resolve Wrote:Okay, this is the product of a few days of research and work, but hasn't received much proofreading. Comments welcome!

http://repose.cx/onlearning/

Over all quite well thought out. I would like to say a few things though.

I think one strength of the AJATT site is the fact that he did it successfully. Here is a guy that followed a method and it worked for him. He backs up he suggestions not with scientific research as much as this is what I did. That is a big selling point. He got to a pretty high level of fluency within 18 months. That is a similar selling point of Antimoon. I think if you provide personal examples of your own success it could be a nice addition. You could try the "I recommend X because I have found that in my studies..." approach as apposed to "X is better than Y". A personal example, I have a friend that used a system (I think I told you about it once) called excel@japanese. This system didn't seem good to me but my friend used it effectively. He used no active method but he remembered the words. He now reads at a much higher proficiency than me. Exclusive passive learning seems to work to some extent.

I recommend that someone not take the "information" on the supermemo site too seriously, they are trying to sell a piece of software after all. There is a lot of good stuff to be learned there but a sale is a sale. Ask the guys at Rosetta Stone (I hate this soft by the way).

At the end of the day I agree with you that using a combination of approaches is best. I also believe that limiting yourself in one way or another can work if doing so motivates you. I think being motivated is the key. With the right motivation anything will work. People like and use different things.

So if I were going to suggest anything at all it would be to stress "motivation" and "use what works for you" above all else.

People believe that the guy over at AJATT is fluent in Japanese, but where is the real evidence to back this up? I haven't seen anything other than a few posts in Japanese on his site...

As Kosmo from [url=http://www.mininova.org/search/?search=the+pick+up+artist"]the pick up artist"[/url] would say:

Kosmo Wrote:I'm not hating, I just need to see something before I believe it.

yorkii Wrote:People believe that the guy over at AJATT is fluent in Japanese, but where is the real evidence to back this up? I haven't seen anything other than a few posts in Japanese on his site...

As Kosmo from [url=http://www.mininova.org/search/?search=the+pick+up+artist"]the pick up artist"[/url] would say:

Kosmo Wrote:I'm not hating, I just need to see something before I believe it.

That is a great point. I often joke with my friend, that the site is run by some Japanese-American doing an experiment for his psychology class at college. I did show his small set of writings to a Japanese teacher. She said the writing was natural but that the kanji use was a bit unnatural. I think the few posts he does have would be pretty hard to fake. It does take a bit of faith at the end of the day though.

resolve: I enjoyed reading your thoughts. I too find it fascinating learning about language acquisition.

dilandau23 Wrote:I think if you provide personal examples of your own success it could be a nice addition.

Always find this sort of stuff interesting and motivating. Even though I have similar reservations about the AJATT site as yourself, I do find it fairly motivational regardless of how closely you follow his advice.

I don't take AJATT as gospel, but I do like the idea of going through Heisig first and then putting sentences in an SRS, and so I have incorporated those aspects into my study of Japanese. I definitely prefer a little more of the structure that comes with textbooks or a language course like Assimil to ensure that I'm continuing to progress at a reasonable pace.

wzafran Wrote:I do have one question though: won't such an active recall process (e.g. thinking from English to Japanese) impede your ability to think natively in Japanese? (As in, you would need to 'convert' an English thought into Japanese before wanting to express/say/write something in Japanese, instead of thinking in Japanese and going straight to the heart of the matter.) And for the record, how has it worked for you now?

I don't feel like I'm translating at all. I use the English sentences to conjour up an idea, and then express that idea using a Japanese sentence or phrase I have learnt. The wording of the English sentence doesn't matter - all it needs to do is remind me of all the key elements in the Japanese sentence. I tried to make this point in the article but perhaps failed to communicate it properly. I just see the English as a tool for reminding me of a Japanese phrase. Pictures, word lists, etc would be just as effective, but are impractical to make or gather most of the time.

I guess the key point is how you approach it. It's not about thinking "this is how I say English sentence ___ in Japanese." It's "this is an English approximation of a natural Japanese structure. How do I say that Japanese again?"

One of the great things about Pimsleur's courses is the varying ways you are asked the question. With an SRS, typing in 3 different cues for a given answer is too much work, so we have to make do with a single question - but one shouldn't assume that the English cue is anything other than a cue.

How has it worked for me? Well, it's always difficult to judge one's own progress, but in the last year since I started using an SRS (I've always been doing active+passive review), my vocabulary has shot up. It's really rewarding when a word or phrase or grammar point you studied comes out effortlessly in a conversion. Of course, being able to recognize difficult words when they appear in other people's speech is rewarding too.

dilandau: you brought this up before, too. I don't know what you want me to say - I don't have any essays written in Japanese online. My comprehension is quite good and I have few hurdles in daily life, but I can't speak perfectly and my vocabulary is still lacking. I'm sure the AJATT guy is more adept, but I'm also sure he has put in a lot more hours than I have. And that's okay with me - I am comfortable fluent in daily life, and I study Japanese just for fun - I'm not in a big rush.

I should point out again that I think many of the things the AJATT guy has to say are very valid. I just take issue with his chosen method of reviewing material, and the English Is Bad fearmongering.

Actually, sorry if came across like "put your money where your mouth is". I think all of the information you offer is valid and very interesting. I was just suggesting you offer your own experiences as motivation, and that you shift the tone to a less aggressive stance for the sake of not alienating your program's users.

I wasn't aware I was being aggressive. I tried to give evidence to back up my assertions, rather than just push something on people.

(And it can't be more forceful than "No, no, no no NO!" ;-)

resolve Wrote:I wasn't aware I was being aggressive. I tried to give evidence to back up my assertions, rather than just push something on people.

I actually found it refreshing to see somebody look at the stuff on his site somewhat critically.

I know you should start out with what is good, and I enjoyed reading the thoughts you'd put together on learning. It was interesting, well-written and the format was engaging.

I don't know why it is so much more easy to speak volumes about what one didn't like, even though they're really just minor points. (sigh)

I'm going to try to say something useful, but I don't have a lot of confidence that I'll get this out right. So, I ask for forgiveness in advance.

AJATT is not a method. Khatsumoto's site is a blog. There are links from his diary entries to reseach by linguists and other language acquisition sites that present a more "scientific" basis for the ideas that he's sharing. IMO, you shouldn't dis him (or his site) in your article for not providing all the background for his statements. I think he's pretty clear that these are not his own ideas, just things he's found that seemed to work for him. He does have the stylistic fault of stating his mind in bold print (so to speak), perhaps (I think) with the intent of shocking his reader into exploring a potentially controversial perspective. It's not a "method" actually, though we do seem to talk about it as if it were. If it were a method, I don't think it's really fair to the people who really came up with the concepts to call it AJATT method.

There are another couple more little points in your article that I feel I might mention.

For me, my goal is not conversation. (I live in a relatively small town in Georgia---not many native Japanese around here). It's not translation. It's not writing essays. It really is no sort of output at all. It is only input. I just want to be able to hear (like radio or movies) and understand, and read (mostly novels) and understand. I'd rather not have to consult a dictionary every other word. Well, I guess I didn't say that e_x_a_c_t_l_y the way I mean it. I'd like to be a_b_l_e to read something aloud, with confidence that I had the correct reading of the kanji to go with understanding the sentence that I just read.

I think that too much of a habit of translating can inhibit, and weaken the appreciation for the target language. They think in their language, and there is beauty in that thought. Sometimes it is just very wrong to try to force it to be a sentence in English. So, I guess I just have a bit of reservation about using English cues that are so brief as to be tantamount to translating. Also, the emphasis in "producing output", as a synonym for "active recall". Now, I realize I'm kind of putting my words into your mouth here, and then using the straw man fallacy, saying that's bad. But bear with me a bit.

Isn't there a difference between active recall and, for example, translating an english sentence into Japanese? Or producing a grammatical Japanese sentence from cues? Maybe I'm wrong here, but I perceive a difference that active recall does not necessarily imply "synthesis". I'm probably not saying this well.

I'd like to improve my SRS deck, and I agree that active beats passive, but for now it's more of a quotation of an interesting sentence without furigana, and then the answer has the furigana, and then some J-J dictionary explanation of terms. Some earlier entries have the natural sounding English "equivalent" sentence (though to me they don't seem to be very equal). My point is to read the sentence and understand it, and then the "answer" just lets me assess whether I "got it right" or not.

I guess I'm trying to absorb grammar just from the sentences themselves, so I don't do the cloze thing on grammatical constructions. I think there is a difference between learning and reviewing. Maybe that's why. Inasmuch as I study grammar, I don't express those points in the SRS, other than just including a wide range of sentences. I could do better on that.

Quote:AJATT is not a method. Khatsumoto's site is a blog. There are links from his diary entries to reseach by linguists and other language acquisition sites that present a more "scientific" basis for the ideas that he's sharing. IMO, you shouldn't dis him (or his site) in your article for not providing all the background for his statements.

I think his position is mixed. On the one hand, he is expressing his own opinions about what has worked for him, and offering lots of good ideas to the people reading his site. But he also has a tendency to speak quite emphatically (perhaps to shock the reader into realizing alternatives, as you describe), and speak in black and white about what should and shouldn't be done. I don't believe it's sufficient to state at the top of your blog "these are just my personal ideas, do what you want", but then to use language like "you must do this" "don't ever do that!" throughout the blog. The strong language he uses in his statements lead people to believe they are fact.

In case it's not clear, I think he (and antimoon) have a lot of good things to give to the community, and I'm sure the AJATT guy has singlehandedly 1) boosted the motivation of many Japanese learners and 2) got them studying more productively. I think that's great! I just take issue with some of his ideas (and the parts I disagree with are mainly antimoon ideas).

Quote:Isn't there a difference between active recall and, for example, translating an english sentence into Japanese? Or producing a grammatical Japanese sentence from cues? Maybe I'm wrong here, but I perceive a difference that active recall does not necessarily imply "synthesis"

Is there a difference between producing a sentence from a cue, and producing it in a conversation? Of course, and if the cues are not well formed you will find it very difficult to associate the material in your SRS with events in real life.

Quote:Sometimes it is just very wrong to try to force it to be a sentence in English.

This seems to be a recurring statement. But I think it totally depends on the context you are in. If I am speaking Japanese with a native speaker, I am not thinking in English - English has no place in the conversation.

But if a student asks me "How do I say ____ in English?" - am I harming my Japanese by daring to answer? Of course not! Even if it's something that is "difficult to translate":

"How do you say いってらっしゃい?"
"We don't say that. Sometimes we might say 'See you later' or similar"

If I wanted to practice the Japanese expression myself, I could give myself a cue like:

[said by someone as they leave a place for a while]

The same applies in the opposite direction. Say a Japanese friend asks:

"What does 'he was released on parole' mean?"
"Something like 彼は仮出所した. Notice we use 'be released' (受け身) in English, not 'He released from prison.'"

(Of course if it's easy to explain and the student is advanced enough, an explanation in English would have sufficed too. But I'm trying to make a point)

By answering that question, am I perverting my Japanese? I don't think so, any more than an interpreter perverts their understanding of a foreign language when they do interpreting work.

In the context of understanding and speaking the language, one's native tongue has no place, and attempts to translate what is being said will invariably hamper one's progress. This is a mistake that many newcomers make, and it is right to encourage them not to do that.

But I think that's completely different from using one's native tongue as a cue to reherse some previously learnt foreign material.

resolve Wrote:By answering that question, am I perverting my Japanese? I don't think so, any more than an interpreter perverts their understanding of a foreign language when they do interpreting work.

Interpreters are already fluent in both languages though. I don't see how this is a good comparison for someone who is learning.

Interesting discussions, keep it up.

Quote:Interpreters are already fluent in both languages though. I don't see how this is a good comparison for someone who is learning.

The assumption that any use of one's native tongue will pervert the foreign language is preventing this discussion from going any further. If you assume that it's true, then of course actively reviewing with native language cues is bad.

As I acknowledged in a previous message, there are times where "translating" into your native tongue or from your native tongue are bad. But I don't think that using native cues for the purpose of review constitutes much danger.

I'm conscious of the fact that I also live in the country and have a lot of input material outside of my SRS. But I'm also conscious of the damage avoiding one's native tongue can cause. I touched on it briefly when talking about children learning sentence structures and misunderstanding what they mean. I also worry that beginning students are being pushed to go "Japanese only" and try to understand various structures using explanations that are well above their level.

Also you have cases like the other day, where synewave showed an example entry for 'にしては' based on information from his textbook. I'm not suggesting he didn't understand the structure. But his textbook said it was like のに and だが, which is not really true. In this case I think some good English examples would have done a better job of communicating the way にしては is used than using basic, and not really correct Japanese.

Anyway, while not everyone in the field agrees that "learning by immersion" is always optimal, it's extremely popular, and I think the simplicity of the idea appeals to people: "Of course! They learnt Japanese with no English - so should I!"
I think this ignores the fact that we are intelligent adults with an already fully developed ability to communicate, and it discards the usage of the native tongue even when it would be more pragmatic to do so.

I fear no amount of talking will convince those of you who are set on the idea of immersive learning, so I'll end in a Khatzmoto-esque fashion. Using English cues to produce natural Japanese sentences has been very effective in the year that I've been using it. It's worked for me. But I offer it only as a suggestion and if you feel something else will work better for you, use that instead. :-)

Perhaps those of us living in Japan have less of a need to 'immerse' our study in Japanese?

resolve Wrote:Also you have cases like the other day, where synewave showed an example entry for 'にしては' based on information from his textbook. I'm not suggesting he didn't understand the structure. But his textbook said it was like のに and だが, which is not really true. In this case I think some good English examples would have done a better job of communicating the way にしては is used than using basic, and not really correct Japanese.

You might not be suggesting I don't understand the structure, but if that's not what it means, I don't understand it! Well, I think I do, but to appreciate the nuance, often the easiest way to get one's head around something are examples/explanations in one's native language.

EDIT: one of my flashcards that I reviewed today had the Q and A pair 'half price' - 半額。
Admittedly this is only one example, but using a dictionary definition as the question is kind of cheating as it tells you the answer: ある金額の半分。「―を払う」

resolve Wrote:I also worry that beginning students are being pushed to go "Japanese only" and try to understand various structures using explanations that are well above their level.

I agree with this point. In the case of grammar, if you are reading about how that grammar structure works in Japanese, you might as well be reading it in English anyway, because it is just an explanation.

resolve Wrote:I fear no amount of talking will convince those of you who are set on the idea of immersive learning, so I'll end in a Khatzmoto-esque fashion. Using English cues to produce natural Japanese sentences has been very effective in the year that I've been using it.

I have been adding two new cards for each word / grammar structure I want to practice recently:
1.
Q. Japanese sentence
A. Definitions of difficult words (Japanese)

2.
Q. English sentence with focus on words / grammar I want to recreate in Japanese
A. Japanese sentence

I have found that the cards using English prompts to generate a Japanese sentence have indeed come in very helpful. I am having to think about what I am reviewing more, rather than just looking at stuff and hoping it will stay in my head.

resolve Wrote:I fear no amount of talking will convince those of you who are set on the idea of immersive learning, so I'll end in a Khatzmoto-esque fashion. Using English cues to produce natural Japanese sentences has been very effective in the year that I've been using it. It's worked for me. But I offer it only as a suggestion and if you feel something else will work better for you, use that instead. :-)

Just curious, since I haven't explored every nook and cranny of Anki yet, but is it possible to batch add production cards to a deck that solely consists of recognition cards? I ask, because I'm currently using Assimil Japanese as my source of sentences. Seeing as how Assimil is split into a passive phase where you focus on understanding and absorbing the language, and an active phase where you go back to the first lesson and use the English translations to produce the equivalent Japanese. I'm still in the passive phase, so I've only been adding recognition sentences, but I'll want to add the equivalent production cards into my deck once I get to that phase of my study.

I'm sure this would probably fit better in the Anki topic, but your post reminded me that I had this question, and lord knows I'd get distracted and forget to ask all together if I didn't ask it now.

Well, as anki is pretty versatile, there is a way. You can add a second display so you get production and recognition. On all those cards you have as recognition only, just "suspend" the production cards that get generated. Utilize the tag system to make this easier.

Nevermind, I was messing around with the deck editor, and I figured out how to do it.

Would you mind to explain what you did? I'm also working through Assimil Japanese right now, and I figured out that the idea of a passive phase is excellent. An idea that I could use beyond Assimil. I could add a lot of sentences as "passive" sentences, scheduling to move them to "active" review later on.
If you've figured out a way to do this without simply adding the same sentences later on, I'm sure that a lot of people will be very happy to hear about your method.

There are multiple ways to accomplish this in Anki. You can:

1) add both active and passive, and put 'passive' in the list of suspended tags

2) add both, then go into the editor and tag all active cards 'suspended'

3) add just passive, then when you want active cards later on, select the cards in the editor, right click, and choose "add missing cards"

4) make sure that the 'passive' card model comes before the active one, and set the card spacing on the active card to 3 months. it'll only appear after the passive card hasn't been seen for three months.

Hey guys, I was wondering how far have some of you gone using this method and if its really helping. Also before going monolingual, did you guys go from English to Japanese or Japanses to english. I went from English to Japanese and realized that could've been wrong. Which is way is best? Right now im working through Genki.

So far the only things I have done were to start reading 毎日 news in the web, join mixi and installed Japanese Linux to my home computer.. (That was a really good idea!) It's nowhere near all Japanese all the time thought! More like 20% of the time..

It's a very good method! Thinking back, when I really learned English was after starting to read books in English, watch American TV-shows without subtitles, using Linux for the first time (before that it was Windows in Finnish!). There is no reason all Japanese all the time wouldn't work as well as "all English all the time". =P

And.. From Japanese to Finglish. Still at that stage. I haven't had much time to study Japanese lately.. =(

You're supposed to go Japanese to English for the AJATT method.

It's definitely been helping me. My listening/reading comprehension is light years from where it was 3 months ago.

Hi, I haven't really found a source for sentences, yet, so I'm asking for advice here. I need it to be a book.
Do you know any books which
- are not textbooks but real books like novels
- also give a translation
- use many Kanji (not like those children's books which are almost entirely in kana)
- are not too hard (grammar like JLPT3, maybe a little harder)

Maybe that's too much too ask for. If there aren't any real books like that, can you recommend a textbook for getting sentences?