I was wondering if anyone out there can give me a day by day, or week by week run-down of silverspoon. It sounds really interesting and I would join, but with a new baby, I really don't have the money. So if anyone can give me that I would appreciate it.

I don't think anyone here did it.

edit for correction

It's pretty much everything the ajatt site has, but it's tailored for you, and it's sent to you on a daily basis in small chunks.

You could easily prepare an equally effective method by reading through this forum and through other blogs (including the ajatt site).


This guy blogged the first 50 days. Might help.
http://tabetaiii.wordpress.com/

It's not everything the site has, he introduces mcd's copycat sprints, and shadowing.

[Katsuo]

kitakitsune Wrote:I don't think anyone here did it. Except of course the creator who is a mod here.

I don't think any of the mods here are connected to the Ajatt site.

My mistake then.

cae99v Wrote:It's not everything the site has, he introduces mcd's copycat sprints, and shadowing.

Aren't they just small techniques you could learn about anyway, but just that they're done his prefered way? He's published a lot of information about MCD on the regular blog, and I'm sure anything else would be on those AJATT+ forums that you can sign up for?

I'm also thinking that if you read everything on the regular blog and learn about various methods people post about here then you won't need silverspoon.

I know most of the techniques, I'm just looking for a time table. Also a liitle info on that mono-lingual transition would be helpful.

There isn't a good time table. Because the Silverspoon material doesn't specify how much time it expects you to spend on Japanese every day. I've thought from the beginning that that's its biggest, most obvious flaw but that AJATT doesn't want to deal with/recognize it because then it would become more obvious to people if they don't have the resources necessary to do it. From what we on the outside have heard of it, there is no individual adjustment of the tasks/schedules given. There seems to be no sources yet on how Silverspoon works in the long run http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=9783 .

There is nothing much to say about "the mono-lingual transition", and its importance has been greatly exaggerated, like with so many other things on the AJATT site. Since it takes some extra time to look things up when using a mono-lingual dictionary as compared to a bi-lingual one that means you become disengaged from the material you're reading and so you might lose more overall in gains of Japanese because you have to waste time re-understanding the context of the main material that you are picking words to look up from. It will be a long, long time before it takes equal amounts of time regardless of how early you start using a mono-lingual one. Personally I've been learning Japanese for three years now and I'm reading "Norwegian Wood"(ノルウェーの森) right now - sometimes I use mainly a mono-lingual dictionary, sometimes mainly a bi-lingual dictionary, it depends on what I feel like. It's not this huge important transition that will change EVERYTHING, and making it out to be is silly.

As long as your focus is on understanding Japanese material and you do it as efficiently as you can, it doesn't matter much what tools you use in the process, you're still moving forward. Yes, even traditional textbooks can be useful, as long as you suck out the knowledge they have for you as quick as possible and don't get stuck reading all their hand-holding text that's there to make sure that those who are scarcely interested/not determined don't give up. The academical/school world is mistaken when they say their way is the only way, it's good to recognize that. But AJATT made a mistake when it instead made it seem like its way was the only one and that the academical one should be thrown like a baby in a small tub of bathwater out the window. Lots of roads lead to Tokyo. Just make sure you take all the shortcuts you can find and ignore the eye-catching bullshit littering the roadside.

silverspoon is probably useful for those who have plenty of money, and not very much time. basically it saves you the work of doing a little basic research on how to do a language project efficiently.

if money is your concern, I would say silverspoon isn't for you, and you should read the *free* ajatt.com articles from the table of contents... and also the RevTK wiki... and follow the forums. within a week or so you will understand everything fundamental to learning a language on your own.

cae99v Wrote:I know most of the techniques, I'm just looking for a time table. Also a liitle info on that mono-lingual transition would be helpful.

Though not from ajatt, according to Japanese Level Up ( JALUP), you can start transitioning from J-E to J-J/monolingual after 1000 J-E sentences. It's a 4 article series that I think you might be interested in.

http://japaneselevelup.com/2012/01/06/th...m-comfort/

If you want a sort of timeline, you can check the Walk through section of the website.

Like everyone else has previously said, you can find the same methods (if not superior) in the regular ajatt site and especially this forum and this site's wiki. Best part, it's FREE ^_^
Nukemarine's Suggested guide for beginners is a good place to start looking

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5110

Silverspoon just makes it easier on the customer in a way that native resources (for immersion) and a set study plan is created for you. Khatz even mentions what kind of target audience Silverspoon is for

Quote:•Are you inspired by all the information on AJATT but unsure how to start and what to actually do?
•Do you feel overwhelmed by all the things going on in your life?
•Are all these effing questions starting sound like a Xanax commercial?
•Do you wish that someone could be there for you every step of the way, like a parent or big brother or Mr. Miyagi?
•Do you wish someone else would do all the worrying and big-picture thinking and planning and strategizing for you?
•Do you want the security of knowing you’re doing stuff that actually works, that you’re on the right track? Every day? Until you’re fluent? No leaving you alone?
•Do you wish you could abdicate responsibility of handling the structure and scheduling of your learning, while enjoying the freedom of choosing the content?
•Are you overloaded with good ideas but underloaded with action?
•Do you just want clear, simple, straightfoward, easy directions and validation?
•Do you want someone who won’t bait and switch on you, who’ll take responsibility for your fluency, for getting you there?

Basically its called "Silverspoon" because he is "spoon feeding" the customers on how to study Japanese. IMO you don't need this and can create an equally efficient, if not a much superior study plan for yourself. For free! It just required that you put in the time to research study methods that you feel benefit you as a learner

But if you don't have the time to research for study methods the I suppose Silverspoon is beneficial in that it saves you time (not money though :/)

[Zgarbas]

(randomy, totally amateurish idea).
Why don't you use whatever time you have to master as much basic Japanese as you can, and when your new baby starts learning words* spend quality time marathoning anime with him? Getting a bilingual kid+spending quality time with him+having your very own conversation partner forever sounds like a much sweeter deal than anything else .

*I have no idea how kids work, but say 2-3ish? By then you can already have a solid foundation to explain things to him until the magical language-catching skill that kids have catches up with it.

Hyperborea Wrote:If you've been "spoon fed" you won't have the understanding of what you're doing and why to make those changes. Best to take the time that you would spend in studying for a couple of weeks and read up here, at HTLAL, doing some googling around, and say read Kató Lomb's book, Polyglot: How I Learn Languages. Then develop your own plan and save the Silverspoon fees for learning material or private tutors who can give you direct custom tailored advice.

* Kató Lomb is the uncredited creator of what some others pass off as their own invention.

Thanks for the Link, didnt knew this Book before!

Someone should create a community-driven "OpenSpoon" that anyone could join for free.

RawrPk Wrote:

cae99v Wrote:I know most of the techniques, I'm just looking for a time table. Also a liitle info on that mono-lingual transition would be helpful.

Though not from ajatt, according to Japanese Level Up ( JALUP), you can start transitioning from J-E to J-J/monolingual after 1000 J-E sentences. It's a 4 article series that I think you might be interested in.

http://japaneselevelup.com/2012/01/06/th...m-comfort/

They don't seem to really consider at all what I mentioned earlier about how looking up things in a J-J dictionary takes more time and distracts you more from the material that originally had the word you were looking up. I'm not saying that that should be enough to reason to never use a J-J dictionary, but I do think that it's enough reason to still consider using a J-E dictionary in tandem with the other one, or opting for J-E when reading say literature with terms from a field you haven't met before (eg medical literature with terms like 静脈 if you don't even know 血管)

Quote:If you want a sort of timeline, you can check the Walk through section of the website.

A lot of that seems to be exactly what I meant when I wrote in my earlier post here, "[...] and don't get stuck reading all their hand-holding text that's there to make sure that those who are scarcely interested/not determined don't give up". Same goes for loads of stuff on AJATT. Sites that really are for those who are determined are shaped like Antimoon - straight to the point, no frills, just tells you what you need. Having material that isn't teaching you any Japanese directly, only how to teach yourself Japanese be that vast makes for a humongous time-sink, unless your self-esteem is so low that you need it. And if your self-esteem is that low I think it would be better for you to come to understand why you are like that and try to challenge yourself by taking more personal initiatives, making the hand-holding counter-productive in the long run again. It's overly "pedagogical" droning on about believing in yourself that oftentimes could be summed up with "you're a good person either way, don't worry so much about how others would judge you because they usually really don't mind, don't forget the other responsibilities you have in life and make sure to stay healthy, and keep focusing on learning Japanese as quickly as possible using the time you actually have". I've thought for a long time that AJATT can only be improved now by editorial work that cuts down on the body of text and makes everything way, way more concise. Same goes for this site, it seems.

It's good that their timeline is built on clearly stated assumptions about how much time you'll be spending doing Japanese. However, a closer look at those http://japaneselevelup.com/2011/12/09/ho...ese-a-day/ quickly reveals that the writer doesn't expect the learner to be someone who needs to communicate in English daily with family etc. or have any interest in watching movies/TV shows in their native language with friends and family. It is learning for a social recluse or someone who's fine with turning into a social recluse for some months. I don't think cae99v can really use that. And I think that it's the kind of extreme learning that can be useful for a very, very limited number of people who are living in special circumstances. Basically someone who is planning to work with Japanese somehow or go to live in Japan and either doesn't need to work/study full time or has little interest in maintaining friendships for the time being or can easily find Japanese friends in the vicinity and has no family to maintain. For everyone else, it's bound to be destructive since it limits their social growth, worsens their preexisting friendships and makes them less likely to meet new friends, and also hinders them from putting their time into something that will truly be useful in their daily life, like for example dancing (which is good for your health AND getting friends/romantic partners). Most people can't afford to make Japanese such a huge thing in their life and of those who can, very few actually benefit from it and truly want to do it in the long run. It's great for people that it works for. The problem is when AJATT and similar sites try to give the impression that their methods, carried out in the IMO extreme way they propagate, should be viable for the average person or even just the average Japanese learner. They're not.

Sunspot Wrote:Someone should create a community-driven "OpenSpoon" that anyone could join for free.

I've always thought that's essentially what this site is. Using nukemarine and buonaparte's guides will give you enough learning material for at least one to two years of study.

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:

Sunspot Wrote:Someone should create a community-driven "OpenSpoon" that anyone could join for free.

I've always thought that's essentially what this site is. Using nukemarine and buonaparte's guides will give you enough learning material for at least one to two years of study.

Nukemarine and buonaparte aren't the only people on this forum who have provided learning material