When I began learning Japanese, all I did was Pimsleur and a pirated copy of Rosetta Stone, so I had a lot of time left. I used it to read up on "learning languages" and "learning methods" and "how the brain works" etc.

And after a while, after I finished Pimsleur (I had uninstalled Rosetta Stone after a week or so), I realized that all that was a waste of time.

I had read somewhere (I think it was the HTLAL forums) a sentence that made sense to me: "stop learning about the language, start learning the language. also, no matter what method you use, stick to it through the end".

Both was helpful. Reading about learning the language did get me "in the mood", but it also gave me the satisfaction that learning itself would have given me.

Sticking to a program to the end was good, as it helped me to get the basics down, and it really doesn't matter whether that's Japanese in Mangaland, Minna no Nihongo, Michel Thomas, Pimsleur, Assimil or Japanese for busy people. Just grab ONE and do it. Then find out what you need to do next and get the resources. And that's what Nukamerine's list is good for.

AJATT is just hot air, a lot of time you could kill reading endless rambling and, IMHO, めんどくさい in many ways.

And by the way, I learned Japanese without ANKI. I mean, I tried ANKI a few times, but it killed me every time. I now use it, for RTK, and this time I'm smarter, but I'm also not as hungry anymore and stuff in more than I could swallow. At 20 Kanji a day, the pain is moderate. This means, the Japanese language doesn't have a "walkthrough" and there's no "best method" and splitting hairs whether it's best to do a passive phase or speak from the beginning, how many vocab items make for how many percent of the language and yadayada ultimately are an entertaining thing, but also very detached from the subject as such, and spending time with that will not net you results in Japanese.

That's why I don't recommend AJATT to anybody.

And seriously, you read funny stuff about Khatzumoto on the net, like he'd work in an English speaking environment, he'd be a 引きこもり, his Japanese would actually be rather bad, his refund guarantee was actually a hoax, etc., so while I don't know Jack about all of this, it makes me reluctant to introduce any one to his site, I'd feel like giving terrible advice.

mmhorii Wrote:I heard that he has Japanese children. If that doesn't remove any remaining shred of credibility he has left, I don't know what would.

Someone told me that even his dog is Japanese. The nerve of the guy, to think his advice would be useful for anyone who doesn't own a Japanese dog.

[ファブリス]

Let's not turn this into yet another troll thread or it will need to be closed.

It's interesting to hear from people who actually tried it.

After 6 months of it, what level do you feel you were at? What kind of things could you understand?
Part of it is just them telling you what media to consume, right? Was it comprehensible, or was there something you did to make it comprehensible?

and ... how much money did you put into it?
I remember the refund promise - it was always 'full refund after the program has finished' - but you don't pay for the whole thing upfront ... right?

Aikynaro Wrote:After 6 months of it, what level do you feel you were at? What kind of things could you understand?

Well, I learned all the Heisig Vol. 1 Kanji, and I listened of Japanese music and watched a lot of TV shows. It did introduce me to the culture, I'll give it that.

Aikynaro Wrote:Part of it is just them telling you what media to consume, right? Was it comprehensible, or was there something you did to make it comprehensible?

Yeah, there was a lot of guidance in terms of guiding us to good Japanese media. The music selection I didn't care for much.

None of it was comprehensible.

There was a lot of "shadowing" where you watch some video and try to repeat everything that everyone says.

Aikynaro Wrote:and ... how much money did you put into it?
I remember the refund promise - it was always 'full refund after the program has finished' - but you don't pay for the whole thing upfront ... right?

I remember it being on the order of $3k, but I'd have to go back and check. I think I made payments over the first few months.

Just as an update - I finally got an initial $200 refund from AJATT almost two months ago. They mentioned they would start sending me $100/month and the next installment would come in a month, but I still haven't seen the $100. The saga continues...

gluaygluay Wrote:Just as an update - I finally got an initial $200 refund from AJATT almost two months ago. They mentioned they would start sending me $100/month and the next installment would come in a month, but I still haven't seen the $100. The saga continues...

That's ridiculous.

Sleazy business practices at their very best.

No offense, but I'm having trouble conceiving why people would pay for such products, let alone at a price tag well over $2000.

gluaygluay Wrote:Just as an update - I finally got an initial $200 refund from AJATT almost two months ago. They mentioned they would start sending me $100/month and the next installment would come in a month, but I still haven't seen the $100. The saga continues...

Good luck with getting the rest of your money back. I hope you're still studying Japanese or plan to make a return despite this sour experience with Silverspoon Neutrino.

gluaygluay Wrote:Just as an update

Good luck getting your money back. I too enjoyed the format of SilverSpoon because of its simplicity. I don't have anything positive to say about Neutrino though.

Thanks everyone for the good luck wishes. My Japanese studies have stalled for sure, but I hope to get back on track soon.

As for why to pay for the program - I'm completely willing to pay good money for something if it works. For example, if someone could fix my chronic shoulder pain, I'd totally be willing to give them $5k, even if they only spent 5 minutes on it. $3k for becoming fluent in a language is not much at all, and it did have the "Fo-Shizzle Fluency Guarantee" so I was sold.

I don't have a lot of spare time so I basically wanted someone to spoon-feed me material instead of figuring out how to learn it on my own. Learning a language is difficult enough, and it is even more difficult to "learn how to learn" or to structure your own learning method before starting to learn.

I was hoping that Silverspoon/Neutrino would be that exact sort of spoon-feeding, but I'd say it has a ways to go before meeting my criteria for spoon-feeding. i.e., I don't have to prepare or do anything except the do the tasks and read the materials that are presented to me.

If you are looking for spoon feeding, you can do a lot worse than following nukemarine's curriculum.

That curriculum looks excellent indeed.

I don't think people who need to be spoonfed everything can get very far with language learning. Sorry you didn't get your money back, but I don't think you were destined to learn Japanese either way.

I've learned other languages successfully by being "spoon-fed" through courses.

I'm fine with continuing my learning on my own once I know the basics, but don't have the time or the inclination to go down the autodidact route, e.g. figuring out what vocabulary to learn or which grammatical structures are the most common.

Once you're at a basic level with a language, your learning becomes self-sustaining and you can learn quite a bit just by reading/conversing/watching/asking. I believe a good course will get a student to this point.

kameden Wrote:I don't think people who need to be spoonfed everything can get very far with language learning. Sorry you didn't get your money back, but I don't think you were destined to learn Japanese either way.

Hahahahaha "destined to learn Japanese". I remember the day I looked at my family annals and saw my inscribed future, doomed to a life of Anki.

A large struggle of maintaining a typical work/student life and balancing external hobbies like studying Japanese sometimes is just how to optimize one's lifestyle better. Spoonfeeding in some form can be an attractive path to at least jump-start one's study, until they have a better grasp for how to tailor their study materials to individual needs. I wouldn't advocate paying for it, but the rationale is not that absurd.

I won't speak on gluaygluay's behalf because I don't know if he was really looking for Silverspoon Neutrino to deliver fluency on a plate (admittedly, he says this in an earlier post), but it's not like people don't change their approach to individual goals. Judging that someone isn't "destined for Japanese" based on a mistake and possibly unrealistic expectations like expecting fluency, is just silly.

People are allowed to make mistakes. Usually despite the harsh criticisms from people on this forum, there is at least some interest in offering aid towards the pursuit of Japanese ability. Your post fails in this regard, and does not contribute even an inane sense of humor (the only "contribution" I know how to make ).

EDIT: I see above he has clarified what I had suspected his expectations were - I think personally this is perfectly reasonable.

Well said, Flamerokz. And you're right, I wasn't expecting fluency. I've been humbled by my previous language learning and know just how hard it is to become fluent - especially as you get older.

Also agree with you on tailoring study once you reach a certain point beyond the basics. Khatzumoto is a huge proponent of finding material that interests you in order to learn, but I think his mistake is applying this principle from the very start of learning.

Also, I'd like to think that kameden was secretly trying to inspire me via my defiance.

kameden: "I don't think you were destined to learn Japanese."

me: "What?? I'll show him!"

kameden Wrote:I don't think people who need to be spoonfed everything can get very far with language learning. Sorry you didn't get your money back, but I don't think you were destined to learn Japanese either way.

Dude. Chill. This is a forum for encouraging our fellow learners, not knocking them around.

Having spent flip knows how many hours on finding level-appropriate resources, building Anki decks, etc., I can certainly understand wanting to spend as much of one's precious human life on actual language learning as possible.

kameden Wrote:I don't think people who need to be spoonfed everything can get very far with language learning. Sorry you didn't get your money back, but I don't think you were destined to learn Japanese either way.

That's how 90+ percent of people have learned everything they know: by having it spoon-fed to them via a very strict curriculum, in school.

I agree that it's not the best way to learn, but it works well enough to teach someone a language. Believe it or not, learning a language is not one of the more difficult things there is to learn.

kameden Wrote:I don't think people who need to be spoonfed everything can get very far with language learning. Sorry you didn't get your money back, but I don't think you were destined to learn Japanese either way.

1.) Spoon feeding is efficient, when done properly. I don't think there's an efficiency minded person out there that would rather look up everything about a topic than have it set before him, ready to consume.
2.) Destiny is for people who either don't want personal responsibility or can't accept that things happen 'just because'. This mindset isn't useful for self-study or achievement of any kind, due to the complacency associated with it.

As for Nuetrino (and Silverspoon in general), I think it's far too expensive for what the product claims to deliver; I'd prefer to put that money towards a good tutor, online or local, but that's just my opinion.

Also using a textbook as an autodidact is by itself a sort of spoon feeding. You're being spoon feeded by the book authors with all those materials ordered by difficulty, examples accurately choosen to be i+1, extensive explanations, dialogs with translations, audio recorded for you etc.. The only way to be not spoon feeded is to discover the language all by yourself, but it's foolish, why reinvent the wheel? A smart person follows the simplest route, I think... Another example is with speaking practice, it is spoon feeding if you do it with a tutor (like those you can find online) that corrects you and all the like... But if something is useful or, in other words, if something works, where is the problem?

Final update:

AJATT SilverSpoon/Neutrino has refunded the remaining balance to me! This was a pleasant surprise, as I thought I was going to get a trickle of $100/month. It took a while but eventually they came through.

Glad to hear it ! I hope your motivation came out intact of this whole experience.