I don't mind him trying to get money, he deserves it. I would have given up on learning Japanese if I had not found his website, so I enjoy donating to him by buying his goofy videos ect.

I also don't see any dark side to the first post.

The real dark side to AJATT is ditching your family and friends because they don't speak your lingo.

The second is it breeds a false hope that you'll be fluent in 18 months. I'd say budget 3 - 5 years of your life.

Anyone who says that the idea of AJATT (All Japanese All The Time, remember what the acronym actually stands for?) doesn't lead to great speaking abilities as well clearly isn't doing it right.

I notice my speaking skills increasing every time I have to speak (which is admittedly less than I'd like). However, during the times when I don't have anyone to speak to (could be weeks occasionally), I listen, listen, listen... read, read, read. Then, by the next time I have to speak, I notice my vocabulary has improved and my usage is better. While reading definitely contributes to my vocabulary pool, I'd have to say it's the listen to a lot of Japanese that translates over into speaking.

IceCream Wrote:false hope? im gona be fluent by a year

Me too. Starting............. now!

Ryuujin27 Wrote:Anyone who says that the idea of AJATT (All Japanese All The Time, remember what the acronym actually stands for?) doesn't lead to great speaking abilities as well clearly isn't doing it right.

This man is speaking the truth.

Ryuujin27 Wrote:Anyone who says that the idea of AJATT (All Japanese All The Time, remember what the acronym actually stands for?) doesn't lead to great speaking abilities as well clearly isn't doing it right.

I notice my speaking skills increasing every time I have to speak (which is admittedly less than I'd like). However, during the times when I don't have anyone to speak to (could be weeks occasionally), I listen, listen, listen... read, read, read. Then, by the next time I have to speak, I notice my vocabulary has improved and my usage is better. While reading definitely contributes to my vocabulary pool, I'd have to say it's the listen to a lot of Japanese that translates over into speaking.

People using a recognition-only method suffering from poor production skills doesn't seem that strange to me. Like you say, improving your vocabulary and grammar will help a lot, but to learn to speak with both fluency and accuracy, you need to practise speaking itself. And then, how well do you really know everything? Can you recall everything you know on-the-spot as quickly as you can recognise it when reading/listening? They're very different skills that both deserve equal attention.

I don't see why speaking, writing and productive SRS cards aren't a prescribed part of the method. There's more to a language than books and TV shows. I want to be able to communicate.

Because you can't train speaking nor writing in SRS. Productive cards aren't actually productive at all, you're not producing anything. "Here's a sentence, say it loud" won't make you better at speaking. Creative usage of Japanese simply can't be SRSed.

Tobberoth Wrote:Because you can't train speaking nor writing in SRS. Productive cards aren't actually productive at all, you're not producing anything. "Here's a sentence, say it loud" won't make you better at speaking.

Surely the exposure which the method encourages takes up much more time than the SRS. What I'm saying is that some of that time should be dedicated to productive usage of the language. It deserves at least a little bit of small print. Recognition doesn't equal production. You're at an even bigger disadvantage with AJATT, since the sentences basically give away the meaning of the word that you're reviewing, so you're going to be in no man's land when you attempt to use it yourself in a completely different context without any flashcards to help you.

The problem is that it's hard to SRS production because production really needs to be subjected to correction, or you're likely to fix errors. Although lots of input certainly helps and is a necessary component, I am skeptical of the idea that lots of input will automatically lead to correct output without any guidance or correction from a teacher or native speaker.

Going from English to Japanese is only a small part of things; it doesn't really fully prepare you for participating in a conversation or writing something.

AJATT: The Dark Side.........

Just to clarify, when I use the term production I mean it in the sense of actually saying/writing/remembering a word/structure using your memory alone, like when you review Heisig cards. Could you have learnt to write kanji so well simply by looking at them over and over? Or is the Heisig method that nobody here could do without actually all about production? Why does it all stop after you finish that book with AJATT?

Hehe, well yes it's a bit of a dramatic title. But anyway, to quote the about page:

Quote:Hey! Thanks for visiting! This site is about how you can learn Japanese without taking classes, by having fun and doing things you enjoy—watching movies, playing video games, reading comic books—you know: fun stuff! Stuff that you feel guilty about doing because you should be doing “serious things”.

All throughout the site he says that you can get really good, all while having fun. Whilst I do strongly believe in the effectiveness of the method it won't always be fun. For example, playing table tennis for an hour is fun. Playing for 10 hours a day may be kind of fun, but really it is tiring and stressful. It is something that you have to make yourself do.

The other thing is it is stressful to keep in Japanese without reverting back to English. When I come back to English after using Japanese, my brain is like "Aaaaah, it's over".

So my point is, that if you don't stress your mind with Japanese, then it won't develop to deal with it. This is the dark side of AJATT that isn't mentioned on the site and most people aren't aware of IMO.

thermal Wrote:The other thing is it is stressful to keep in Japanese without reverting back to English. When I come back to English after using Japanese, my brain is like "Aaaaah, it's over".

Seems to me like the fun stuff you're doing in Japanese isn't all that fun.

For me it's a bit different. Once I've been in japanese mode for a few hours, I find it hard to switch back to English.

For example, recently I was talking to my language partner in Japanese. Somehow, we managed to talk for a few hours in Japanese. When it was time for the English portion of our lesson, I found it hard to switch back to English.

When my partner asked me English questions, I was always responding back in Japanese and didn't even realize it. .....LOL......my brain was just stuck in Japanese mode.....it wasn't until 20-30 minutes into the conversation that I realized I wasn't saying anything in English (even though my partner was speaking English the whole time).

thermal Wrote:So my point is, that if you don't stress your mind with Japanese, then it won't develop to deal with it. This is the dark side of AJATT that isn't mentioned on the site and most people aren't aware of IMO.

I can't remember not being able to speak or understand spoken English. I can't remember not being able to read. I can remember not being able to read very fast, but only hazily.

I remember very, very well what it's like not being able to write. Not the mechanics, but being able to string thoughts together on paper or screen. You know what was the biggest thing I did to change that?

Less pressure. I taught myself to type Dvorak, which I found more comfortable than Qwerty. I started writing in a really chatty style that matches how I speak. Finally, it didn't really start to fit together until I started writing comments on blogs and posts on webfora. Perfectionism kills. This is a matter of self-preservation: kill it before it kills you.

Fun for the win. Accept no substitutes. Learn the easy stuff only, always trusting yourself to grow into the hard. Automate de-leeching. Think not unless you review. Generate not unless you understand. Kanji first. Read grammar without study. Sentences, sentences, simple sentences. Set goals to add and review and see and hear, not to learn, understand, or master. This is my method, and yes, I based it on AJATT.

If you believe there's a "dark side" to that, that you must punish yourself to grow, well It's not like I can stop you.

IceCream Wrote:the way i do it is to use one line of a drama as a cue, then produce the line that follows it, with the confirmation on the back.
Obviously, this isn't going to teach you to create your own sentences, but it's certainly no worse than a beginners class would be where you would be taught many set phrases anyway. I've found that after a month or so srsing, i can change the words up and use it myself.
It also trains situational production, and doesn't have the same problems of producing from english, and not being corrected.

If anyone else has any speaking strategies for people learning on their own, i'd be really interested in them, though...

I'd say it's much worse than a beginners class. What you're doing is memorizing a sentence, you're relying less on your creative side and more on your memory, which isn't going to help when you need to speak for real. Most people who speak bad Japanese know how to make sentences and knows when they see it what is the correct answer to a question, I don't think that's where people need to study. What is hard to do in a real conversation is to make up what you want to say and say it automatically in Japanese, without relying on memory at all (utopia, maybe). Sitting around trying to remember the correct sentence for the situation you're in is going to take much longer than simply saying what you feel right then and there.

Another problem with the approach is that IF you rely more on the creative side, you might come up with a correct sentence which is different from the answer side. So what do you do? Fail it anyway? Pass it? But how do you know that what you answered ACTUALLY was a good answer?

Javizy Wrote:Just to clarify, when I use the term production I mean it in the sense of actually saying/writing/remembering a word/structure using your memory alone, like when you review Heisig cards. Could you have learnt to write kanji so well simply by looking at them over and over? Or is the Heisig method that nobody here could do without actually all about production? Why does it all stop after you finish that book with AJATT?

I produce a LOT of Japanese, but not in an SRS. I do indeed find it odd that Khazu is so negative towards production and output, but that's been debated sooo much on this forum so we should probably not go there again.

As far as drama and SRS is concerned, I no longer SRS individual sentences.
Instead, I SRS the whole conversation (or at least enough of the conversation to provide
a good context).

I found that for drama a lot of dialogue builds off of what was just spoken.
So you lose context if you just SRS individual sentences without the background
from the previously spoken dialogue.

For particles/grammar that I don't understand I highlight them in red and annotate them with references to grammar book (i.e. write down the book title and page I can find the expression).

Shadowing can be helpful for speaking. Whether or not it actually improves fluency, it will definitely improve your accent and the flow of your speech. Thinking about the meaning while you're doing it should help, it's actually a big part of it according to an explanation I read.

Other than that, just practice speaking. Nothing is going to be more beneficial than actually doing it itself. There are loads of Japanese people learning English who are desperate for language exchange partners on sites like Mixxer. It doesn't always have to be a phone call either, IMs are a great half-way between writing and speaking - you still have to be quick, but you have time to think and kanji to help you. It's also much less of a strain than Lang-8 (I wish I could think of decent topics to write about on there...).

thermal Wrote:mirina,

I think you have to consider that German and English both derive from latin so the hurdles are not as big going from one to the other (and particularly German to English it seems.) I have been really impressed by the German people's English that I have met.

*snip*

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that you should be completely immersed. Just that if want to come really natural you need long periods of Japanese only. Not an hour here are there with lots of English in between.

I definitely don't deny that she had an upper hand coming from Germany, and that English and Japanese are hugely different. Sometimes I wish Korean or Chinese were my native language, simply because it would make Japanese that much easier.

In any case, I see what you mean now, and yes, I agree.


Putting my own two cents into the input vs output discussion, I'm on the fence. I say this simply because I almost never do output, because I live in an area that has maybe 1 Japanese person (if that), so there is little opportunity to talk with others. I also am often too lazy to write journals or anything like that.

However, I post to lang-8 probably about once every 6 months or so, and those are the only times that I do any writing in Japanese. Despite rarely doing any kind of output, the corrections I get back consistently become less and less. In fact, one post I made needed no corrections at all (at least according to the Japanese people who commented).

I know writing and speaking are two different entities, but they are both output. I sometimes think certain phrases to myself in Japanese and if I want to express something in the language, it may take me a couple seconds, but I can figure it out. I think, even if you never do output, you can still, nonetheless, produce sentences--it just may take you longer. And I think that, in and of itself, can be cured after just a few hours of practice a month.

The thing is, with input, you already understand how the language works; you know how to piece things together and what words to use. For example, just the other day, I was watching a drama that used a grammar phrase I was only vaguely familiar with. I took note of it, mentally, because it seemed useful. A few days later, I was trying to think of how to phrase something in Japanese, and that grammar phrase popped into my head, allowing me to think up a workable sentence. Therefore, input automatically = output, maybe?

wildweathel Wrote:

thermal Wrote:So my point is, that if you don't stress your mind with Japanese, then it won't develop to deal with it. This is the dark side of AJATT that isn't mentioned on the site and most people aren't aware of IMO.

I can't remember not being able to speak or understand spoken English. I can't remember not being able to read. I can remember not being able to read very fast, but only hazily.

I remember very, very well what it's like not being able to write. Not the mechanics, but being able to string thoughts together on paper or screen. You know what was the biggest thing I did to change that?

Less pressure. I taught myself to type Dvorak, which I found more comfortable than Qwerty. I started writing in a really chatty style that matches how I speak. Finally, it didn't really start to fit together until I started writing comments on blogs and posts on webfora. Perfectionism kills. This is a matter of self-preservation: kill it before it kills you.

Fun for the win. Accept no substitutes. Learn the easy stuff only, always trusting yourself to grow into the hard. Automate de-leeching. Think not unless you review. Generate not unless you understand. Kanji first. Read grammar without study. Sentences, sentences, simple sentences. Set goals to add and review and see and hear, not to learn, understand, or master. This is my method, and yes, I based it on AJATT.

If you believe there's a "dark side" to that, that you must punish yourself to grow, well It's not like I can stop you.

This is the most important post in the thread, so I'm quoting it.

Continuing a tangent:

Call-and-response type cards (memorizing sentences = deconstructing and understanding them in context), imaginary conversations, I think those are valuable if you're shy and/or want strictly controlled practice of production-from-meaning while you progressively internalize a more and more extensive repertoire to be flexibly reshuffled ("Learn the drill, master the drill, dissolve the drill."), but really, as soon as you can start having genuine interactions, might as well do it.

My advice a while ago was to do so at whatever stage you feel like you're 'intermediate' and can correct your output with little difficulty, alone with references, or with the help of speaking partners.

I also think taking 'baby steps' with microblogging or chat or something is useful.

As for grading those sorts of cards, I would pass it as long as it didn't violate context, conveyed the general meaning, and had no grammatical or similar errors. That's a lot of potential fail points, but I guess my okay-ness with 'failing in layers' and i+X is well-known by now.

On Topic: I get where thermal's coming from, though I think rather than looking primarily at short or long-term as either/or, you can just stay moderate and balance challenge/fun constantly. I think that's da bomb for learning, yo.

I'm just wondering - that whole site "ajatt" - why is it hundreds and hundreds of pages? all it boils down to is immerse yourself in Japanese media to the greatest extent possible. what else actually needs to be said? most of the stuff said on ajatt is just rewording of stuff that has been said previously on ajatt. about 95% of the website, I'd say, is useless reading, which could better be spent learning the language...

Same could be said of this forum. Regardless, its enjoyable.

Its his own blog/website. I mean, he can repost whatever he wants really. Plus there is a lot going on after the immersion guide. There are many facets to this and ways to approach it, and its his thoughts about it. And as much as a lot of it is supposed to pump up the readers, its for him to. I'm sure he gets huge amounts of confidence and encouragement for himself from it, which is great.

Vinniram,

I think that many of the posts that he links in the Table of Contents actually detail aspects of immersion and learning methods. It's easy to say "Listen and read all Japanese all the time", but to give specific advice to specific areas help.

The same goes with suggestions on altering your environment both at home, at work and anywhere in between. Small little things like taping newspapers, manga pages or even printouts onto your wall. Having a stereo playing Japanese all the time. Setting homepages to Japanese portals.

Consider: how's the best way to listen to all Japanese all the time? Rent DVD's and play them? Buy DVD's and play them? Download a torrent and play them? Put into media playlist and put on random? Strip audio of video and play that? Strip audio and put on iPod? Strip audio, break into smaller segments then put on iPod on random?

What sounds obvious after you hear may not have been that way prior. Before, I had news and blog audio and movie dubs on my iPod. Then I moved to just Drama (perhaps 5 or 6 whole season of shows). Then I moved to doing 4 episodes of each drama (20 total). Sounds obvious now, getting such a variety of audio and discussion and situations and actors but I didn't think of it.

Ok, I'm not so sure about his recent posts, but the setting up of the "immersion environment" and various "study methods" have been very useful in variety and detail.