Hey guys!

I think I should write some information about myself so you can get a general idea of what I'm talking about.. I'm 17 years old, English is my second language. I learned it by watching english cartoons all day none stop when I was a toddler (immersion ftw). By now English is like my native language to me.

Anyway, I decided I want to become fluent (more like understand Anime lol) in Japanese 6 days ago. I allways wanted to give Japanese a try, but was allways put down by the "Oh it takes 10 years to master the basics by yourself lulz!!!" stuff...

Since there were no classes (lol) in my area I decided the only logical course of auction was to read up on the basics of Japanese and go from there... I started out reading some grammar rules, tried Pilsneurs audio lessons, it was way too easy and basic, you don't learn real Japanse, it just tells you - "Say I don't understand japanese- "Nihongo ga wakarimasen!", "Jozu jarimasen!") That's just it... I don't want to jozu jarimasen! I want to become skilled lol

Anyway, since I know from experience what crap language classes are, I decided to find another way... A better way! Kinda like I learned English?! Yeah, that would be kinda cool. Add to the fact that all I had to do was watch re-reruns of Dexter's Lab. Though, I was like 5-6 when back then...
I seriously know NONE English grammar rules, but I can talk circles around every teacher I meet. Text book language is crap. Not real. FAKE! I learned everything I know from watching English cartoons all day long, and I liked it...Though, I was like 5-6 back then... Didn't know if this time it would would work this time. I wasn't putting immersion past me, anyway.

So, one youtube user pointed me to AJATT's website, and I gotta say I was stunned! This guy know's that you can't really know a language without immersing yourself in it first...

HERE'S THE QUESTION PART

Anyway, I'll get to the point. I've only started this thing 6 days ago, the basic idea I got from his site is:

Number one: Immerse yourself in the language (listen to Japanese stuff 24/7)

Number two: Learn the 2000+ Kanji

Three: Examine 10000 Japanese sentences.

Okay, I'm a bit lost, I've got to listen to 10,000 hours of Japanese stuff, learn 2000 kanji (kana after that), analyze 10,000 sentences...
Okay, I'm listening to stuff like TV Tokyo, Fuji TV, Japanese music etc... The problem is I only understand a few words if at all... What should I do about that? Expand by vocab somehow? I've learned 50 kanji today (just started the kanji part today) I keep forgeting some symbols though... Khatzumoto is always about 100% immersion... What's the point if I don't know the word's? I don't know if I can pickup the vocabulary like I did when I was 6 years old...

Should I just concentrate on the kanji, and don't worry that I don't understand nothing of what's being said on TV? When do I start getting the general idea of what's being talked about?

This post is a mess. If anyone get's through reading it, let me hear your advice.

Thanks

Welcome!

First I'll warn you that not everyone here agrees with Katzumoto. I'm one of them. I think his method works by chance!

I learned English the same way you did, so I could not understand why just watching anime was not helping me understand Japanese.

The point is that I also read a lot of English and played many English language video games. I also saw English in the internet all the time.

But I never did the later with Japanese. Nor had I courage to try. Kanji scared me.

Why AJATT works?

1) RTK makes you love the kanji, instead of being afraid of them.
2) The sentences give you the base to understand what you hear.
3) SRSs let you forget that you forget.

What you should do:

1) Finish RTK. Employ 100% of your strength to finish it.
2) Start to mine sentences. People here like "Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar" and "All about particles".
3) At this point you'll have about ~1000 sentences. You should try going monolingual.

Allways: Hear japanese as much as you can. Anime with subtitles doesn't count.

Learning kanji early is a great help, as it will allow you to use pretty much any Japanese text as learning material during the sentence phase. As for listening to spoken Japanese before you can understand it, at first it is mainly about becoming familiar with the language and the way it sounds, without worrying too much about actual words.

Edit: Oh, and since mentat brought up subtitled anime, I'll simply suggest turning off the subtitles. Understanding less (at first) is a cheap price to pay for learning more, and you'll probably understand more than you expect from the pictures alone.

Edit 2: Though, having finished RtK, I often find manga easier to understand than anime, thanks to the kanji.

Just listen and immerse. Comprehension comes second, or maybe even third or fourth. You'll hear many things over and over again, like okyakusama, byouki, and ane, for example. When you finally learn the meaning it will stick almost instantly.

Regardless of how much time you spend learning vocab it wont help you actually hear the language.

Trust me on this. I spent 5 years learning vocab for French, yet I could hear nothing.

Others could give you better tips and knowledge on the subject. I'm just a noob, though, I can understand more spoken Japanese than French because I've been listening to nothing but j-pop/rock and Japanese dramas for the last two months.

Edit: Wow I musta fell asleep while typing. Two posts slipped in when I typed so little

Personally, I find it to be the opposite. Just listening when you don't know the words is just getting your brain used to the sounds, it doesn't actually teach you anything. It's also almost impossible to hear proper, fast and advanced japanese unless you know the words spoken, the words just float together into a long line of sounds, it becomes impossible to parse, and if you can't parse it, you aren't activly listening, you're just hearing sounds.

I say complete RTK, then get some basic textbooks in Japanese and mine sentences from them while learning the grammar as you go. Put them into SRS and keep revieweing them. Once you're done mining them and have about 1000 sentences or so, you're ready to start mining from "real" sources like books, internet etc. That's when you should start listening as well. No matter how good your vocabulary is, you won't hear anything at first, but as you hear more and spend time parsing what you hear, you get used to how words start and how words end, how a sentence flows when spoken.

I'd recommend reading through the entire AJATT website from beginning to end. That will give you a better understanding of why the system worked for Khaz and if you think it would work for you. All of your questions have already been addressed along the way.

I kinda agree with toberoth.

Just listening to raw anime wont take you far, you need to do it side by side with reading comprehension.

But still, you need to start from something. In the beggining you wont understand much and after a bit of practice you will soon understand more and more.

Besides that, watching raw anime/japanese music without understanding much would not be so bad, because it is fun afterall.

Yep, AJATT is nothing more than bringing the immersion to you.

1. Like you did and what's mentioned above, watch and listen to stuff in Japanese THAT YOU LIKE. If you don't like the news, you're not going to "listen" too it, your brain will phase it out.

2. For Kanji, yes, learn it. You don't have to go RTK, as there are other routes. However, I think RevTK requires the least investment of time now.

Now, what 1 and 2 are doing is NOT teaching you Japanese. It's getting you used to parsing what you hear and parsing what you read. When your brain in tuned to that, when you begin the sentences, it just begins clicking.

2a. Having looked at the Movie Method, it's worth considering using it or a kanji town version to get Onyomi pronunciations memorized prior to reading.

For sentences you have some pretty good resources now. For beginning sentences that can teach grammar WITHOUT requiring you to memorize grammar rules: There's AAP (all about particles), UBJG (understanding basic japanese grammar), JFE (japanese for everyone) and Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese. I recommend Tae Kim as it's free.

After you get some grammar sentences, you can move onto vocabulary building. KO 2001 (Kanji Odyssey) and iKnow are outstanding for progressive addition to your vocabulary.

During all this, increase your watching, listening and reading of real Japanese. A majority of AJATT posts are about ways to help you get material or use that material to create the immersion.

I don't think it's necessary at all to spend money on anything. Tae Kim is better than textbooks, you probably don't need anything more than that before beginning learning from real sources.

Tobberoth Wrote:Personally, I find it to be the opposite. Just listening when you don't know the words is just getting your brain used to the sounds, it doesn't actually teach you anything. It's also almost impossible to hear proper, fast and advanced japanese unless you know the words spoken, the words just float together into a long line of sounds, it becomes impossible to parse, and if you can't parse it, you aren't activly listening, you're just hearing sounds.

Tobberoth has a very good point here. I always wondered, am I really listening unless I can just repeat what has just been said? Forget understanding for a moment...

Before trying immersion, I would answer NO - it doesn't count unless I can repeat it.

Now, I am not so sure. I am trying to learn grammar through immersion - I would repeat a running tape of grammar sentence patterns in the background throughout the day. I would listen passively, because I am focused on doing other work. Surprisingly, at the end of the day, when I review the sentences in a book, through reading, the passive listening seems to have helped!!! But I'm not 100% convinced yet, and I have to run the tape many, many times over the day. I will post later on, about the results of my grammar-immersion experiment... ...BTW, JLPT2 grammar is hard enough that just trying to understand the meaning of a pattern through listening is insufficient - initially, some degree of translation is still necessary, at least for me - otherwise, I may have completely mis-guessed some meanings, even if I could use the pattern, in theory...

AJATT is sometimes complicated a lot, but it really is kind of simple. Keeping it up is the harder part. Now, keep in mind that everybody has a different style/approach to learning, but these parts of the method are pretty core and can't be bent in my opinion.

-You really need to have faith and believe you can become fluent in Japanese.

-Accept the fact that you suck now and there will be many things you don't understand.

-Recall the fact that you WILL become fluent in Japanese. This is redundant, but important.

-If you can't do AJATT, go "AMJAYCATT", "As Much Japanese As You Can (almost) All The Time".

- Live in your environment and try to AJATT as much as you can, but make sure to also actively learn from the things. It's ok to sit back and do some passive immersion, but do not be passive in your learning 24/7.

-Have fun. Whatever that means to you. Fun keeps you doing things in Japanese.

-Not stated directly, but find native speakers to talk with. It doesn't have to be all the time, but just holding a conversation every now and then can challenge yourself a lot and teach you a lot. Even better if you can find a group of Japanese to hang out with. Khatz doesn't talk about this, but the fact is he did it. I think it would be challenging to find anyone who can talk like a native speaker without having talked to a native speaker. This can be difficult, but just keep at it slowly.


Other things that can help (not necessarily core -- depends on the learner):

-In the beginning, use multiple levels of material. Listen to songs. Watch TV shows. Listen to Jpod101 if you like it. Use a beginner text book. Read manga. Use KO2001. Read Tae Kim's website.

The point is that advanced things will be too difficult to get a full understanding of, but they are still beneficial. Listening to Tv shows will get you used to the rhythm of Japanese and reading manga (even if you can't understand it) will help improve reading speed and likely make you able to read some kanji you've never seen before (if you've done RtK). After getting tired of not understanding much, go to the other resources and do some active learning.

-Look at a variety of stuff. Don't get hung up on one grammar point/word. Having trouble understanding it? Move on and come back to it sometime. Make a mental note of it so when you see it in material you can try to grasp meaning from context.

-Use things you've done in English before. Make sure they are of the appropriate level though. I bought 1984 and Catch-22 in Japanese, but these are just too frustating to read. I found out that Resident Evil novels I read in middle school were translated into Japanese so I bought one of those now. There are plenty of words I don't know, but the structure isn't so difficult I want to stop reading.

-Later on, try to use J-J dictionaries. If you can't understand the word, go to J-E or look up a word in the definition in J-E. Practice J-J though.

-Don't get addicted to busting out the dictionary. Try to read stuff without a dictionary sometimes.

Sorry, I kind of suck at being concise at this subject.

Anyway, good luck.

Welcome to RevTK and welcome to the wonderful world of Japanese self-teaching.

Don't stress out about all the conflicting info, remember the Golden Rule of Language Learning: any method you choose will eventually work, provided it includes regular exposure to the language.

To throw in my two cents to the listening debate, I learned some vocabulary just by watching anime *with* subs, without deliberately studying Japanese at *all*. But, that took a lot of anime. I remember the first time I understood a full sentence on my own. I was starting the first episode of Fate/Stay Night, and working in another window during opening theme song. Then I heard, without the subs, "みんな死んだ" - "minna shinda" - "everyone died" - and understood it completely and naturally. That was really exciting since at that time I hadn't deliberately studied at all.

I have to say two things about listening:

1. Learning Japanese to the point where you can listen to what's being said requires active listening, too. Watching things means you can get that active listening without being bored to tears (pimsleur, anybody?).

2. People go into watching anime and movies thinking they need to understand every little thing, but that's a skewed perspective. This is born from the thinking that there's a 1:1 meaning for Japanese:English. Besides, you can infer a lot more than you think from context and what you already know.

Besides, you're still only picking up random words with Eng. subs. I don't even think the primary point to watching Japanese stuff is to pickup vocab.

Listening should be i+1, just like reading. You need something a little higher than your level to be most efficient. However it's really hard to find these kinds of listening material, so all you can do is listen to a variety of things. I think Alyks is right in that listening does not really teach you vocab, you need to learn the vocab first and then hear it in context in lots of different ways. From this you will understand it's use and then you can use it.

Hi,I'm seventeen too! ^^
I finished Heisig in August,but now I started with the Zhongwen book studying 30 kanji a day and I don't miss a single day...I love kanji
For comprehension I'm pretty basic,in a drama I can follow from 20 to 40% of what is been said
However for me what is important is to learn something every day,I mean vocabulary phrases it's up to you but learn something new every day
For now I'm picking sentences from iknow,from 20 to 40 a day,it's a very handful site
Good luck with your study
お元気で

While a lot of people seem to advocate i+1 sentences and doing SRS all the time, I personally seem to have hit a roadblock with that method, and for the past month or so I haven't entered any new materials into my SRS (but I keep reviewing). Instead, I just continue to immerse myself in Japanese. I focus mainly on reading, reading all sorts of things from basic children's stories, to video games, to internet sites like Nico Nico Douga. What really impresses me the most is that I have been able to pick up a lot of nerdy Japanese internet slang from Nico Nico Douga, even though it's stuff you can't look up in the dictionary. Just seeing the same stuff used over and over again in multiple contexts seems to drive the point home.
Anyways, I think the real thing that helps is not just immersion, but really dissecting the stuff that you immerse yourself in and figuring it out! It can be very very slow at times... you might not even be able to figure out a lot of things. But over time you pick up more and more, and I find that when I have to sort of work at it in order to figure out what something means, I tend to remember that thing very easily.

Zarxrax, could you comment more about that?
What is your current japanese level? When did you started doing it?

I intend to do what you are doing. I just wanted to put all the joyo kanji in my SRS before that.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Zarxrax, could you comment more about that?
What is your current japanese level? When did you started doing it?

I intend to do what you are doing. I just wanted to put all the joyo kanji in my SRS before that.

I'd say it's not that you get to a certain skill level before you do that, but that you get to a higher skill level by doing it.

alyks Wrote:

mentat_kgs Wrote:Zarxrax, could you comment more about that?
What is your current japanese level? When did you started doing it?

I intend to do what you are doing. I just wanted to put all the joyo kanji in my SRS before that.

I'd say it's not that you get to a certain skill level before you do that, but that you get to a higher skill level by doing it.

I think alyks hit it on the head. You can either say "I can't do this right now, because I don't understand it yet", or you can say "I am going to understand this now". My Japanese level isn't that good. I'm going to take JLPT level 3 this year. It's pretty rare for me to encounter a sentence where I can fully understand every word, but that's just an opportunity to learn many new words.

Yeah, we fell the same about the same stuff. It is just a question of strategy. My intent of putting the joyo in the sentences is to someday free myself from RTK reviews.

You seemed to have learned English to a very high degree by watching cartoons all day, which should already be a testament to the power of just learning through context. The only things you had as a child that you may lack now:

1) All the time in the world
2) An ability to only do exactly what you want - you never would have watched a tv show as a kid if it didn't interest you, yet now, when people become adults, suddenly we "have" to do this or that to improve our Japanese
3) Amazing ability to concentrate without getting frustrated (probably related to #1)
4) Inability to use subtitles

Just let your envoinment help you with your Nipponese comprehension and keep focusing on the Kanji. Though learning Kanji requires active work, the way you set up your enviornment lets you not worry about when you would obtain comprehension. [As a measure, evaluate, even if only casually, how much Nipponese you understand now, then re-evaluate when you finish Remembering the Kanji. (Make sure that you keep your immersion enviornment up first throughout your Kanji studies.)]

As for the sentences, remember that Mr. Khatzumoto said that even he did not actually achieve an actual number of 10,000 sentences; this is just the philosophy of having a higher likely grade if you aim for a higher grade yourself. (That is, you cna expect a better grade if you aim for 100% than for 80%.)

(Whoops! I did not notice that this thread was years old! p = ( - _ - ) )

haha Dankoochoo it is a year old huh? I think it would be interesting if the OP and some others updated us on what they did and how things are going now for them

Here I was reading this thread, thinking it was new, and wondering at how both mentat and alyks showed up to post in it...

spleenlol Wrote:haha Dankoochoo it is a year old huh? I think it would be interesting if the OP and some others updated us on what they did and how things are going now for them

Eugh. I get this for lack of reading...