Jarvik7 Wrote:I very much doubt he was fluent in 15 months. He makes frequent fundamental mistakes and he has supposedly been fluent for 5 years now. His sentence structure is also pretty basic and he doesn't know (or doesn't want to know) when to use kanji properly.

Could you give some examples? Does he just talk like a robot in really short artificial sentences? And what do you mean by "fundamental mistakes"? I seem to remember you saying he uses kanji too much... or something like that anyway.

[Also, his website states he started in June '04 and got the job in September '05, and the video was posted in Jan '09, so it was a little under three-and-a-half years after he declared himself fluent.]

Jarvik7 Wrote:@kazelee
Judging from some people I've seen on TV, many English native speakers aren't fluent
I would say he's fluent now despite his mistakes, but I seriously doubt his ability five years ago.

Fair enough.

Jarvik7 Wrote:@magamo: The way he builds himself up & his superiority complex invites all the criticism. His current level is no better than anyone else who studies halfway seriously for 6 years.

Actually, if you read his site, he's quite humble, but in an... narcissistic sort of way, lol.

Site + attitude = sales. Multiply that by controversy and you've got yourself a winner.

Perhaps the real human being and the image are not one in the same.

Perhaps.

bodhisamaya Wrote:

Thora Wrote:Could they be referring to classroom hours? With the idea that a student would study a couple hours per classroom hour and 3 classes/week or something?

Perhaps they are credit hours. One semester of Japanese gets 4 credit hours at most universities doesn't it? Counting summers, that's 900 hours/ 12 credit hours a year = (Is math on the test?)

Yeah, we're kind of encroaching on Mr. Time Calculation's territory (Nukemarine).

But does it seem approx right? A Japanese major would be there in 2 years. As a single elective course, it would take more like 6 years?

kazelee Wrote:If it's class hours, maybe we should multiply it by 3 or 4.

magamo Wrote:I don't think he was that fluent 5 years ago either. But to me it seems a little nitpicking to point out grammatical errors and claim his sentence structure is basic when he sounds this natural. Still needs work, I know. But still...

I've met people fluent in English who make basic, seemingly basic, grammatically mistakes in speech, and yet, at the same time, had better knowledge of vocabulary, but less knowledge of comma use than I did. Guess they weren't fluent after all.

My guess is that some people take fluent to mean perfect.

I've never met a person who doesn't make tons of errors when speaking his or her first language. My definition of "fluent speaker" is a person who feels comfortable with the language.

Jarvik7 Wrote:@magamo: The way he builds himself up & his superiority complex invites all the criticism. His current level is no better than anyone else who studies halfway seriously for 6 years.

I know what you mean. I can easily imagine his writing style and attitude get on a lot of serious learners' nerves. I'm not sure if most serious learners can be as fluent as he is in 6 years, but I'm pretty sure his Japanese is excellent. It's just his method worked wonders for me; at least I think it did.

He has lived in Japan for several years, and he claims he was fluent when he got the job there (which I, like most people, don't believe. He was good enough to get the job, so it's impressive. But I would probably not have called him fluent.) That means, he has gone from "good enough to get a job" to this level in 3,5 years of living in Japan. Honestly, I don't think it's surprising at all.

Hasn't Khatzu spent most of the past couple of years learning Mandarin?

Hmm. It seems not a few people think serious learners should be able to speak like him in 5 years. Maybe I'm underestimating serious learners...

I'm guessing Jarvik7 and Tobberoth have met as fluent learners who have had studied foreign languages for about 5 years or less. Would you let me know about those learners? I'm really interested. Or if you have been learning Japanese for several years and can speak the language as well as him, I'd like to listen to your Japanese. I'd be grateful if learners who spent several years could post in Japanese too.

It's true that 'perfection' shouldn't be synonymous with 'fluency'. I've noticed that native English speakers often use adjectives incorrectly as adverbs, and use 'are' accidentally for singular nouns, and 'is' for plural from time to time. Everybody makes mistakes! It's what makes being human so fun ^^ But, I think that to be considered fluent someone should truly be able to navigate every aspect of their language at least in its practical form, and have strong literacy. And I think that takes at least a decade for most people. I mean, lots of people major in Japanese, and after 4 years of college they can pass JLPT2, and after 6 years or so they can pass the JLPT1. But for true fluency and wielding a second language as well as your native, I just can't see someone being able to do that in a few years.

Somehow just looking at the first post I guessed this would morph into an AJATT debate on what counts as fluency. I think Khatzumoto's at the level that only native Japanese can be trusted to critique his "fluency", and every native I asked has given the "at least 10 years, maybe raised here" reply about his level with the BRIEF sample of writing and speaking given.

Anyway, back on topic, I thinks Blackmacros put it in perspective in the second post but I'll add that the JLPT is a MULTIPLE CHOICE STANDARDIZED TEST. Not knowing any Japanese means there's a chance you can still score 70%. It's statistically so low as to be impossible, but it's still there. The JLPT is not fluency, it's still just a test.

As others have said the reading and listening portion, that takes time to train up, would be the failing factor for the guy that wanted to give the 3 months a shot. I know I couldn't pass it. Probably the reason they put such strong time limits on the test, as they want rapid recall to information, not deciphering.

However, it's a pointless question in the end. Outside of diplomats and military, I doubt there's much effort to force that much studying into 3 months (what, 12 hours a day, 90 days straight). So what's the overall point of the question? Can you refine studying to get the most per day?

Aijin Wrote:But, I think that to be considered fluent someone should truly be able to navigate every aspect of their language at least in its practical form, and have strong literacy. And I think that takes at least a decade for most people. I mean, lots of people major in Japanese, and after 4 years of college they can pass JLPT2, and after 6 years or so they can pass the JLPT1. But for true fluency and wielding a second language as well as your native, I just can't see someone being able to do that in a few years.

Measuring it in years is troublesome though isn't it? What exactly constitutes a "year" of study? Just to give an example: someone studying five hours each day over three years would rack up 5475 hours of study, whereas someone studying two hours each day for six years would only rack up 4380 hours.

The first person has been learning for half as many "years" as the second but has studied for 1095 hours more. I think this is why confusion arises - some people with limited ability will say they've been learning X language for so many "years" and will wonder why they haven't made much progress. If you worked it out in hours I imagine it would be surprisingly low.

To most people, spending one hour each day studying is more than enough, but for some users on this forum five hours is not enough. People are very different. That's why I think the only way to measure study time is in hours, not years or months or weeks or even days.

Expertise is supposed to require 10,000 hours of practice, right? Well if someone put in 10 hours' Japanese practice each day, in theory it would take less than three years for them to become an "expert", in other words native level. Obviously this isn't an exact science, but I don't see why it should take "at least a decade" if you have the right mindset.

Amphetamines + Polyphasic + Dominic O'Brien's book (Good one, not crippled ones) + Nothing else to do + Literally 24/7 learning = FTW

Cut it to RTK lite and use above formula, you've got a slim chance there, pal.

alyks Wrote:Amphetamines + Polyphasic + Dominic O'Brien's book (Good one, not crippled ones) + Nothing else to do + Literally 24/7 learning = FTW

Cut it to RTK lite and use above formula, you've got a slim chance there, pal.

RTK lite won't cut it. JLPT1 has the jouyou kanji PLUS about 100 more on it. Plus the 8000+ vocab (plus 10% outside of the list at the test writer's discretion) plus all of the grammar plus listening comprehension (doesn't come free with knowledge of grammar & vocab) plus reading comprehension (also not free). You have to know the grammar well enough to pick which example is right or wrong too. Being able to decipher meaning isn't enough. The time limits are also very strict unless you know your shit.

To even think it is remotely doable in 3 months, even doing 24/7 study with literally no sleep, is a laugh. JLPT might not be a reliable indicator of actual language ability (especially since there is no production portion), but that doesn't mean it's EASY.

Getting past my sarcasm, the idea is that you get familiar enough to tell the difference between kanji enough to learn to read them, since you never have to write them on the JLPT (I think?)

Aijin Wrote:and use 'are' accidentally for singular nouns, and 'is' for plural from time to time.

i can't say i have ever noticed that, maybe i factor out things when i know what someone is saying, being native fluent means you can understand someone even when they aren't. you know exactly what they are saying even if they are making a total arse of it. (now theres an english phrase for you)

and ofc you can't take someones typed words as any kind of fluency these days, i am english, but i write on here as if i've been hit in the head with a blunt instrument sometimes (after midnight i have a rule where grammer and spelling no longer factor in what im typing. usually i correct myself on mistakes quite anal retentivly.. its quarter to 1 atm.. so my spelling is likely all over the place )
althought if im ever speaking to a non english native then you can bet any money my english is spot on perfect, spoken and typed. (if u can get past my rather random geordie/scottish accent)
tangent yes.. point no..

"ahem".. personally if anyone wants to find a willing subject for this,, jlpt1 from scratch then id be a willing supporter. although ill put money on them failing and cracking under the pressure, i don't think its humanly possible to cram like that over that space of time without something imploding inside your head.
although what to i know. My srs just kicked my ass tonite. im clearly not studying as hard as i thought i was. must learn harder !

edit: lol im editing spelling errors as i find them.. go to bed .. your tired ><

ghinzdra Wrote:

kyotokanji Wrote:Or 1000 words of German or French etc for an English speaker!! I can't believe that for one moment. There are moments where it's good to say "Great idea, do what you can" but the suggestion of 300 Japanese words a day is not quite right.

Oh yeah ???
so mark my words :in 1991 Bruce Balmer at the memoriad event (world championship memory) learned 2000 foreign words in 18 hours....
and dominic ferris learned 320 german words in one hour and he apparently did something similar in chinese except I can't get my hand on the datas.

"Blondie like" :There are two kind of people in this world my friend : those who think it's impossible until someone else do it and those who do it.

Exactly, as a circus act you can memorise plenty of words using various techniques but that's all it is, a circus act. You can't internalise those words to have any meaning at all. You can understand most European langauges with 2-3,000 words, that would therefore take only a couple of days!!! I would love to learn German in five days....

I propose for the OP to give it a whirl and see how it goes with daily updates.

As for earlier posts on the number of hours needed to pass the JLPT, it's based on classroom hours at a Japanese langauge school in an exam based class. the kind of class that has mostly Chinese students, does Minna no Nihongo in a term etc, very dull.

I would also put money (lots of it) on failure. Anyone know a bookie?

The easiest way of all would be to simply know someone "on the inside," so to speak.

Then it's very much doable in 3 months. Hell, maybe even 2 weeks once you've done all the planning.

Aijin Wrote:[...]

magamo Wrote:'m not saying he must have learned Japanese in fifteen months. What I meant was that he IS fluent. Don't you think it'd be still amazing if he reached the fluency, say, in ten years?

I am a bit weary of judging someone's fluency from a YouTube video, [...]

Speaking of making of native mistakes, while this does make a hilarious sentence perhaps you meant "wary"?

Also, how set are you Aijin on teaching Japanese at the university level. I ask because there's a serious need at the high school level for Japanese teachers [edit: in America in the midwest]. At my college there were 4 native speakers who taught the Japanese curriculum, but at my high school there was one for the southern half suburb school district and she taught telecast lessons to about 20 schools a week. You are liable to find people in desperate need and with a desperate desire for Japanese more at that level than the University. However if your interest stretches beyond the education level into the academic level I can clearly understand your interest in the University. (or if.. you know.. the pay

kazelee Wrote:Then it's very much doable in 3 months. Hell, maybe even 2 weeks once you've done all the planning.

Why not 15 seconds? It's about as realistic of a goal.

Gingerninja Wrote:

Aijin Wrote:and use 'are' accidentally for singular nouns, and 'is' for plural from time to time.

i can't say i have ever noticed that

In some instances it's correct in British English. "Radiohead are a rock band", for example. Americans would say "Radiohead is a rock band". Personally I think the latter sounds horrible but that's only because of how I've been taught.

One of most common mistakes/quirks I see among Brits, especially midlanders & northerners like myself, is a tendency to use "was" instead of "were" and vice versa. For example "I were going" or "We was going".

People also use "that" instead of "which" or "who", for example "the thing that I saw" rather than "the thing which I saw".

Of course the beauty of language is that it doesn't really matter and nobody cares.

Jarvik7 Wrote:

kazelee Wrote:Then it's very much doable in 3 months. Hell, maybe even 2 weeks once you've done all the planning.

Why not 15 seconds? It's about as realistic of a goal.

Well deciding to do it 15 seconds before would leave your inside man in a bit of a position. 2 weeks is a short time to plan such a delicate operation, what with all the high security and all.

Edit: Group project, anyone?

kazelee Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:

kazelee Wrote:Then it's very much doable in 3 months. Hell, maybe even 2 weeks once you've done all the planning.

Why not 15 seconds? It's about as realistic of a goal.

Well deciding to do it 15 seconds before would leave your inside man in a bit of a position. 2 weeks is a short time to plan such a delicate operation, what with all the high security and all.

Edit: Group project, anyone?

You could just take the test in America. Chinese people always leak them as soon as they take the test. Time difference advantage. You would figure that the test writers would be smart enough to issue different tests for the west.

magamo Wrote:Also, how set are you Aijin on teaching Japanese at the university level. I ask because there's a serious need at the high school level for Japanese teachers [edit: in America in the midwest]. At my college there were 4 native speakers who taught the Japanese curriculum, but at my high school there was one for the southern half suburb school district and she taught telecast lessons to about 20 schools a week. You are liable to find people in desperate need and with a desperate desire for Japanese more at that level than the University. However if your interest stretches beyond the education level into the academic level I can clearly understand your interest in the University. (or if.. you know.. the pay

Hey, hey, 'weary' makes logical sense, though you're right: I did mean wary. I trip on English spelling sometimes, especially those darn double consonants in certain words.

Regarding high school, the problem is that there's sadly not many openings for Japanese teachers here in California at the high school level. Very few high schools in the state seem to teach Japanese. Plus I really love Stanford and my dream is to become a professor here after grad studies.
I wouldn't mind high school though; the main thing that appeals to me about teaching Japanese is that the students seem very passionate and in love with the language. The interest is very infectious, and I think it's a teacher's dream to teach a subject where most all of your students are really into the topic.
At a certain point I think I may grow weary (hah, got it right ) of teaching the basics of the language and want to teach at the graduate levels. Literature is my main love, and I think I could only explain です so many times before comitting 切腹

Jarvik7 Wrote:

kazelee Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:Why not 15 seconds? It's about as realistic of a goal.

Well deciding to do it 15 seconds before would leave your inside man in a bit of a position. 2 weeks is a short time to plan such a delicate operation, what with all the high security and all.

Edit: Group project, anyone?

You could just take the test in America. Chinese people always leak them as soon as they take the test. Time difference advantage. You would figure that the test writers would be smart enough to issue different tests for the west.

Come now, why make friends with people half way across the world when you can pull a caper. Everyone loves a caper! There's guns, tech gadgets, possible shooting, being trapped in rooms with lasers- and let'ss not forget the most important part, hot chicks with attitude!

Oceans 1級?