There's the metafilter model where you pay $5 for an account (for your lifetime!) if you want to post and join the community. Lurkers can just read but not post. There are non-obtrusive ads along the side of the page, which are hidden if you're logged in. However I think this model probably wasn't implemented until it got past a certain point of having enough users to make it worthwhile.

A couple of related links:
http://suemedha.wordpress.com/2010/02/05...t-haughey/
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/and...endly.html

Khatz is a funny guy. He claims to have been fluent (to a native level) at 16 months and then posts a video 2 years later. Those two years were spent living in Japan.

If he was so fluent back then, don't you think it would have made more sense to make a site for people learning English? Talking about how good your Japanese got in 16 months means nothing if you write it in English. Wouldn't it have made more sense to write it in Japanese for people learning English? In that way, you have credibility.

He could pass a job interview for that language, and started working in a Japanese environment as soon as he got off the plane. I don't know if that counts as fluent, but it's fluent enough for me.

Of course, saying that he hasn't improved after living in Japan for two years is silly. Then again, I suppose his comeback would be "I already lived in Japan for 18 months or what have you".

I don't really have anything against the commercialisation, and I certainly don't want to join the hordes of "He's not giving us things for free anymore! Selfish bastard!" shouters. I hope that he can find people who benfit from the subscription, he seems like quite an innovative guy, and I like it when businesses take off. But as wonderful as his personality is, I can tell you there's little chance I'm paying $90 a year for it.

Who is this Khatz guy and why is there an H in his name?

Wccrawford,

I didn't realize it till I re-read the post (ok, I only skimmed it the first time), but he does write that he'll disable comments when the AJATT Plus site goes live.

Damn shame if you ask me. Comments and discussions get people involved and hooked into a community (which a blog can become).

But yeah, there's nothing in that forum that couldn't be available here if we bothered to try it:

* Buy/sell/swap media (We do that here)
o Save on shipping from Japan (Those in the military like myself can ship using rates as if mailed from San Francisco).
o Save on buying new books, DVDs, CDs, etc. (A guy could buy from book off and send to you)
o Make money on your used media and hardware that would otherwise go to waste (Has been done here)
o Put to good use media and hardware (dictionaries, etc.) that would otherwise go to waste (We offer that advice here)

If you think about it, Fabrice "could" set up a market forum for the exchange/barter/selling of ideas, tutoring, merchandise, skills, localized effort, etc. Example (not an real case): A-san lives in Yokosuka with a newly opened Book Off. A-san also is in the military so she has access to very cheap shipping cost to the US. For just 20% mark-up on cost, she might be convinced to put that resource to use. A-san post the details about it in a thread. In gratitude, A-san could cut Fabrice in on a bit of the action.


* Work with other committed learners, encouraging and helping one other Hmm, yep, happens here
* Get cool tools, links and techniques Hmm, yep, happens here

* Save time spent finding and/or learning how to use cool tools, links and techniques Hmm, yep, still nothing new

* Share your techniques and experiencesOh, he got RTK on that one .... nope, still here

* Enjoy a safe, moderated, well-lit environment populated by polite, intelligent, good-looking, well-spoken, fun and mentally-stable human beings just like you.Missing the mentally-stable people, but who needs them when we have Nest0r
* Get your questions answered faster Well, how many here don't get their questions answered fast?

As for the audio conversations, is it difficult for any of us to take an iPod Touch or iPhone with the microphone/headset and record conversations around Japan (with consent and a theme of course)? I sort of did that with Snapvine once, but it'd be no sweat to do it on YouTube or some other audio hosting service.

I would be down with paying money for Subs2srs decks. I'm too lazy to make them correctly.

Other things I would pay money for

- Japanese people to read business news articles. Within a reasonable time-frame from publishing. I like the audio book method but I really want to do it with current events articles. I'd probably be willing to pay 500 yen an article.

- Give a Japanese person a list of vocabulary and they send back example sentences with audio.

Stuff like that

Womacks23 Wrote:- Give a Japanese person a list of vocabulary and they send back example sentences with audio.

Now this is a good idea.
For any language, really.

Kind of like a RhinoSpike except the native speakers have to think of sentences that make sense.

lagwagon555 Wrote:He could pass a job interview for that language, and started working in a Japanese environment as soon as he got off the plane. I don't know if that counts as fluent, but it's fluent enough for me.

That is proof of nothing. You can get technical jobs in Japan with ZERO Japanese knowledge. It's the technical knowledge and experience that matters more.

Anyways, Khatz can charge whatever he wants for his site, but I think anyone who pays for it is a fool. I think jpod101 is a giant waste of money too, but at least they generate content.

Jarvik7 Wrote:

lagwagon555 Wrote:He could pass a job interview for that language, and started working in a Japanese environment as soon as he got off the plane. I don't know if that counts as fluent, but it's fluent enough for me.

That is proof of nothing. You can get technical jobs in Japan with ZERO Japanese knowledge. It's the technical knowledge and experience that matters more.

Anyways, Khatz can charge whatever he wants for his site, but I think anyone who pays for it is a fool. I think jpod101 is a giant waste of money too, but at least they generate content.

Jpod101 may be a waste on a monthly basis, but a one time month subscription to download ALL the old content isn't absolutely horrible.

It's all about how much you get for your dollar, the first few bucks a lot, after that not so much.

As far as this AJATT stuff goes, no thanks, I'll pass

Good for him if people are willing to pay though.

Nukemarine Wrote:Wccrawford,

I didn't realize it till I re-read the post (ok, I only skimmed it the first time), but he does write that he'll disable comments when the AJATT Plus site goes live.

Ah, well, I missed that, too, then. Shame to see him destroy his site like that.

wccrawford Wrote:

Nukemarine Wrote:Wccrawford,

I didn't realize it till I re-read the post (ok, I only skimmed it the first time), but he does write that he'll disable comments when the AJATT Plus site goes live.

Ah, well, I missed that, too, then. Shame to see him destroy his site like that.

True, a good deal of a comments are filled with "success story" type posts on whatever the topic was, and are sometimes just as inspiring as the blog post they're commenting on. But mainly the comment area provides feedback, and Khatz's answers to questions are always fun...Taking away the comments and replacing them with forums which only a fraction of people (hardcore AJATT devotees with cash to burn?) will be able to use
is a bad idea. I can understand adding features for AJATT + members, but taking away a feature? He's free to do whatever he wants, and if he can make money with it good for him, but if he starts limiting the articles or something in the future I may have to find a new site for Japanese motivation/encouragement.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Anyways, Khatz can charge whatever he wants for his site, but I think anyone who pays for it is a fool. I think jpod101 is a giant waste of money too, but at least they generate content.

You´re not the one to judge. Everyone may have different reasons.

jettyke Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:Anyways, Khatz can charge whatever he wants for his site, but I think anyone who pays for it is a fool. I think jpod101 is a giant waste of money too, but at least they generate content.

You´re not the one to judge. Everyone may have different reasons.

Actually, everyone is the one to judge. They each judge for themselves. He just voiced his judgement, where others may not.

I think that jpod101 has -way- too much english content in their podcasts. And they spend way too much time having fun while I have to listen to them. Especially when they do it in English. Peter is the very definition of a tool and it hurts my brain to listen to every word he says.

If they'd fix those issues, I'd pay double what they're asking. Unfortunately, I think Peter must own the thing or something because way too many people have complained about him to still have him there after 4 years.

Hey guys try to post even a very slight criticism of the AJATT+ in the comment section! It won't be approved, they are all overwhelmingly positive comments, OH I SIGNED UP KHATZ!! ITS THE GREATEST IDEA IN THE WOLRD!! A FORUM!!! OMG DID YOU INVENT THIS IDEA I LOVE IT!! YOU ARE BRILLIANT!! ITS JUST THE RIGHT PRICING!! OH YEAH WE WANT TO SU*&@ YO32*....>&*@&*(#@! and the like.

I have been censored by the commercial ajatt machine. it's already off the bookmarks though so I guess it's all good.

[ファブリス]

In his defense there have been quite a few high traffic blogs out there who stopped comments and have posted their reasons. One problem is that comments tend to aggregate a lof of negativity.

There's been debates about the role of comments on the "blogosphere". Try this google search for blog comments off for interesting articles.

Ajatt site really hasn't changed much. It was always like this.

I was disappointed at first, but then I realized I never use comments anyway. I still think he'll answer questions over Twitter though - as long as they're not one of those 'figure it out yourself'-type questions that beginners always ask.

Man, ask questions here. This forum brought me much better answers than AJATT.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Man, ask questions here. This forum brought me much better answers than AJATT.

I agree, you could just ask here. Everyone gives helpful advice and suggestions to others.

I remember when I first found the AJATT site. The method wasn't really directly stated. It required searching through his posts to find them. I liked AJATT in the beginning, when I was first learning Japanese. But since now I've gotten to the point where I can basically learn myself(which was the point of AJATT itself, self-teaching method). It was good for the motivation in the beginning, because the beginning is the hardest part of any language.

@Nukemarine - We're all mad here. You must be, or you wouldn't have come here.

ta12121 Wrote:I agree, you could just ask here. Everyone gives helpful advice and suggestions to others.

I remember when I first found the AJATT site. The method wasn't really directly stated. It required searching through his posts to find them. I liked AJATT in the beginning, when I was first learning Japanese. But since now I've gotten to the point where I can basically learn myself(which was the point of AJATT itself, self-teaching method). It was good for the motivation in the beginning, because the beginning is the hardest part of any language.

I know - I don't really ask questions to begin with, because only you youself can tell what's good for you. But my post was more directed at those people who have an AJATT-related question and needed to ask The One.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Man, ask questions here. This forum brought me much better answers than AJATT.

I wouldn't have found this site if it wasn't for AJATT.

In fact I wouldn't have started studying Japanese if it weren't for Khatz. the guy deserves all the $$$ he can make.

I found AJATT through this site and don't find him particularly motivating. I just further developed a few ideas I already had, based on his words which I could easily have read here (ditto with other tips), and I shared some of those here and also commented/shared thoughts on occasion in gratitude.

I don't think someone being motivating and helping others gives them the right to uncritical profit. I'm much more interested in making sure all the self-study tools and communities are oriented towards cheap/free shared work that are accessible and that self-reliance and 'learning how to learn better' are the prime directives, as it were.

That said, it's early, I hope more suggestions continue to be made about creative models for sustaining these nascent learning resources and locations. I hope everyone considers Fabrice's words and thoughts too, that was inspiring/scary.

I found out about AJATT through a friend. I read through a lot of his blogs and found him very inspiring. Then I used his advice and started to SRS using Anki. I used the RTK deck. Then one day I realized I could click on the link which brought me to this website. I was almost done with RTK when I realized there was a forum. I haven't really been back to RTK since then because I feel the members of this forum are a lot better than his ramblings. I am grateful for what he did but I'm more thankful for all of you and your constant help!