Dunno what you're talking about, but "lurk moar" predates whatever it is.

I would guess the reason that you haven't learned anything is because you've been here only about two weeks and spent most of it making juvenile posts.

Jarvik7 Wrote:I would guess the reason that you haven't learned anything is because you've been here only about two weeks and spent most of it making juvenile posts.

Your MOM makes juvenile posts!

I've been here a while, this is a new account. I finished RTK1 4-5 months ago and until I finish RTK3, I shall remain. (I haven't started doing RTK3 yet)

Well have you stretched your back out any?

Jarvik7 Wrote:Hahaha...

1) I'm not jealous of anyone nor do I hate khatz. I do however disagree with some of what he says and think he's a bad (verbose) writer.

could you be more specific ?
from your following posts about balance I already assume you disagree with his endorsement of Krashken's input theory .
but it seems like there s more .

just a feeling but I m willing to bet you also disagree with his very moto all japanese all the time (maybe you advocate for relaxation time a bit like in sport ) and probably
in his passive listening theory (listen japanese wether you understand or you don t , wether you pay attention or don t . listen japanese even during your sleep)

Anyway I m always extremely interested in critics and very open minded . So I m all ears.

ghinzdra Wrote:Anyway I m always extremely interested in critics and very open minded . So I m all ears.

Well in that case, no amount of input will allow you to easily and faultlessly output.

Listening to Japanese while you sleep will not help you at all, it may even hinder your sleep and therefore your retention.

Taking classes in Japanese is a very good thing to do, as long as they are good classes.

Listening to Japanese while you are mindfully doing something else is pointless, and definitely a distraction.

Over-kanjifying your srs sentences will make your Japanese seem unnatural, even if it may help retention a little.

Eighteen months is an unrealistic time frame for fluency, even for a European language.

Making mistakes while outputting will not cause permanent damage to your Japanese.

etc.

phauna Wrote:

ghinzdra Wrote:Anyway I m always extremely interested in critics and very open minded . So I m all ears.

Well in that case, no amount of input will allow you to easily and faultlessly output.

Listening to Japanese while you sleep will not help you at all, it may even hinder your sleep and therefore your retention.

Taking classes in Japanese is a very good thing to do, as long as they are good classes.

Listening to Japanese while you are mindfully doing something else is pointless, and definitely a distraction.

Over-kanjifying your srs sentences will make your Japanese seem unnatural, even if it may help retention a little.

Eighteen months is an unrealistic time frame for fluency, even for a European language.

Making mistakes while outputting will not cause permanent damage to your Japanese.

etc.

Agreed on every single point. Great post.

I think we agree on most issues
there are still 2 things in your post that are bugging me though....
taking class a good thing ? honestly I think it highly depends on individual character . Some people just f..... hate classrooms and nothing will get over it . And I find interesting to notice that MOST ultra polyglot never really took a course in a language or at least give it a real credit (I even sense that farber seems to resent language classes to a certain extent)... when it comes classics , people like richard burton ,schliemann , it even seems that NONE of them really learned this way. From what I have read here and there , the result is that the favorite way of learning for those guy was dictionary + translation ....Schlieman has very well explained how he learned greek with Paul and virginie. The most convincing exemple is a guy I cant remember the name who learned by buying more than 20 editions of the bible....
And you know I dont think it s everything but a coincidence..... I feel there is both a psychological AND a methological problem with classroom .

18 months not enough to reach fluency ? I think once again we ll stumble over the definition of fluency.... some will say native like , some will say being able to deal with every day situation , and so on....so I ll pass on that .
Anyway my main point is : from you have seen on his blog and the videos he uploaded on youtube do you think that Khatz position is disproved ? that his skills are overestimated ?


Still interested in your answer jarvik7

phauna Wrote:Well in that case, no amount of input will allow you to easily and faultlessly output.

So look at the opposite: With no input, hows the output? No one is saying "NEVER EVER DO OUTPUT!!"

phauna Wrote:Listening to Japanese while you sleep will not help you at all, it may even hinder your sleep and therefore your retention.

Well, I have a sleep disorder so I agree that it makes retention harder. I could listen during sleep but it seems pointless to me, also I need the little sleep I get.
EDIT: I just checked anki and it says my correct mature is 96,1%. I guess its not as big a problem as I thought I feel instantly better!

phauna Wrote:Taking classes in Japanese is a very good thing to do, as long as they are good classes.

I'm going to be taking classes.. I had a looksy at the genki textbook and noticed I knew it all and quickly realised those courses will only serve to hinder/bore me (and force me to listen to newbs butcher japanese words). Good luck finding a "good" class...

phauna Wrote:Listening to Japanese while you are mindfully doing something else is pointless, and definitely a distraction.

How often are you "mindful"? Are you a buddhist? People are automatons, IMHO.

phauna Wrote:Over-kanjifying your srs sentences will make your Japanese seem unnatural, even if it may help retention a little.

This is not an issue for me, but it probably is for other people. Also I admit there is the temptation of using the kanji instead of the commonly used kana for a word. But I see those as shortcuts now, so I don't over-kanjify anymore (I've too much sh1t to do, I'll take any shortcut)

phauna Wrote:Eighteen months is an unrealistic time frame for fluency, even for a European language.

Wanna launch into a definition of fluency-war?

phauna Wrote:Making mistakes while outputting will not cause permanent damage to your Japanese.

I have foreigner friends who make the silliest mistakes while speaking swedish, they always have and they always will, no amount of correcting "a apple"/"an apple"-type errors (en and ett in swedish) will ever fix this it seems.
EDIT: Some of them aren't actually foreigners, they just have parents born in foreign countries and yet they make these ridiculous mistakes.

phauna Wrote:etc.

I respectfully disagree with most of your opinions.
Oh shi-
This was a pretty serious post I wrote. Cool.

ghinzdra Wrote:Anyway my main point is: from you have seen on his blog and the videos he uploaded on youtube do you think that Khatz position is disproved ? that his skills are overestimated ?
Still interested in your answer jarvik7

Khatz videos were made long after he started studying Japanese, not after the 18 months he claimed he was fluent after. The fact that he got a computer job in Japan proves nothing. Most Japanese IT job ads I've seen lately have either no Japanese requirement at all, or only JLPT4 level requirements. Even though the video was made years after he claimed to have been fluent, he still made numerous errors, including a number of very basic ones. His writing is also pretty unnatural, but then again so is his English writing so maybe he's just trying to express his "unique style" in the second language.

That's not to say his Japanese is BAD, it isn't. Most of my khatz criticism has been about things that he baselessly says are actively harmful to Japanese learning or things that I think are just a waste of time/effort. See phauna's post for some of the basics. Also, some of his posts are written from a position of complete ignorance where he was just making things up as he went alone, which was somewhat annoying (particularly the posts on grammar). There is of course a lot of truth on his site too, but it's not really anything he came up with. I think the main 'good thing' about khatz & ajatt is the inspiration it gives some people.

phauna Wrote:Making mistakes while outputting will not cause permanent damage to your Japanese.

I have foreigner friends who make the silliest mistakes while speaking swedish, they always have and they always will, no amount of correcting "a apple"/"an apple"-type errors (en and ett in swedish) will ever fix this it seems.
EDIT: Some of them aren't actually foreigners, they just have parents born in foreign countries and yet they make these ridiculous mistakes.[qoute]

I had a columbian flat mate once when I lived in Australia last year and he took language classes that were based purely on output... his english was ok and I did once have a very indepth discussion with him on very specific topics but on a daily basis he perpetually screwed up one of THE most simple, commonly used grammar points in the English language. No matter how many times he was corrected, whenever he tried to say "so and so told me that/said to me that" he would say "so and so say me that" and it just sounded baddddd. Case and point.

People who keep making the same errors over and over haven't broken their brain by outputting. They are just lazy, simple as that. If they WANT to correct those errors, they can. They just have to realize "Man, I thought I was right about this and made this error all along, how stupid of me. From now on, I'll stop doing it." And they will. Young kids talk all the time and their language is horrible and RIDDLED with mistakes, they still grow up to become perfectly fluent natives.

Fixing errors is a matter of time and dedication, not "oh shit, I outputted a bit early, I'm bucked".

Counterpoint: The majority of people I know who can speak Japanese well started outputting early. The people in your anecdotes probably have no one to correct them, or they never put effort into making their language perfect since it was already good enough to get the message across.

Counterpoint 2: Most Japanese learners of English are very input heavy (secondary school English education is almost entirely input). Most cannot speak English very well. Those I know who do speak English well did a lot of output early on.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Counterpoint: The majority of people I know who can speak Japanese well started outputting early. The people in your anecdotes probably have no one to correct them, or they never put effort into making their language perfect since it was already good enough to get the message across.

Counterpoint 2: Most Japanese learners of English are very input heavy (secondary school English education is almost entirely input). Most cannot speak English very well. Those I know who do speak English well did a lot of output early on.

As I've stated I DID correct them. Youre countering my anecodes with anectodes.. God, this is futile. And I'm contributing this futility.

Tobberoth Wrote:They are just lazy, simple as that.

Oh great tobbe, use that very constructive response to "them darn foreigners" not speaking our language proper because they are lazy.

Screw this game. It is unwinnable.

nonpoint Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:They are just lazy, simple as that.

Oh great tobbe, use that very constructive response to "them darn foreigners" not speaking our language proper because they are lazy.

Screw this game. It is unwinnable.

What? I know tons of foreigners who CORRECT their errors. It's only the lazy ones who keep making the same mistakes over and over. It's not a problem with language-learning itself, and it's retarded to blame it. "Sorry for making the same mistakes over and over. Oh yeah I COULD correct them, but I'd rather blame early output."

nonpoint Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:I suggest you lurk moar.

I knew it, a b-tard... Well there goes the last shred of your credibility. "Do a barrel-roll, long-cat!"

BTW, I have not learned I single thing from you, in fact I think reading your post in the survey thread made me dumber. I would never even consider donating to the likes of you.

LOL. Great post. I was thinking the same thing.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Counterpoint: The majority of people I know who can speak Japanese well started outputting early. The people in your anecdotes probably have no one to correct them, or they never put effort into making their language perfect since it was already good enough to get the message across.

Counterpoint 2: Most Japanese learners of English are very input heavy (secondary school English education is almost entirely input). Most cannot speak English very well. Those I know who do speak English well did a lot of output early on.

I have counterpoints to your countertpoints. It's situation specific but generally the way Khatz layed it down is the best.

There's no room for not having your early output corrected (due to ignorance or lack of a teacher) if you just don't early output.

ryuudou Wrote:There's no room for not having your early output corrected (due to ignorance or lack of a teacher) if you just don't early output.

That's like saying "If you never try, you can never make a mistake! So never do anything!".

Output is EXTREMELY beneficial.

Tobberoth Wrote:

ryuudou Wrote:There's no room for not having your early output corrected (due to ignorance or lack of a teacher) if you just don't early output.

That's like saying "If you never try, you can never make a mistake! So never do anything!".

Output is EXTREMELY beneficial.

No. It's like saying "Hold your damn horses boy and wait your turn.".

ryuudou Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:

ryuudou Wrote:There's no room for not having your early output corrected (due to ignorance or lack of a teacher) if you just don't early output.

That's like saying "If you never try, you can never make a mistake! So never do anything!".

Output is EXTREMELY beneficial.

No. It's like saying "Hold your damn horses boy and wait your turn.".

That's the thing though. You can wait a lifetime, you will still make mistakes when you start outputting, because it needs training like everything else. Waiting to output because you're afraid of mistakes because mistakes during output leads to irreparable damage is just stupid. Better to realize that you WILL make mistakes and accept it, since every other human ever who has ever learned a language made mistakes. Waiting is fine. Believing output leads to permanent damage to your speaking isn't.

Tobberoth Wrote:

ryuudou Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:That's like saying "If you never try, you can never make a mistake! So never do anything!".

Output is EXTREMELY beneficial.

No. It's like saying "Hold your damn horses boy and wait your turn.".

That's the thing though. You can wait a lifetime, you will still make mistakes when you start outputting, because it needs training like everything else. Waiting to output because you're afraid of mistakes because mistakes during output leads to irreparable damage is just stupid. Better to realize that you WILL make mistakes and accept it, since every other human ever who has ever learned a language made mistakes. Waiting is fine. Believing output leads to permanent damage to your speaking isn't.

That's true, but I don't believe Khatz (or myself) is under the impression that output causes permanent damage. My interpretation was more of avoid it during your early phases as it's unnecessary.

Can we all just agree that we'd all be better off learning some Japanese instead, rather than arguing about learning Japanese?

ryuudou Wrote:That's true, but I don't believe Khatz (or myself) is under the impression that output causes permanent damage. My interpretation was more of avoid it during your early phases as it's unnecessary.

I agree with that, but I think it's kind of odd to say it's unnecessary, that depends on the situation of the person learning. If you live in Japan, you have loads of reasons to start outputting as soon as possible, and I feel such a person shouldn't be afraid of doing so simply because Antimoon made up (using no real proof what so ever) that early output breaks your ability to speak. In a self-study situation, one which most people here can relate to I think, I agree it's unnecessary simply because it won't be very beneficial in the beginning because said person won't have the ability to hold a proper conversation.

phauna Wrote:

ghinzdra Wrote:Anyway I m always extremely interested in critics and very open minded . So I m all ears.

Well in that case, no amount of input will allow you to easily and faultlessly output.

Ok, this is a hold over from Anti-moon. They proffer some anecdotes about a guy with 30 years input typing a perfect letter. I have serious doubts with their theory.

Now, let's say you're "output" are perfect imitations of input, ala an SRS? If one did varied input and had perfect output or instantly corrected (via SRS), do you think a large amount of these can have use?

phauna Wrote:Listening to Japanese while you sleep will not help you at all, it may even hinder your sleep and therefore your retention.

It's not the listening while you sleep. It's that time before you sleep and after you get up that has you hearing Japanese. It's no more than saying you should have a Japanese newspaper waiting on your kitchen table or your home page set to yahoo.jp.

I've been doing this consistently over the last couple of years and had no ill effects. It doesn't help much either you if that's all you do, but that's a developing theory of mine for another thread.

phauna Wrote:Taking classes in Japanese is a very good thing to do, as long as they are good classes.

Now that is a really big qualifier you added there. Even Khatzumoto wrote his thoughts on what he would consider to be a good class. The problem is "good" and college classes don't tend to get along because of the other people you got to take it with.

phauna Wrote:Listening to Japanese while you are mindfully doing something else is pointless, and definitely a distraction.

I almost agree with this. Although it is a distraction which can be a good thing, like putting newspaper on you table or homepage to a Japanese website. Again, there's that developing theory that's more of another thread.

phauna Wrote:Over-kanjifying your srs sentences will make your Japanese seem unnatural, even if it may help retention a little.

We've got two or three native Japanese on the thread that seem to disagree with this theory, based on their posts. Granted, I'm at a level where his over kanjifying is annoying. So maybe it's a personal preference over actual native issues.

phauna Wrote:Eighteen months is an unrealistic time frame for fluency, even for a European language.

Say I did 3 to 4 hours a day of dedicated study over those 18 months (let's say 460 days, due to some days off). That's 1500 to 1900 hours. Throw on same amount of time to listening to native material I had close to 100% comprehension (thanks to dictionaries and SRS during my study time) on my off study time. Plus some hours of just listening, reading or just enjoying Japanese.

The problem I think people have with the 18 months is they under estimate what they can accomplish on a day by day basis in those 18 months.

Now it feels like: If I had the time per day to dedicate to studying, my level would be very high. Since I do not, I can utilize an SRS as a holding pattern to allow fluency in same number of hours, just longer time span due to less hours per day.

phauna Wrote:Making mistakes while outputting will not cause permanent damage to your Japanese.

etc.

Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. I've seen the results of bad training put into practice and find this a good rule.

But yeah, mistakes in early outputting can be corrected over time. Refusing to fix a bad habit then would be due to laziness (since you should be aware of the bad habit via the studying).

in terms of output, I think it's a bit of both, you have to start outputting at the point it's useful to you and when your understanding is sufficient to do so. You will make mistakes though, no matter how good your understanding/comprehension is in the beginning because the pathways in your brain are only strong in one direction. Recognition. It's like, if you do only recognition sentences for your kanji skillllz then you will be able to read fine but when it comes to writing out a sentence you won't be able to remember the kanji compounds you need. Well, maybe some but not the majority. However, once you do production of them the pathway is strengthened in the other direction and you begin to be able to write it and of course you'll make mistakes when you do this in the beginning too. I'm starting to see speaking as the same. I guess i'm of the opinion that one should start outputting at an intermediate level, say, where one could comprehend a given response in an average conversation. At least then you could have a decent conversation. I think with language classes though, you output from the very beginning and I don't think that's beneficial at all because a beginner who can say 1 - 5 sentences can understand basically 0 of the replies they will get so why the need to output it??? Hence, when you can understand basic conversations, you should have a go at having them!

More on Practice...

Practice makes permanent. The more you practice an error the hard it is to correct. It's not impossible to correct, just extremely hard.

Few people actually refuse to correct bad habits. The time between learning of the error attempting to fix it, and attempting to reconstruct it in the correct fashion all effect the probability of an individual correcting a mistake. It's not lazy, it's a matter of perception. You can't correct an error you don't remember making.

A poster early described a foreigner who kept making a mistake. He tried to correct the mistake. The problem is how the mistake was corrected.

Bad attempt

-" I goed to the store."
-Went!
-" It went to the store. I was being fun"
-It was fun!
-"I goed to the store. It was fun. I ate some candies"
-I ate some candy
-"I was being fun. I ate some candy"
- sigh....

By the time you've corrected the next error the previous error is forgotten.

A better method:

-"I goed to the store"
-I went to the store. She went to the store. We went to the store. I went to the store.
-" I went to the store"
-Sally went to the store. Johnny went to the store. Who went to the store?
-"Johnny?"
-What did Johnny do?
-"He went to the store"

The reason children make mistakes and eventually correct them is exposure to the correct patterns more often and getting them from a variety of sources (input), combined with better adaptability to change. Not magical, just better.

Adults form mental connections faster so learning a mistake is easier. Adults also have issues with adaptability. When combined with a learned fear of being wrong, mistakes are internally rehearsed with little input to correct them. The average or unwilling learner is surrounded by those who speak L1.

In a classroom setting the only sources of L2 are those provided by the teacher. The above average student will find other sources of input, the average student will not. The average student will do what it takes to make the grade. The average student will eventually learn the language (if he doesn't quit), though, to no where near the extent that the above average student will.

If you are on this site, regardless of what you may think (cuz I said so), you fall into the category of above average.

The people on the Anti-Moon site are not totally wrong, they just seem use average cases when examining the methods, with the average case of using sentences being better than the average of standard methods (either that or selectively taking cases that fit their arguments but I prefer to speculate optimistically).

Kazelee, the problem with your example is that no one speaks like that. I know TONS of people who were complete beginners, moved to Japan and learned by loads of early output. Sure, people make mistakes, but there's no way someone is going to keep conjugating every single verb incorrectly all the time. You're not talking about early output, you're talking about "learning words from a dictionary then attempting to say something".

The mistakes people make when starting with early output is more like... mixing up ごろ and ぐらい.

いつ着いたの？
2時ぐらい。
どのくらいいましたか？
1時間ごろ！

And when the problem is localized like that, you simply have to correct it. Yeah, it takes time and dedication and you will keep making the mistake when speaking quickly, but it's not going to happen that you hear you're doing it wrong and forget it because you're making mistakes in the next sentence and the next one again. If you don't have any grasp of Japanese at all, of course you shouldn't be speaking it.