Sorry about the title

Some if not most of you have probably heard/read about the "critical frequency" theory, as made popular by Khatzumoto of AJATT fame. Long story short: All you need to do is immersion for some 2 minutes every hour and you'll get the same effect that you'd get if you had spent the whole day - which is awesome. Or is it..

I can see how this idea of frequent exposure to a language can be helpful if one were to maintain their level, but is it possible to also learn new stuff with this method (two minutes of Japanese/any other language every hour or 30 minutes)?
So, if anybody had actually tried this for a few weeks or so, I'd to love to know what you think. Has Khatz really found the philosopher's stone?

I agree that it might be possible to maintain your level in this way, but it's not so obvious that it could help with learning. However, it's also not impossible. I don't think the suggestion is that you learn for 2 minutes per hour, just that you do something in your target language. Keeping your brain aware of Japanese by zapping it every hour is not a bad idea, and by keeping your Japanese mode active it might mean you process Japanese more in the background. It might also be, as you suggest, hogwash.

There was a post somewhere here recently about a guy that experimented with immersion only Chinese study (though he supposedly learned a few things using normal methods before doing this experiment) and the result was not very good.
The way natives learn a language is constant immersion, patient & forgiving parents and basic education. As a foreigner any advantage you might have had over them by being an adult and consciously wanting to learn is lost because you lack such patient parents & family and haven't been attending any basic school. Foreigner immersion & interaction is always worse than a native one (1st has an "escape" in the form of his first language, the other doesn't have a choice) and the amount of time it takes for a native child to be a fluent adult is really long (there is a great difference in how 15yo speak and how a "normal" person does).

Thats why such "critical frequency" while interesting in theory can only be inferior to a full immersion that is vastly inferior to the learning environment a native has. If you're trying to catch up, why take the longer road?

I think he's referring to maintenance, not learning 2 minutes/hour. I can see that might work... going from immersion to zero can effectively erase any trace of Japanese... four years of zero Japanese were enough to force me to start from scratch in everything except, oddly, verb conjugation, but as we know that's not the biggest issue in Japanese.

So perhaps minimal exposure is enough to maintain fluency?

If you were sorry about the title, you would have corrected it before you hit submit.

I think of it the same way I think of anything else that Khatz seems to come up with on his own. And I think the title is fitting.

thurd Wrote:The way natives learn a language is constant immersion, patient & forgiving parents and basic education. As a foreigner any advantage you might have had over them by being an adult and consciously wanting to learn is lost because you lack such patient parents & family and haven't been attending any basic school.

This I don't really agree with. I think foreigners really do have a distinct advantage. 7-8 years is an easily attainable goal to reach fluency for an average learner. And after 7 to 8 years of learning the language a foreigner will usually speak like an adult not an 8 year old.

Sometimes foreigners do have their little non-native quirks in their speaking, or use some strange grammar even after 7-8 years of learning, but I think it's hard to disagree that they accomplished a lot more in a lot less time.

I think he was talking about learning only via immersion.

I think conceptualizing one's daily study/encounters with Japanese and using a schematic to try to focus on being consistent is a good idea in general, but even as a bait-and-switch I don't think the 2 minutes per hour is a good model to follow. Dividing the day into segments and in each segment making sure to integrate some aspect of Japanese, even if it's a relatively small element, might be the approximation to leave it at.

Although I think if you have any regimen that works for you integrated into your life it's not really necessary. It might be better to let the SRS take care of the algorithmic metrics for memorization, and just take care of the scheduling component on a macro, non-numerical level in a flexible and consistent way. Or something. ;p (Develop your metacognition. Use complementary design; reduce overhead. &c.)

thurd Wrote:...there is a great difference in how 15yo speak and how a "normal" person does...

You know anyone under 12 I have real difficult in understanding. I think it is because their language abilities haven't yet formed. I agree that there is a big difference.

You know, being a bit more realistic than Khatz, critical frequency is a good idea. If you were to study for 20-30 minutes per hour every waking hour I think you would probably make great gains in your Japanese.

Probably my issue is with the 2 minutes per hour. This is nowhere near enough to get a decent study session in. I think what Khatz is talking about is SRS based learning. In this case 2 minutes every now and then a bit of serious work in the morning and evening would be an excellent strategy for keeping your reps down.

Personally, I study often and for moderate amounts of time. It, of course, varies, but effort over time will win the war. Perhaps find your own best time frame within the time you have and work with that. There is no reason why critical frequency can't work for you. You just need to extend the time boxes or take an approach where you study often and when you can, which is probably more what Khatz is on about.

Regularity matters. It doesn't matter that it's 2 minutes per hour, one hour per day or even a 3-hour session once a week. It's impossible to determine how much you'll get done during any of these sessions, or how predisposed to learning you'll happen to be at that time. However, I can't imagine 2 minutes per hour leading to any kind of meaningful learning, so you'll need longer, deeper sessions every now and then.

Personally, I try to spend as much time as possible thinking in the language (whether talking with others or to myself). I couldn't be bothered to determine the actual time I spend doing this.

I'm not about to reread the post, but from what I understood from Khatz's post, is it's not exactly for learning but to maintain a prior language while focusing on learning another. Like if your learning Chinese as your L3 but still need to upkeep Japanese as your L2 or even English as your L1.

Now Khatz's never said he had any scientific evidence to suggest this works, but it says it seems to help himself.

I agree with most of what I read here.

The notion of regularity is important in maintaining a language, as well as improving it, but the idea of a "critical frequency" of 2 minutes EVERY HOUR is a bit ridiculous.

The name critical frequency makes it sound like it's needed to get by, and there is NO WAY I'd ever be able to do Japanese EVERY HOUR that I am awake, most people have jobs etc. that don't allow them to do so, yet still make huge leaps in the language.

I can see where he is coming from, he may have the ability to do it, and has a following of people that he needs to come up with fun new catch phrases to continue to be the guy they look up to. However, I'm not buying what he's selling :p I'll do Japanese once per day, and continue making my progress that way

Of course it's hogwash. But, is it useful hogwash? Might finding some way for Japanese to distract you every hour be a baby step towards spending real quality time with the language? Does the forced absence at the end make the heart grow fonder? Maybe. But, mostly it's hogwash. Personally, I think most things he says are hogwash. But maybe a kind of 公案らしい hogwash that gently pushes you to discover the truth about yourself and your language experience.

You gotta work for that, though; you can't just deify him and be blessed with Japanese pwnage in return...

This, like most of Khatz's stuff, is a terrible explanation for a potentially good idea.

I mean, think about it. If you purposely try to spend 2 minutes per hour on Japanese that you wouldn't be focusing on Japanese, you'll basically be spacing about 40 minutes of immersion throughout the day. That on top of whatever studying you're doing couldn't hurt, could it?

If you studied math equations for 2 minutes every hour you'd have them memorized within a couple days.

He just explains it as if it's the cure for Japanese learning cancer, like all of his posts, to make people inspired and like his blog and writing so they'll purchase his products.

I dont think some of you read Khatz's entire post. He never said anything like this is how it is and you should do it because he said so. He said several times that he had no proof and that he wasnt sure. Although, I think there is some true in what he says. From what the links below suggest, we dont have to study as much as we might think.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...171604.htm

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/0...z10qe2aI3W

No, we read it, and I think it's obvious we did. We just know better.

Also, Khatzumoto always says some nonsense about how he's just a man, not a guru, but still, if you want to pay him and follow his way, etc. etc., blah blah. That's just faux self-deprecating patter.

At any rate, I could've sworn I posted that “Enchancing perceptual learning... ” article back in September. I might not've gotten around to it after Lehrer blew it out of proportion on Wired and it spread that way. Didn't AJATT post about it later also?

Either way, we're talking about much more complex learning, and the paper doesn't discourage one from substantive practice and relevant, substantive additional stimuli in order to engender enhanced states, so it doesn't really justify two minute study sessions or whathaveyou.

It's similar to the idea of listening nonstop, which is silly and unnecessarily excessive, though plenty of passive exposure is useful at the onset when you want to get used to the coarsest features of Japanese phonology. If anything, the perceptual learning paper might be encouragement for active learning sessions of considerable length (e.g. at least 10 minutes), where you take advantage of the primed state and multisensory SRS cards for overlapping additional stimuli at a general level in addition to per-card study. ;p

Its just an idea.
no need to say you're all smarter and better than khatz.
lololol

mark95427 Wrote:Its just an idea.
no need to say you're all smarter and better than khatz.
lololol

I could make up a bunch of shit and post it in a blog too, but I don't because I know that I'd just be misleading people. There are some good reasons to mock khatz.

mark95427 Wrote:Its just an idea.
no need to say you're all smarter and better than khatz.
lololol

Khatzumoto is just another peer. If I see an interesting idea, I'll post it and praise what I think is good about it, though mostly I can't be arsed because I only read this forum when it comes to Japanese self-students, I can't be bothered to read every blog and would-be guru's network of sites.

And if I disagree, I critique. It so happens there's a lot to critique with Khatzumoto, who I think is not the most experienced or clever of peers here on the forum, and this is made inordinately visible and possible by the shared attention of his zealous followers or critics who post about him (the latter often for the same reasons I've enumerated, I suspect).

Example: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...#pid118658 - I believe I was the first to post here about ‘critical frequency’ in the first place.

I know Khatzumoto has a blog, but it's okay to criticise him rather than blindly praise him, mark923413. Try reading past your projections of ad hominem negativity and you'll see most criticism of Khatzumoto here is constructive and impersonal, and when it veers beyond that, it's an elevation in tone induced by overzealous and juvenile defenders. lolol.

I believe the (far from new) concept is that doing a little bit everyday is better than doing a lot once a week. This goes for learning an instrument or doing exercise as well.

Of course, doing a lot everyday is even better, as long as you aren't burning yourself out.

nest0r Wrote:

mark95427 Wrote:Its just an idea.
no need to say you're all smarter and better than khatz.
lololol

Khatzumoto is just another peer. If I see an interesting idea, I'll post it and praise what I think is good about it, though mostly I can't be arsed because I only read this forum when it comes to Japanese self-students, I can't be bothered to read every blog and would-be guru's network of sites.

And if I disagree, I critique. It so happens there's a lot to critique with Khatzumoto, who I think is not the most experienced or clever of peers here on the forum, and this is made inordinately visible and possible by the shared attention of his zealous followers or critics who post about him (the latter often for the same reasons I've enumerated, I suspect).

Example: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...#pid118658 - I believe I was the first to post here about ‘critical frequency’ in the first place.

I know Khatzumoto has a blog, but it's okay to criticise him rather than blindly praise him, mark923413. Try reading past your projections of ad hominem negativity and you'll see most criticism of Khatzumoto here is constructive and impersonal, and when it veers beyond that, it's an elevation in tone induced by overzealous and juvenile defenders. lolol.

that "lolol" is mockery, is it not?

anyways... i wasn't referring to you. :]
or was i...

No, I always randomly add ‘lolol’ to my critical comments in a neutral way.

i knew it!
you're an alpha male.

we're making troll posts now

much love much love...

[so i look less like a troll]. i think the main lesson we must acquire from khatz post is that we must keep consistent contact with the language.

I think the key of the "critical frequency" is that it stimulates your motivation.

I don't think you can learn a lot by studying 2min every hour...