fleshed out detailed plan, that ends with fluency? (bare in mind these guys don't want to do the planning part - so posting links to vague methods or forums and telling them to work it out for themselves wont help)

The closest thing is nukemarine's guide on this very site, but it's not for everyone. I roughly followed that guide, and sorry but studying core cards is boring as hell - I certainly couldn't make it past 1500. Also left me with zero speaking and listening abilities. It's a nice resource but no one's reached fluency using it yet have they?

aphasiac Wrote:Anyway I disagree with your opinion - I don't see the link between being able to plan, and being able to learn a language:

gdaxeman Wrote:I don't think so — many times, what prevents people from doing something is that they don't have a clear, believable plan for succeeding at what they're trying to do; not knowing if something will work is what prevents many from doing what it takes.

gdaxeman Wrote:Remember that children all around the world learn their native languages basically the same way, no matter if they "learn differently" or not — unless they have some kind of impairment, like hearing- or cognitive-related ones.

nadiatims Wrote:

aphasiac Wrote:

nadiatims Wrote:That depends what you would otherwise be doing with your time. Since I believe there are more effective and less time (time=money, money=time) consuming ways to learn a language than what would appear to be the core of the AJATT method (and I used to read his blog and follow his methods) yes I believe it is detrimental to your progress.

This is a criticism we keep hearing; silverspoon isn't worth it, as there are better more effective methods out there. Yet no one can ever provide a single URL.

Can you post a link to a fully fleshed out detailed plan, that ends with fluency? (bare in mind these guys don't want to do the planning part - so posting links to vague methods or forums and telling them to work it out for themselves wont help)

The closest thing is nukemarine's guide on this very site, but it's not for everyone. I roughly followed that guide, and sorry but studying core cards is boring as hell - I certainly couldn't make it past 1500. Also left me with zero speaking and listening abilities. It's a nice resource but no one's reached fluency using it yet have they?

I wrote down a four point plan in either this thread or the other one, but I'll elaborate a little more here. Incase it comes off as overly authoritative please realise this is simply because I can't be bothered prefacing every sentence with "I think" or "In my opinion".

Basically what it comes down to for me is the following: accumulating listening and reading practice to get used to the patterns/phrasing and pronunciation/rythm/etc while also steadily accumulating new vocabulary and idioms with some light grammar only if/when it becomes strictly necessary. If you have the opportunity to write and speak in Japanese too, then these skills will improve as you accumulate practice and also as your other (so called passive) skills improve. So the question is how to do this as efficiently and painlessly as possible and getting the biggest bang (effect) for your buck (time).

As a beginner the biggest boost in comprehension are going to come from steady growth of vocabulary. The fastest way to do this is to make use of the advantage you have as an adult, fluency and presumedly literacy in your native language. While theoretically you can learn the language without using the written form and I know one foreigner who is native level but illiterate (after 11 years in Japan), for the sake of argument lets assume for practical reasons it makes sense to become literate. I propose learning hiragana first. Then Move onto Kanji. Kanji would be learned in Heisig order (not strictly necessary but probably easier) by learning vocabulary which uses the different major readings of the characters. This would involve writing the words out in kanji, writing their pronunciation in hiragana and meaning in English. This kanji learning phase would end once one feels they have a decent recognition of say 90% of the words. The purpose of this phase is to demystify the writing system. Basically you should understand the radical system, recognise most of the primitives, have a good amount of kanji readings and a bit of base vocabulary. The next phase would be to do go through the same word learning process to learn katakana but I suppose it could be deferred.
While the learner is learning the writing system and bunch of vocabulary, they would also be making use of dead time (commutes, exercise, cleaning etc) to listen to the target language. I would recommend starting with an audio course, because the translations can be used to comprehend and learn the material. A lot of the vocabulary learned from the kana/kanji study will be recognised, activated and reinforced. Words learned from this passive audio study will also pop up in the kana/kanji word study and be reinforced in the same way.

Once the written system is more or less mastered in this way, it is time for the learner to begin on easy authentic content, or if that is still too difficult parallel texts or phrase books or anything with translations. Something like L-R method might also work well at this point (I've been intending to experiment with it). The point is that by using translations, the texts can be understood quickly and new vocabulary can be gained easily with limited use of a dictionary. Otherwise if the learner feels ready they could jump straight into authentic texts making heavy use of a good electronic or web dictionary. New words should be learned. This might also be a good point to quickly skim through a grammar explanation. Just read through it, reading the example sentences and translations and as always extracting the new vocabulary. Don't bother with any of the exercises.

Keep reading and listening to authentic content, learning new words, and checking grammar if/when necessary. If you have opportunities to speak and write. Do so and those skills will improve further.

No need to bother with:
Sentence mining
Sentence cards
flash cards (optional, see vocab method below)
searching for and inputting sentences
making cards with audio/pictures
subs to srs
searching for subtitled media
software
fill in the blank exercises
monolingual dictionaries
short interval review of anything
grammar (unless it is felt necessary)

*Regarding vocabulary learning. Vocabulary learning during either of the phases above will basically be done in the same way. I recommend limited long interval review involving writing out the words by hand using a method I've written about in other threads. Basically:
-use an A4 notebook
1. Start a new word list to be filled with 30 or so new vocabulary on a fresh page.
2. write the date above the list.
3. Write the words in 3 columns. First column is the word in kanji or kana, second column is the pronunciation in kana, third column is the meaning in your native language.
4. Ignore that list for a decent chunk of time (I usually do 2-3 weeks)
5. check which words you still remember.
6. Rewrite the forgotten words in a new list
7. Write the date above the list.
Keep repeating steps 4-7 until all items are remembered.
-when one notebook is finished start a new one. You can write the number of words each book contains on the front of each notebook (calculated by multiplying the rough number of words in each by the number of double pages in the notebook). This way you can easily track how much vocabulary is in the system. If you feel it is necessary old completed word lists can be re-reviewed. I can clarify this method further if requested.
* theoretically you could also just do standard mass SRSing of vocab in the usual manner. It's pretty effective but the reviews will start to pile up, and much of it is redundant. The method above is based on the idea of minimal work by letting items naturally enter the long-term memory rather than trying to force it in by spaced review. Anyone can test this method for themselves by writing a vocab list and ignoring it for a decent chunk of time. However many words you remember, it should prove that the short interval review you might have done on those items is in fact unnecessary.

ta12121 Wrote:@nestOr lol. Not sure how I would ta12121212121efied this thread