I recently watched this video interview with Steve Kaufman (from LingQ, which is a sort of online SRS plus reading content provider of sorts and Stephen Krashen, known for concepts like N+1, the affective filter and language acquisition v/s learning, among many others.

Here they talk about topics like language acquisition v/s learning and the importance of input (and particularly, reading).

It's a very interesting and enjoyable video, so I thought some of you could want to watch it too:

The Linguist: Discussion with Stephen Krashen

What do you think about the matters discussed? Do you agree with Krashen?

Steve Kaufman really is a voice of common sense on many topics. If there's one person's advice everyone should follow on language learning it's him.

As for LingQ, I've only tried the free version but I couldn't really get into it. You may as well just use the internet with a popup dictionary and send flashcards to anki if flashcards are your thing. I can see that it probably represents better value for complete beginners and people who enjoy the community aspect.

Steve Kaufman is one of those people I generally enjoying listening to. His approach is something relaxing and his interest for language comes through well, without being " "preachy", a little dramatic, as others can get sometimes.

And Krashen has a lot of interesting scientific experience in the field, which is something I find engrossing.

The conversation itself was a nice listen. They were honest enough and said effectively what was needed. Krashen is well aware of the weaker areas in formal language classes, and in my opinion is making a earnest attempt to invigorate the educational aspects, but there is only so much you can do without a larger support base. Kaufman is well and truly experienced self-learner and knows what works well for himself, and many others seem to enjoy using his language blog/website.

The only aspect I would comment upon is that it was a little short. I would have enjoyed if they touched upon those comments which were insinuated to be discussed after the interview, during the interview. A sound file would have been more than enough, if bandwidth limitations were a concern. -But I'm just a whore for this sort of content.

Interesting listen, thanks. I was reassured to hear Krashen say that a key problem is the availability of input that is comprehensible and compelling, as a beginner that's already one of the problems I have, and I think proponents of the input method often forget what it's like to be a real beginner when barely anything is comprehensible. I probably have a very low tolerance for 'noise', and for me that's actually worse the more compelling something is - if I'm interested in something I can't stand not to fully understand it. I'm kind of encouraged that it sounds like people doing this type of input method may understand less than I realised, too. It does make it sound like maybe a lot of the input actually needn't be perfectly comprehensible, a bit more than just +1 maybe?
He puts the idea of skimming much, much better than AJATT does, I think I actually 'get' it now.

Interesting viewing. Thanks.

What stuck out for me was the loose definition of "comprehensible input". I've always thought this to mean an almost solid grasp of the text, which as a beginner is extremely difficult to come across outside of structured learning materials.

However, it's encouraging to hear them say that only having a vague and wooly understanding is good enough, and, as long as you keep going, it's ok to just skip over the hard bits.

Thanks for sharing! This deeply interests me. I've never heard of Kaufman until now but it seems like he's had a significant impact on the language learning community.

I'm curious how soon reading native "authentic" material will benefit beginning learners like me. I've only gone through 670 kanji and half of Tae Kim's grammar guide, yet apparently just 874 of the most common kanji in Wikipedia covers 90% of its content (pretty sure that's enough for comprehensible reading). Reading is a receptive skill just like listening after all, although it is harder to multitask... I know I'll start reading in Japanese sooner or later, I'll just have to see how I progress.

The trick to reading native authentic material sooner is to seek out particularly easy stuff. Even (I think) if it means lowering the bar on what you consider "interesting." 670 kanji is not too few to start reading if they're the right kanji. (Not sure if you're doing RTK or something that has more relation to kanji frequency). Vocabulary will be a problem, but you really don't need that much to get a toehold in children's manga, Disney storybooks, magazines for preschoolers, children's chapter books, children's encyclopedias/nonfiction...