kazelee, You definitely don't come across as older, so I wouldn't worry about it. ;p

I thought Thora was offering simple criticism of Khatzumoto's style, despite the many awesome things Khatzu has done for Japanese learners. Giving them a galvanic kick in the rear. I agree, I think he's embracing a position of responsibility, and yet encouraging a bit of a 'cult of personality'. People embrace that as motivation and inspiration, but using that as a crutch to help them accept new ideas and experiment is superficial, and it lends itself to unquestioning mindsets and oversimplification. An example is how Thora's comment was turned into a 'Is khatzu fluent and thus is his advice true/false' kind of argument. An example of Khatzumoto sweeping aside helpful criticism is the way he snarkily dismissed all the comments in his 'Grammar doesn't exist' entry as 'whining' without acknowledging that they had merit, yet posted the same advice they gave in different words and attributing this to 'good language blogs'. I believe that's another reason besides the stated one that he prefers a blog to a forum, so he can post what he wants and ignore dissenting opinion, encouraging a top-down guru-like approach as part of the AJATT 'brand'.

Learning Japanese doesn't make you good at teaching Japanese. Posting a video that demonstrates Japanese proficiency doesn't show how long he studied Japanese, or how he did so. Neither does writing those claims on his site. This is worth pointing out, not because it invalidates his site or accuses him of lying, but just the opposite, I'm saying it doesn't matter and attempting to show how people cling to shallow external validations. If his ideas and the ideas of others that he posts seem to have merit in their own right, then test them out for yourself, improve upon them. It's not gospel. He's just one intelligent self-studier amongst many.

Another sad thing is how his 'followers' tend to emulate him, starting blogs and claiming rapid advancement in Japanese as examples of why they're right, generalizing the critiques of others and then sweeping them aside as straw men.

nest0r Wrote:I agree, I think he's embracing a position of responsibility, and yet encouraging a bit of a 'cult of personality'.

Yes! Exactly! I've been noticing this too, it's something I've seen happen before.

Quote:People embrace that as motivation and inspiration, but using that as a crutch to help them accept new ideas and experiment is superficial, and it lends itself to unquestioning mindsets and oversimplification.

I think you've hit on a major point there. I've noticed that Khatz tends to intentionally oversimplify and exaggerate his points in order to have more shocking rhetoric ("grammar doesn't exist," "learn Japanese in one second"), which leads to a lot of confusion about what Khatz actually MEANS and what AJATT actually IS and what it ENTAILS. Really, Khatz is an overwhelmingly poor communicator; his writing style is very cryptic and cluttered and he can never seem to get his point across on the first try, which is why he has to keep revisiting previous topics.

Another thing is that Khatz practiced AJATT not as a language learning technique but as a way of life, and he seems to think that everyone else should do the exact same thing. I've found very little discussion on his site of whether this extremism is truly necessary, or healthy. (Not talking to your English-speaking friends? Forswearing all your English-language music? Eating everything with chopsticks?) Obviously the more time you spend with Japanese the faster you'll progress, but is it really crucial to learn Japanese in 18 months and not a day longer? Maybe he's trying to encourage people, but I think he's actually making them despair. If you feel guilty whenever you're not listening to or reading Japanese, and you're constantly waging a moral battle with yourself over keeping up with SRS reviews/additions, eventually you're going to give up unless you have a really good reason not to. (Which, incidentally, was the case with Khatz--he purchased tickets to a Japanese job fair something like a year in advance and thereby scared himself shitless into relentlessly studying Japanese.)

I don't think Khatz is doing these things purely for the glorification of his own ego; he just doesn't realize that he isn't emphasizing everything he needs to. There are a lot of finer points to AJATT that seem to get lost in all the pumped-up sloganeering.

Quote:Another sad thing is how his 'followers' tend to emulate him, starting blogs and claiming rapid advancement in Japanese as examples of why they're right, generalizing the critiques of others and then sweeping them aside as straw men.

It's all too similar to the Ayn Rand Institute for comfort, isn't it? (Her followers so lionized her that outside observers noticed native English speakers from the ARI affecting Russian accents.)

Also, why does he keep talking about the economic benefits of knowing a second language? That's literally the worst reason I can think of to learn a foreign language. What do you suppose the attrition rate is for business majors who take Chinese 101, reasoning that knowledge of Mandarin will look good on a resume?

nest0r Wrote:I agree, I think he's embracing a position of responsibility, and yet encouraging a bit of a 'cult of personality'. People embrace that as motivation and inspiration, but using that as a crutch to help them accept new ideas and experiment is superficial, and it lends itself to unquestioning mindsets and oversimplification.

This is a guy, who put up a website about how he learned Japanese, and then tries to help other people do the same. What is your problem?

This is you:
Khatzu: Hey guys, I'm good at Japanese. This is what I did.
Disbelievers: Some good ideas, but you're wrong.
Khatzu: (ignoring it)
Disbelievers: Hey everybody, this guy is a dick because he's ignoring me when I tell him he's wrong. Don't listen to him.

Listen, there are two types of people: people who come up with ideas and ways of doing things, and people who sit around criticizing those people and the people who follow those ideas. I'd rather be the type of person coming up good ideas than the person flaming online because I don't agree with them. If you don't like it, start your own website and produce a lot of content. Then you'll be in a position to argue.

Kazelee, you're so awesome. Where are you from?

alyks Wrote:This is you:
Khatzu: Hey guys, I'm good at Japanese. This is what I did.
Disbelievers: Some good ideas, but you're wrong.
Khatzu: (ignoring it)
Disbelievers: Hey everybody, this guy is a dick because he's ignoring me when I tell him he's wrong. Don't listen to him.

That isn't it at all.

This is more like it:

Khazu: I learned Japanese fluently in 18 months like this: YYY.
Fans: Cool, I wish I was just like you, I will do exactly what you say regardless of common sense.
Khazu: Lol, I just took others ideas and used them, now I'm trying to make money of it. You're beautiful btw, how about donating?
Disbelievers: We have no proof you became "fluent" in 18 months and some of your advice is BS. Good job motivating people, but why should you get money for it?
Khazu: Lol. Donate. Personal counseling (even after I've said classes are BS).

I really like btw how you make it sound like this is some charity project Khazu is working on even when he does his best to make people donate money. If all he wanted was to teach people how to learn Japanese, he wouldn't fill 50% of his blog with ads and BS to make you donate.

Tobberoth Wrote:Fans: Cool, I wish I was just like you, I will do exactly what you say regardless of common sense.

Please tell me who these mythical fanatics are. I'm having a hard time finding them. I have a hard time believing that people would really take it that far. People are adults, they can decide for themselves.

alyks Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:Fans: Cool, I wish I was just like you, I will do exactly what you say regardless of common sense.

Please tell me who these mythical fanatics are. I'm having a hard time finding them.

Ever read the comments on his posts at alljapaneseallthetime.com?

I especially like to point to the people who say bilingual texts etc are good sources. I've seen several such people who say reading bilingual texts is good just because for some reason, Khazu is contradicting himself. He's saying that you should only learn Japanese from natives (good, native Japanese makes sure you speak natural Japanese) and at the same time, for some really odd reason, he says bilingual books is a great source of learning. What? How about the fact that English translated into Japanese ISN'T natural? We all know how translation works. You take a sentence in one language and try to make a good representation of it in your own. It doesn't matter if a Japanese person translated it, a translated sentence will never be a good natural native sentence. Yet Khazu, while saying you should only learn native Japanese, recommend learning from bilingual sources? Makes no sense. A surefire way to know if someone is a blind fan is to ask them about what they feel about that very way of studying. Instead of seeing this odd contradiction, they simply listen to him blindly. They agree that you should only learn native Japanese, yet say that it's allright to learn from bilingual sources (Harry Potter being a prime example).

You know who else had a cult of personality?


Hitler.

Mcjon01 Wrote:You know who else had a cult of personality?


Hitler.

Ahh, Godwin's law.

The classic reductio ad Hitlerum.

Tobberoth Wrote:I especially like to point to the people who say bilingual texts etc are good sources. I've seen several such people who say reading bilingual texts is good just because for some reason, Khazu is contradicting himself. He's saying that you should only learn Japanese from natives (good, native Japanese makes sure you speak natural Japanese) and at the same time, for some really odd reason, he says bilingual books is a great source of learning. What? How about the fact that English translated into Japanese ISN'T neutral? We all know how translation works. You take a sentence in one language and try to make a good representation of it in your own. It doesn't matter if a Japanese person translated it, a translated sentence will never be a good neutral native sentence. Yet Khazu, while saying you should only learn native Japanese, recommend learning from bilingual sources? Makes no sense. A surefire way to know if someone is a blind fan is to ask them about what they feel about that very way of studying. Instead of seeing this odd contradiction, they simply listen to him blindly. They agree that you should only learn native Japanese, yet say that it's allright to learn from bilingual sources (Harry Potter being a prime example).

My god. You just debased his entire site by finding a single contradiction intended to get people reading more. How can we trust Khatzu now? I mean, he's just like Hitler. In fact, I'm going to quote that:

Mcjon01 Wrote:You know who else had a cult of personality?


Hitler.

Seriously. Comparing Khatzu to Hitler. I'm speechless.

It seems every topic turns into an argument lately. What happened to studying Japanese? You know who did not study Japanese?

Hitler

1189 散 -scatter

As we all know, *Hitler* was a vegetarian. So when he was enjoying his *salad* and found a bit of *flesh* #scatter#ed in it, he flipped out and #scatter#ed it all over the floor. After hearing it was the chef's special creation, a "*Flesh* Scatter *Salad*", he goes on a rampage and startskilling people. Imagine him walking into a room, with people screaming, "Oh no! It's *Hitler*! Scatter! Scatter!!"

Tobberoth Wrote:Khazu: Lol. Donate. Personal counseling (even after I've said classes are BS).

I don't think this is a very strong criticism, considering all the people who were e-mailing him asking for help and advice (which is nothing like classes; Khatz isn't being inconsistent at all).

Tobberoth Wrote:I especially like to point to the people who say bilingual texts etc are good sources. I've seen several such people who say reading bilingual texts is good just because for some reason, Khazu is contradicting himself. He's saying that you should only learn Japanese from natives (good, native Japanese makes sure you speak natural Japanese) and at the same time, for some really odd reason, he says bilingual books is a great source of learning. What? How about the fact that English translated into Japanese ISN'T neutral? We all know how translation works. You take a sentence in one language and try to make a good representation of it in your own.

I think you're mixing up "bilingual texts" and "books translated into Japanese," which are not at all the same thing.

Quote:It doesn't matter if a Japanese person translated it, a translated sentence will never be a good neutral native sentence.

Why not? It's virtually certain that the translator was a native speaker, and although there are numerous problems inherent in the process of translation, it's not like they would do a learner more harm than good (e.g. by ingraining bad habits).

However, I disagree with the idea that you should read ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING in Japanese without exception; there are a lot of books out there that were masterfully written in English, and it would be a sin for a native English speaker to read them in translation. Not everything in life needs to be a vocabulary building exercise.

Mcjon01 Wrote:You know who else had a cult of personality?


Hitler.

Godwin's Law all up in this bitch!!!

alyks Wrote:Seriously. Comparing Khatzu to Hitler. I'm speechless.

I hope you're being sarcastic too, because it's obvious to absolutely everyone that he was just injecting some humor. Then again, True Believers aren't known for having a good sense of humor.

alyks Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:I especially like to point to the people who say bilingual texts etc are good sources. I've seen several such people who say reading bilingual texts is good just because for some reason, Khazu is contradicting himself. He's saying that you should only learn Japanese from natives (good, native Japanese makes sure you speak natural Japanese) and at the same time, for some really odd reason, he says bilingual books is a great source of learning. What? How about the fact that English translated into Japanese ISN'T neutral? We all know how translation works. You take a sentence in one language and try to make a good representation of it in your own. It doesn't matter if a Japanese person translated it, a translated sentence will never be a good neutral native sentence. Yet Khazu, while saying you should only learn native Japanese, recommend learning from bilingual sources? Makes no sense. A surefire way to know if someone is a blind fan is to ask them about what they feel about that very way of studying. Instead of seeing this odd contradiction, they simply listen to him blindly. They agree that you should only learn native Japanese, yet say that it's allright to learn from bilingual sources (Harry Potter being a prime example).

My god. You just debased his entire site by finding a single contradiction intended to get people reading more. How can we trust Khatzu now? I mean, he's just like Hitler. In fact, I'm going to quote that:

Mcjon01 Wrote:You know who else had a cult of personality?


Hitler.

Seriously. Comparing Khatzu to Hitler. I'm speechless.

I would like to point out that just because those two posts came in a row doesn't mean I personally compared Khazu to Hitler and as such it makes very little sense when you build your whole "comeback" on it. I pointed out ONE contradiction (out of many) to show how to identify AJATT fanatics, I don't see how that is in any way comparing him to Hitler. You asked if there are such fanatics and I showed you one of the ways to identify them. If you haven't seen any such posts anywhere, that's great but there are without any doubt such people and I've seen quite a few of them.

GoodSirJava Wrote:However, I disagree with the idea that you should read ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING in Japanese without exception; there are a lot of books out there that were masterfully written in English, and it would be a sin for a native English speaker to read them in translation. Not everything in life needs to be a vocabulary building exercise.

I actually agree with staying away from things you do not need in languages other than your target ones. The point is that exceptions will branch out to more exceptions, and you will end up spending time away from Japanese. It is not that your Japanese will worsen. It will just not get better, because you will avoid Japanese due to feelings of inadequacy compared to languages like English.

Languages Like English would make an alright band name. Anyone into it?

Tobberoth Wrote:I would like to point out that just because those two posts came in a row doesn't mean I personally compared Khazu to Hitler and as such it makes very little sense when you build your whole "comeback" on it. I pointed out ONE contradiction (out of many) to show how to identify AJATT fanatics, I don't see how that is in any way comparing him to Hitler. You asked if there are such fanatics and I showed you one of the ways to identify them. If you haven't seen any such posts anywhere, that's great but there are without any doubt such people and I've seen quite a few of them.

I want you to take the latest post, the follow up to grammar, and tell me how many of those people are fanatics. Tell me how you know these people aren't thinking for themselves.

But I'm not saying that there are no fanatics. You're just taking it way out of proportion. Listen, in life, there are always going to be stupid people. There are always going to be fanatics that can't think for themselves. You have to learn to live with it. And it certainly doesn't mean that the method is bad.

Tobberoth Wrote:I pointed out ONE contradiction (out of many) to show how to identify AJATT fanatics, I don't see how that is in any way comparing him to Hitler. You asked if there are such fanatics and I showed you one of the ways to identify them. If you haven't seen any such posts anywhere, that's great but there are without any doubt such people and I've seen quite a few of them.

I think a lot of these "contradictions" are really just apparent contradictions. I think that, as a language learning technique, AJATT is cogent and effective, but Khatzumoto is an inept writer who likes to make outrageous-sounding claims in order to attract attention and interest--in good faith, I believe, but it still causes confusion.

GoodSirJava Wrote:I don't think this is a very strong criticism, considering all the people who were e-mailing him asking for help and advice (which is nothing like classes; Khatz isn't being inconsistent at all).

Except you know, he IS being inconsistent. He's saying that you don't need teachers to show you the way to learn a language, yet he offers his service (for a hefty sum of course) to show you the way to learn the language. He takes money to be a teacher after having condemned them.

GoodSirJava Wrote:I think you're mixing up "bilingual texts" and "books translated into Japanese," which are not at all the same thing.

By all means, tell me the difference. A book isn't written in two languages concurrently, it's written in one then translated to the other. In general, English books you have already read translated into Japanese are the recommended objects.

GoodSirJava Wrote:Why not? It's virtually certain that the translator was a native speaker, and although there are numerous problems inherent in the process of translation, it's not like they would do a learner more harm than good (e.g. by ingraining bad habits).

Reading sentences by a really good student of Japanese would also do more good than harm, yet Khazu for some reason finds that completely unacceptable. If you think it's alright to read unnatural sentences because "the bad habits will affect you less than the Japanese you learn", that's all good but that isn't what Khazu is saying.

alyks Wrote:This is a guy, who put up a website about how he learned Japanese, and then tries to help other people do the same. What is your problem?

This kind of answers itself really. If you put yourself out in public and tell people you have a method of how to do something, of course it should be allowed to be criticized. You can't throw something out there and say: "Please only people that agree with me look at this." Most people criticizing him are giving him a lot of merit still and it's still being taken as if he's being terribly insulted. Why is it such a bad thing to question?

I like everybody else has said think it's great he has gotten people hyped up about studying, I have some questions about some of his other ideas though. I don't think we shouldn't be allowed to ask them for any reason.

alyks Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:I would like to point out that just because those two posts came in a row doesn't mean I personally compared Khazu to Hitler and as such it makes very little sense when you build your whole "comeback" on it. I pointed out ONE contradiction (out of many) to show how to identify AJATT fanatics, I don't see how that is in any way comparing him to Hitler. You asked if there are such fanatics and I showed you one of the ways to identify them. If you haven't seen any such posts anywhere, that's great but there are without any doubt such people and I've seen quite a few of them.

I want you to take the latest post, the follow up to grammar, and tell me how many of those people are fanatics. Tell me how you know these people aren't thinking for themselves.

But I'm not saying that there are no fanatics. You're just taking it way out of proportion. Listen, in life, there are always going to be stupid people. There are always going to be fanatics that can't think for themselves. You have to learn to live with it. And it certainly doesn't mean that the method is bad.

I never said the method is bad. I said the cult of personality around Khazu is ridiculous. He learned good Japanese in 5 years. He brings up some good ideas which, while not his ideas from the start, are genuinly good. It just makes little sense to give him credit (and especially money) for something which overall is just common sense.

Smackle Wrote:I actually agree with staying away from things you do not need in languages other than your target ones. The point is that exceptions will branch out to more exceptions, and you will end up spending time away from Japanese. It is not that your Japanese will worsen. It will just not get better, because you will avoid Japanese due to feelings of inadequacy compared to languages like English.

That's also an excellent point. Reading English books in Japanese translation will impoverish you in the long run, because you are depriving yourself of access to large swaths of real Japanese culture. There are a lot of things in your native language--good web sites and blogs, authors you like, good comedians--that you know about, and you take knowing about them for granted; but discovering gems in Japanese literature and the "Japanese internet" and so forth takes a lot of time, dedication, and conscious effort. So in this sense, reading translations is a crutch, one that is obviated if you can find balance (i.e., neither relying entirely on the Japanese language, nor on American culture to produce things for you to read and watch once they've been translated).

cracky Wrote:I like everybody else has said think it's great he has gotten people hyped up about studying, I have some questions about some of his other ideas though. I don't think we shouldn't be allowed to ask them for any reason.

I think there is a difference between questioning and arguing/whatever-is-going-on-in-all-of-these-threads-in-which-tobberoth-and-alyks-coexist.

Smackle Wrote:

cracky Wrote:I like everybody else has said think it's great he has gotten people hyped up about studying, I have some questions about some of his other ideas though. I don't think we shouldn't be allowed to ask them for any reason.

I think there is a difference between questioning and arguing/whatever-is-going-on-in-all-of-these-threads-in-which-tobberoth-and-alyks-coexist.

Then again, it's not like anyone is forcing you to read mine and Alyks's posts on any subject. We obviously feel it's relevant since we're posting it, if you disagree, you're free to ignore it.

Tobberoth Wrote:Except you know, he IS being inconsistent. He's saying that you don't need teachers to show you the way to learn a language, yet he offers his service (for a hefty sum of course) to show you the way to learn the language. He takes money to be a teacher after having condemned them.

But I don't think he was condemning Teachers in general; rather, he was decrying basically everything related to how modern language education actually goes on. (He has a post on how to make language classes not suck, in fact, so he's obviously at least made some theoretical allowance for good teachers and classes.) Also, he's merely offering his services as a consultant, which is different from being entirely dependent on a teacher to tell you when to stop, when to go, what to read, how to say things, etc.

Quote:By all means, tell me the difference. A book isn't written in two languages concurrently, it's written in one then translated to the other. In general, English books you have already read translated into Japanese are the recommended objects.

It's only a bilingual text if both languages are present in the text (these are also known as "parallel translations"). This would imply you using a language other than Japanese to read them, which is impermissible according to AJATT orthodoxy (and probably with good reason, at least in most cases).

Quote:Reading sentences by a really good student of Japanese would also do more good than harm, yet Khazu for some reason finds that completely unacceptable. If you think it's alright to read unnatural sentences because "the bad habits will affect you less than the Japanese you learn", that's all good but that isn't what Khazu is saying.

That's not at all what I said. If something would cause you to learn bad habits, it must be avoided. I'm claiming that reading translations probably won't do that, because professionally translated works tend to be quite refined and idiomatic.