If you "wouldn't have started studying Japanese without Khatz" it makes me wonder if you're studying this language for the wrong reasons and just setting yourself up for disappointment anyway.

Edit: Though I'm sure he wouldn't tell you that.

There's no wrong reason to study a language... People should study what they want to study. Sometimes, though, people are intimidated by a subject, despite wanting to study it, and it takes someone to tell them they can do it.

FutureBlues Wrote:If you "wouldn't have started studying Japanese without Khatz" it makes me wonder if you're studying this language for the wrong reasons and just setting yourself up for disappointment anyway.

Edit: Though I'm sure he wouldn't tell you that.

What do you mean? what are the "wrong reasons"? My reason was that I jsut wanted to learn a new language, and Japanese seemed interesting as I really like video games (especially RPGs).

To be honest maybe my post was a slight exaggeration; I'd already started studying Japanese by the time I found AJATT, but only tentatively. Thing is, We've all been using this forum for so long, it's easy to forget the general consensus in real life and on the rest of the internet:

- Japanese is considering insanely hard to learn. I've seen figures of 5-10 years quited to achieve full fluency.
- Kanji is considered near impossible to learn. Most Western learners either don't bother, or learn just enough to get by recognition only.
- Languages are considered a real trial to learn, especially when when you're an adult.

AJATT got me through all these things. If I hadn't discovered it, I probably would have used one of the above as an excuse and given up a long long time ago.

aphasiac Wrote:- Japanese is considering insanely hard to learn. I've seen figures of 5-10 years quited to achieve full fluency.
- Kanji is considered near impossible to learn. Most Western learners either don't bother, or learn just enough to get by recognition only.
- Languages are considered a real trial to learn, especially when when you're an adult.

I know this is off topic but, you don't actually believe that do you?

IMO, Japanese is mainly difficult to learn because it's so different from English, not because it's a naturally impossible-to-learn language, and it gets on my nerves when I hear people, especially people who don't even know much about the language, (not targeted at you) saying about how no gaijin has ever mastered it, or learnt more than 5 kanji etc because it's soooooo hard...To me, when people moan about how hard Japanese is, it just looks like a license to throw in the towel when you realize it's harder than French...you can just shrug it off and say 'well it IS an impossible language to learn!'.

Btw, you say 5-10 years until fluency like it's a bad thing, when I would say it takes a while to become fluent in ANY language let alone an Asian one. As for Khatz...from what I've seen and read, he doesen't appear to be amazing at Japanese now, let alone back when he 'became fluent'.

Sorry, I had to rant...

I hope at least one positive thing will come out of this thread and that would be donating money to ファブリス for creating and supporting this great community.

I think everyone here can spare 5$ a month (for example cut down on your junk food - you'll get healthier in the process) as a token of gratitude.

I know I will...

Deathspi,

I think Aphrasiac wrote that he believed that that list is the common misbelief among the entire population. He even thought the same himself prior to reading the AJATT blog.

As for the time to become fluent, well, that'll start up another argument on what counts as fluency (or literacy) that'll go nowhere for five pages. Talking about Khatz's Japanese ability will bring up another argument that goes nowhere.

deathspi Wrote:()...To me, when people moan about how hard Japanese is, it just looks like a license to throw in the towel when you realize it's harder than French...you can just shrug it off and say 'well it IS an impossible language to learn!'.(...)

... not to be nitpicky but... that is so not true. Learning to pronounce that damn thing correctly is just as hard as learning kanji, and there are no mnemonics for all 16 vowels and that impossible voiced uvular fricative!!! </rant>

dbh2ppa Wrote:

deathspi Wrote:()...To me, when people moan about how hard Japanese is, it just looks like a license to throw in the towel when you realize it's harder than French...you can just shrug it off and say 'well it IS an impossible language to learn!'.(...)

... not to be nitpicky but... that is so not true. Learning to pronounce that damn thing correctly is just as hard as learning kanji, and there are no mnemonics for all 16 vowels and that impossible voiced uvular fricative!!! </rant>

I'm glad I'm not the only one who had a hard time with French, maybe it's because it's written in roman letters, so it seems similar to English, but try pronouncing it like that and you're in for trouble, and each letter seems to be able to be pronounced about five ways,
yes, I know English is like that, but I didn't learn English as a second language. (Maybe it was partially because I used a British textbook, so it explained pronunciation in terms of British English, so I had to imagine a fake British accent as I practiced pronouncing words, but French is still hard to pronounce) I freak people out sometimes when I say I find French harder than Japanese. French: simple writing system, hard grammar and pronunciation. Japanese: complex writing system, (relatively) easy grammar.

Anyway, thanks Aphasiac for the reality check. It's true that whenever people learn someone is studying an Asian language they seem to always say things like "Wow. That's so hard!" because people don't know much about languages, while almost everyone has experience with studying French or Spanish in school (or English, in non-English speaking countries) And they see kanji and think it must be hard.
I was the same way.
But being in our language environments so much, I think it's good to have a reminder every once in a while.

thurd Wrote:I hope at least one positive thing will come out of this thread and that would be donating money to ファブリス for creating and supporting this great community.

I think everyone here can spare 5$ a month (for example cut down on your junk food - you'll get healthier in the process) as a token of gratitude.

Exactly

thurd Wrote:I hope at least one positive thing will come out of this thread and that would be donating money to ファブリス for creating and supporting this great community.

I think everyone here can spare 5$ a month (for example cut down on your junk food - you'll get healthier in the process) as a token of gratitude.

I know I will...

Something like that. I'd prefer a SomethingAwful style enrollment (and that's a whole can of worms but)- a one-time $10 fee to gain access, with lots of options to pay for bonuses.

But it seems like he's going to put all that money into (his pockets) improving the site with lots of audio/visual stuff, and bandwidth is expensive, so it's hard to argue.

As someone mentioned, I want to donate to the site, and at these rates I might take a one-month periodically to get up to date on content, but that is a bit stiff for my tastes. $50 annual and I might be in. These prices? Meh. I'll skim the free stuff, and contribute more on my level when I can.

dbh2ppa Wrote:

deathspi Wrote:()...To me, when people moan about how hard Japanese is, it just looks like a license to throw in the towel when you realize it's harder than French...you can just shrug it off and say 'well it IS an impossible language to learn!'.(...)

... not to be nitpicky but... that is so not true. Learning to pronounce that damn thing correctly is just as hard as learning kanji, and there are no mnemonics for all 16 vowels and that impossible voiced uvular fricative!!! </rant>

Sorry, maybe I should of replaced French with <Insert language similar to your mother tongue>

I didn't mean to annoy anyone, it's just when people find out I'm learning Japanese, or try it themselves, it always seems to come down to Japanese being different (particularly grammar), and therefore it is hard. That's all.

...and Nukemarine; No, I'm definatly not starting the whole fluency argument, I think we could all find better ways to waste our time. ^^

deathspi Wrote:

dbh2ppa Wrote:

deathspi Wrote:()...To me, when people moan about how hard Japanese is, it just looks like a license to throw in the towel when you realize it's harder than French...you can just shrug it off and say 'well it IS an impossible language to learn!'.(...)

... not to be nitpicky but... that is so not true. Learning to pronounce that damn thing correctly is just as hard as learning kanji, and there are no mnemonics for all 16 vowels and that impossible voiced uvular fricative!!! </rant>

Sorry, maybe I should of replaced French with <Insert language similar to your mother tongue>

I didn't mean to annoy anyone, it's just when people find out I'm learning Japanese, or try it themselves, it always seems to come down to Japanese being different (particularly grammar), and therefore it is hard. That's all.

...and Nukemarine; No, I'm definatly not starting the whole fluency argument, I think we could all find better ways to waste our time. ^^

fluency means so many things. I don't want to start an argument over what fluency truly means. But I think there is a few categories people can divide themselves into. That's beginner, intermediate, advanced, fluent and lastly native-level. I'd say the difference between fluent and native-level is that. Native-level you know all those little phrases that only Japanese people would know. Example would be that, idioms phrases that aren't really common in the spoken language but it's sometimes used in the written language.

[ファブリス]

Regarding exchange of items, I saw a Google Ad for this site on Denshi Jisho : http://www.flutterscape.com

ファブリス Wrote:Regarding exchange of items, I saw a Google Ad for this site on Denshi Jisho : http://www.flutterscape.com

Without a paywall? Madness! They should lock that sh*t down, subscription-only to even view the site. More power to them!

Kind of a cluttered mess, but interesting concept. Curious.

Nukemarine Wrote:Out of interest, if someone is willing to pay any of you 30 to 80 dollars for each hour worth of consulting or effort would you accept it?

Setting up their Anki, setting up their subs2srs, setting up their study schedule, reviewing their progress, demonstrating how to use common references, setting up a VLC player for kanji subtitles, etc.

Though I know how to do all that stuff, I know only a little Japanese (日本語をちょっとだけ分かります), so I'd have a hard time charging for it. Would I accept it? Of course!

Anyway, someone else has pointed this out, but you can donate to RevTK if you want to, same as Khatz. It was that beggar's cup image at the bottom of posts. None of the AJATT "products" really interested me. This new one is the same.

aphasiac Wrote:- Japanese is considering insanely hard to learn. I've seen figures of 5-10 years quited to achieve full fluency.
- Kanji is considered near impossible to learn. Most Western learners either don't bother, or learn just enough to get by recognition only.
- Languages are considered a real trial to learn, especially when when you're an adult.

AJATT got me through all these things. If I hadn't discovered it, I probably would have used one of the above as an excuse and given up a long long time ago.

My equation for solving those problems was Heisig + Anki + exposure - unsubstantiated inconcise douchebag language acquisition theory. It works just as well. If we're going to donate to anybody, it should be Damien Elmes (we've already given James W. his dues by buying the book).

My equation is me = awesome. Awesome = learn whatever I want. Wait, that's an equation, right?

Also, the fact that you can suggest on this forum donating to Damien is because of Fabrice creating and maintaining this site. Hint hint. ;p

If AJATT Plus deserves $10, Anki deserves $100, RevTK deserves $500, and Heisig deserves $1000.

Khatzumoto realized that user-made content is much more valuable than his repetitive posts. Basically, he's charging you to produce knowledge to other people that also payed him, and they will produce knowledge to you.
"It's a win-win situation", you might say, but it's not
1. He gets money he doesn't deserve
2. There are ways to share knowledge without paying (RevTK is one of the best examples)

Now, all I've said would be irrelevant if it was just and optional kind of upgrade, but cutting resources to free users is like making a "demo version" of the site, without mentioning that AJATT became a pretty useless place recently, with all the "buy my nonsense products, while you pathetically try to contact me via e-mail/comments/twitter"

Here be my opinion, AJATT was pretty much over for me for some weeks already.

Actually for those who are interested in "social media " litterature the evolution of AJATT was to be expected .
AJATT and Khatzumoto is a perfect example of how two notions "personal branding" (put forward by Schwabel ) and "freemium" (fred wilson) go hand in hand: as for the concept of freemium I ll make a literal quote " give away services free in a first time to attract a lot of customer . Then present or upsale an enhanced version of your product or service for a fee or a premium " . Once you agree with this model there s only one question .how the hell do I convince people to pay for what they used to get free ? the best way to pull it off is to build a household name ,a power name .What is the most obvious expression of this ? the messiah .I think I ll make my point better if I compare Khatz to another household name some of you have probably heard about : Steve pavlina .

"Little how to become a messiah step by step"
-First carry out a seemingly impossible feat (sleep 2 hours a day /learn 4000 kanjis ) to prove your supernatural nature ,
-then give two or three well sound advices (how to rise early,timeboxing /use SRS,study what you like ) to show that everyone can access your greatness ,
-it s also a good point to do some good storytelling about how you started from nothing (arrested for shoplifting/your standard fellow) and then had a revelation ,lived by a creed (8 principles,AJATT)and became superman .
-last but not least publish a lot even it s complete BS (liquid diet,positive thinking /listening japanese even if you don t understand it at all ,listen even when you sleep, ).Actually you MUST publish some crazy shit.
.1st you prove you have a lot to teach 2-the crazier the better because this way you re bound to go against some fierce opposition .So you build a division between pro and cons : you have a community of believers and you have "pagans" (patrick hanlon ,primal branding). Congratulations you ve just built a brand and a personal brand with that. Now you can cash in on your personal brand through the secund step of the freemium : the premium. Your believer won t question their prophet .


Am I implying that Khatz was planning this from the very beginning ? 1-it doesn t really matter as anyway most of us agree that the main benefit have already been reaped through the first posts .Pareto law rules . 2- As I say freemium and personal branding(especially messiah type) works so well together that it s bound to happen at some point in a form or another. You just can t focus so much about an individual without expecting that . It doesn t mean freemium is only the fact of gurus ,after all how to learn any language (very close to RVTK by the way . I hope RVTK) is also a freemium .But anyone in a normal state knows that a messiah is a pretty bucked up concept from the very start.
For the record Khatz seems normal to me (in the other hand Pavlina has totally lost it and is bat shit insane.).

BlueFinger Wrote:If AJATT Plus deserves $10, Anki deserves $100, RevTK deserves $500, and Heisig deserves $1000.

Khatzumoto realized that user-made content is much more valuable than his repetitive posts. Basically, he's charging you to produce knowledge to other people that also payed him, and they will produce knowledge to you.
"It's a win-win situation", you might say, but it's not
1. He gets money he doesn't deserve
2. There are ways to share knowledge without paying (RevTK is one of the best examples)

Now, all I've said would be irrelevant if it was just and optional kind of upgrade, but cutting resources to free users is like making a "demo version" of the site, without mentioning that AJATT became a pretty useless place recently, with all the "buy my nonsense products, while you pathetically try to contact me via e-mail/comments/twitter"

Here be my opinion, AJATT was pretty much over for me for some weeks already.

anki and RevTK deserves it's money. Without those two, I wouldn't be even close to how much i've improved in my japanese without them. As for AJATT in the beginning it was all about providing motivation to people who thought "It's impossible to learn japanese, so many characters, even japanese people don't know these".

I think personally the only reason why people have that type of mindset is because they just can't convince themselves it can be done, especially by self-study of all methods. Having belief you can become fluent in Japanese is the first thing you should have before you even consider learning it. It just saves you a lot of heart ache when you run into difficulty in the language(like so many kanji).

It's actually harder to convince yourself then it is to convince others. Although some people you can never convince. In the beginning I was always thinking to myself "Is this possible? Learning all these kanji, speaking,writing japanese is that possible?"
I basically kept thinking it was so hard at first and that there was no way i'm even improving. Just recently I just thought to myself that I am good in japanese(not fluent yet but getting there). One of my japanese friends said: Don't keep denying yourself that you've haven't even got far, you can understand music,anime,drama's,news,talk-shows,read japanese well, know a lot of kanji and there readings. Not much people have the dedication to stay into japanese.

So this gave me the boost to even want to improve way past this, like improving output skills. If i can get these skills up and running, I can see myself becoming fluent in 2 years. (Right not it's been 7.8 months that's what my sentence deck and it's been there the longest and the first deck I used for anki. You add 3 months of kanji(which I don't add, cuz it was just familiarizing yourself with kanji and writing, but not actually real japanese). So if I keep going I can definitely do it. Anyone can, motivation is the essence of it all.

ghinzdra Wrote:"Little how to become a messiah step by step"
-First carry out a seemingly impossible feat (sleep 2 hours a day /learn 4000 kanjis ) to prove your supernatural nature ,
-then give two or three well sound advices (how to rise early,timeboxing /use SRS,study what you like ) to show that everyone can access your greatness ,
-it s also a good point to do some good storytelling about how you started from nothing (arrested for shoplifting/your standard fellow) and then had a revelation ,lived by a creed (8 principles,AJATT)and became superman .
-last but not least publish a lot even it s complete BS (liquid diet,positive thinking /listening japanese even if you don t understand it at all ,listen even when you sleep, ).Actually you MUST publish some crazy shit.
.1st you prove you have a lot to teach 2-the crazier the better because this way you re bound to go against some fierce opposition .So you build a division between pro and cons : you have a community of believers and you have "pagans" (patrick hanlon ,primal branding). Congratulations you ve just built a brand and a personal brand with that. Now you can cash in on your personal brand through the secund step of the freemium : the premium. Your believer won t question their prophet .

...

But anyone in a normal state knows that a messiah is a pretty bucked up concept from the very start.

Very interesting post, I kind of suspected something like that when Khatz started to have "followers" that would hang on his every word...Don't get me wrong, he's very motivational, but even he said to listen to what he says and do what works for you...
I guess he's become something like one of those people from the self-help books he reads...sort of scary...

Apparently now at AJATT Plus you can get great links like to jclab.wordpress.com -- Oh wait, I already posted that two weeks ago. http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...4#pid95214 - $90 please.

[ファブリス]

ghinzdra Wrote:give away services free in a first time to attract a lot of customer . Then present or upsale an enhanced version of your product or service for a fee or a premium

This doesn't seem accurate to me. Wikipedia describes freemium better as "a business model that works by offering basic Web services, or a basic downloadable digital product, for free, while charging a premium for advanced or special features".

AFAIK, this is the most widely used business model of webapps out there with the "basic plan" nearly always available for free.

It makes sense and there is nothing wrong with it per se.

There is no manipulation or deception at any time; users are always presented with the basic plan upon registering and know what they get for free.

PS: let's not confuse "freemium" and "freetards". The latter describes a kind of movement where people justify in any way they can that everything should be free. I guess it's kind of a rebellious attitude like the 90's "product of society". "You make me pay, so you're a vampire". Imho that's a victim attitude. Even if you call into question the economic system itself, capitalism, and so on, nothing comes out of nothing. To me "freetards" means people who want everything free but never really wanted to think about it, and don't want to consider any alternatives. It's really just a "I dont give a *****" attitude. There are completely alternative models out there: time exchange, communities and so on, none of which are truly "free".

ファブリス Wrote:

ghinzdra Wrote:give away services free in a first time to attract a lot of customer . Then present or upsale an enhanced version of your product or service for a fee or a premium

This doesn't seem accurate to me. Wikipedia describes freemium better as "a business model that works by offering basic Web services, or a basic downloadable digital product, for free, while charging a premium for advanced or special features".

That's exactly what's doesn't seem accurate:
while charging a premium for advanced or special features
He's not charging for advanced or special features, he's charging for old features he has just cut from the now called free members.
Also, like I said before, he is charging for user-made contend, not really for breakthrough material he just came up with recently.
It's like you just deciding we should pay to use this forum the exact way we use it today.