It's not that weird or different. The idea is pretty simple-- surround yourself with grammatically correct Japanese, and don't force yourself to try to produce your own original sentences until your brain has processed enough good Japanese to know how to do it without forcing it. It takes longer at first, but over time it's actually more efficient, because you're not wasting time cramming useless grammar rules into your head, or learning things that are useless. You're studying what interests you, and you're letting your brain pick up the rules on its own, the way most of us learned our first language anyway.

It's basically modified immersion, designed to trick your brain into learning things long-term rather than short-term. If you've taken classes in school, you'll know what I mean. In school, you mostly do lots of short-term memorization that all goes out the window unless you review it and use it. This method is designed to avoid that sort of memory trap, and emphasizes long-term memory building over time.

Check out alljapaneseallthetime.com, and read from the "Newcomers start here" link. If you want to see another way it's been approached with respect to learning English, check out antimoon.com.

It's up to you, but I wouldn't just dismiss something just because it's different.

raseru:

If you want some good sentences to be able to throw into your SRS immediately without doing much work, go ahead and pick up the Hiragana Times (if you don't have a Japanese bookstore near you, then you can find it on a few sites that will send it to you cheap).

In this magazine they usually have a couple of pages of articles where they will give English paragraph and then the Japanese paragraph. However, on a few pages they will have the Japanese sentences translated word for word underneath each Japanese word. Using this, you can put sentences into your SRS without much thought at all!

It should provide a good foundation of sentences.

Good luck!

dilandau23 Wrote:

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.

So for the people looking for the proof that he is fluent, this looks like it is pretty much it!

After all, what was that quote he had on his site in some article? Something like, "If it's a question about syntax, trust a native; but if it's about kanji, trust me."

So, the "unnatural" use of kanji would pretty much show that it is, in fact, him writing it.

Ryuujin27 Wrote:So, the "unnatural" use of kanji would pretty much show that it is, in fact, him writing it.

He just uses kanji far more often than a native would, making it "unnatural" but not wrong.

Right, I know that. That's why I said "unnatural." Did I ever say wrong?

Just because that AJATT guy "wrote" a few small articles in Japanese doesn't mean that he is fluent. For all we know, maybe it took him a week to write each one and he might have received a lot of help from a friend.

I find it a bit comical that he claims to have had studied (or at least did something with) Japanese for 18-24 hours a day while pursuing a degree in computer science. For someone not living in Japan, but instead Utah, this scenario is pretty much physically impossible. Computer science is very time-consuming in itself, and has a very heavy workload involving high-level math homework and coding peojects. At the very least, I think all this activity would be mentally unhealthy and would probably be more likely to lead to a nervous breakdown than fluency, especially after 18 months.

Having said that, he still seems to be a decent motivational writer! I just don't take what he says as gospel.

I don't know. One of my friends is currently pursuing Japanese and also a Computer Science major. He's seems to be doing alright.

Though, now that I think about it, he is really, really tired all the time.

Btw, did you guys ever see the Sentence Starter Pack 1 (there is no 2) on the AJATT site? He writes "I made a point of making this list small and most of it is based on the Goo dictionary entries, so there shouldn't be any mistakes. If there are, please flame me with nasty correctional comments and/or e-mails"

Well, there are only ten "sentences", most of which are actually sentence fragments that even a developmentally-challenged Japanese preschooler wouldn't screw up such as "Baka na yatsu", "Baka ga, omae wa" and "be-da".

Why would someone who is supposedly fluent enough to read technical journals in Japanese need to consult a dictionary for help with such pitiful sentences? And shouldn't he be confident enough to not even consider that he might have made any mistakes warranting a flaming response? For someone who claims to "own" the Japanese language, he seems a little insecure about using it and rarely does seem to actually use Japanese on his site devoted to Japanese.

What Khatzumoto writes is a bit OTT. His website has been online for a number of years now, and has a lot of followers, but I have yet to read some success stories of other people who followed the advice and reached fluency by following it in 18 months or close to that.

It's just motivational material, even if most of us can't realistically do what he says literally.

He says to put Japanese ahead of studying for college or other things, which I think is ridiculous. DO NOT put your Japanese hobby ahead of your degree because we live in a society where that piece of paper that says you have a good degree is very important for your life.

Japanese is cool, but if you don't have other qualifications it won't help you achieve much. If you want to go live in Japan, you'll need a visa, and just speaking Japanese fluently won't get you one (they have 110million+ that can do that already).

He advised me to listen to Japanese while working. I tried, and could not concentrate on my work at all, so stopped. Doing my job well to get an income to take care of my family is A LOT more important than learning Japanese in record time.

</end rant>.

Just take it with a pinch of salt, adapt it to your life. Just becase there is one dude in the world who dedcated a big part of his life to be capable of doing something like this:

, doesn't mean we all can, or should .

Dragg Wrote:Btw, did you guys ever see the Sentence Starter Pack 1 (there is no 2) on the AJATT site?

Now, I don't want to be that guy, and while I think he has a lot of good ideas, I certainly don't take everything Khatzumoto says as gospel, but you're just plain wrong there. He's released 5 sentence packs so far. I must say, you seem oddly angry about the whole thing. It's good to have passion, but why not devote it towards something other than decrying some blogger? I mean, even if he were a fraud, so what? C'est la vie, and all that jazz.

As for why he put that disclaimer about the sentences, who knows? Maybe he just wanted to sound humble. Maybe he's really a fat, 49 year old white guy in Michigan who's pranking us all. Does it really matter?

I don't see why one should care about his true degree of "fluentness", if his suggestions seem to work.
We may discover that he is a 12-year-old who doesn't understand a word of Japanese tomorrow, and I will still feel immensely indebted to him for what his posts have meant for my progress in Japanese.

Seriously, there is no need for "success stories" to realize wether what he says it rubbish or not. I feel (most of) it makes sense, and I've seen it work until now. Since I discovered his site my studies have progressed MUCH faster than before, and in an enormously more enjoyable way. I'm experiencing little success stories every day, even though I still have a long way to go.
I would not have made it to this point without his help. Or at least not in such a short time. That's all that matters to me.

Dragg Wrote:Just because that AJATT guy "wrote" a few small articles in Japanese doesn't mean that he is fluent. For all we know, maybe it took him a week to write each one and he might have received a lot of help from a friend.

I find it a bit comical that he claims to have had studied (or at least did something with) Japanese for 18-24 hours a day while pursuing a degree in computer science. For someone not living in Japan, but instead Utah, this scenario is pretty much physically impossible. Computer science is very time-consuming in itself, and has a very heavy workload involving high-level math homework and coding peojects. At the very least, I think all this activity would be mentally unhealthy and would probably be more likely to lead to a nervous breakdown than fluency, especially after 18 months.

Having said that, he still seems to be a decent motivational writer! I just don't take what he says as gospel.

Those sentence packs were from the early days of the website, before he really found his voice. His posts back then had a different feel to them.

I don't need to defend him, but I will say that your post makes you sound jealous. 18-24 hours probably includes just listening to background noise. He's not selling anything or forcing you to click on banners. He's just offering the experiences he had while learning the language. The most important thing is to just focus on what works best for you.

Maybe his entire site is a scam to sell kanji posters!

Vosmiura said "What Khatzumoto writes is a bit OTT. His website has been online for a number of years now, and has a lot of followers, but I have yet to read some success stories of other people who followed the advice and reached fluency by following it in 18 months or close to that."

That's because they've all died of exhaustion in the process. Just like the Koreans who played Starcraft in cyber-cafes for 18 to 24 hours a day.

I'm not trying to be a hater. Its all about saving lives.

"I don't need to defend him, but I will say that your post makes you sound jealous. 18-24 hours probably includes just listening to background noise. He's not selling anything or forcing you to click on banners. He's just offering the experiences he had while learning the language. The most important thing is to just focus on what works best for you."

I'm not attacking him. I'm just criticizing him and calling him a liar. There is no way that he listens to background noise while he is in class, in the shower, spending time with his "signifigant other", or sleeping. It is physically unlikely and almost mathematically impossible. I think his site is good and could be an even greater source. Its just kinda funny and absurd....

Well, until they can just jack my brain into a computer and I can do a quick Japanese Language download, I'm going to keep going the immersion route, or whatever you want to call it. He didn't invent it, but he does have some good ideas. I totally agree with his input over output take.

And the antimoon.com guys have some good ideas, too.

rich_f Wrote:Well, until they can just jack my brain into a computer and I can do a quick Japanese Language download, I'm going to keep going the immersion route, or whatever you want to call it. He didn't invent it, but he does have some good ideas. I totally agree with his input over output take.

And the antimoon.com guys have some good ideas, too.

You know, the tech to do that will probably actually be available within the next 50 years or so. Unfortunately, even the most liberal timeframes put its commercial availability at right after I actually manage to attain near-native fluency in Japanese. Just watch.

vosmiura Wrote:What Khatzumoto writes is a bit OTT. His website has been online for a number of years now, and has a lot of followers, but I have yet to read some success stories of other people who followed the advice and reached fluency by following it in 18 months or close to that.

So...speaking of the devil, Khatzumoto posted a success story .

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...cess-story

Ryuujin27 Wrote:Right, I know that. That's why I said "unnatural." Did I ever say wrong?

No, I just wanted to clarify for those who might not know.

Dragg Wrote:There is no way that he listens to background noise while he is in class, in the shower, spending time with his "signifigant other", or sleeping. It is physically unlikely and almost mathematically impossible.

I listen to background Japanese in class and while sleeping. The other two aren't physically possible for me (dorm showers/no sig other), but if I could I would. Almost every second I'm in my room/library without friends is spent listening to some kind of Japanese. It's hardly 'physically unlikely' or 'mathematically impossible' (what does that even mean?) to me.

I know some people can't sleep/study well with background noise, but I'm lucky enough to be able to do so.

Even if he isn't actually fluent, I'm glad he claims so; it's more motivational.

Let me explain my primary reason for being skeptical of the AJATT system. The Khatzu guy is basically implying that you should expose yourself to as much Japanese as possible. But according to other systems, such as Pimsleur, overexposure can actually be counterproductive. For example, Pimsleur states that you should only do one lesson of their audio series at a time. They say you can repeat the same lesson over and over again. Do you see the difference in philosophy? One is all about moderation, and the other is all about extremes. I'm not sure which is right, but I would like to know. The reason that I am criticizing the AJATT is because the dude is trying to convince you that his way is right under the pretense of his own success. That is why I think I have to call him out if I think he is lying. But I am open to to the possibility that what he is saying actually works, even if I don't actually believe that he has followed his own advice. I am curious about hearing more from anyone who has tried both AJATT and
JIM (Japanese In Moderation) about which works better. I think they both probably work, but which works better? Please don't give cop-out answers like "just find out what works best for you" because I really don't think the answer is as obvious as that.

Dragg Wrote:Let me explain my primary reason for being skeptical of the AJATT system. The Khatzu guy is basically implying that you should expose yourself to as much Japanese as possible. But according to other systems, such as Pimsleur, overexposure can actually be counterproductive. For example, Pimsleur states that you should only do one lesson of their audio series at a time. They say you can repeat the same lesson over and over again. Do you see the difference in philosophy? One is all about moderation, and the other is all about extremes. I'm not sure which is right, but I would like to know. The reason that I am criticizing the AJATT is because the dude is trying to convince you that his way is right under the pretense of his own success. That is why I think I have to call him out if I think he is lying. But I am open to to the possibility that what he is saying actually works, even if I don't actually believe that he has followed his own advice. I am curious about hearing more from anyone who has tried both AJATT and
JIM (Japanese In Moderation) about which works better. I think they both probably work, but which works better? Please don't give cop-out answers like "just find out what works best for you" because I really don't think the answer is as obvious as that.

Khatzu's method is best. Don't believe me? Ask a hundred million Japs.

Dragg Wrote:I am curious about hearing more from anyone who has tried both AJATT and
JIM (Japanese In Moderation) about which works better. I think they both probably work, but which works better? Please don't give cop-out answers like "just find out what works best for you" because I really don't think the answer is as obvious as that.

I hope you don't think it's a cop-out, but the absolute best amount of study when it comes to language is as much as you can do consistently. That is, more is always better unless you do so much that you "burn out". Taking weeks off of a language at a time is one of the worst things you can do. Of course, that's for active study. If you can stand to leave Japanese running in the background all the time, I see no harm in that.

Dragg Wrote:For example, Pimsleur states that you should only do one lesson of their audio series at a time. They say you can repeat the same lesson over and over again.

Pimsleur lessons=/=real Japanese.
Pimsleur lessons are an active recall process; this is completely different from a passive listening situation. Pimsleur limits you to one lesson a day so you aren't overwhelmed by new information, and so the spacing between having to recall a specific word works out nicely. This can be seen in the AJATT method's use of an SRS; if you put every single new sentence you heard in a day into your SRS, you'd never learn anything, and if you did all of your srs reviews too early, you'd never move anything to long term memory.


Listening to audio also serves purposes other than learning new vocabulary/phrases.
In any case, there is almost no way that listening to 'too much' Japanese will damage your path to fluency.

uberstuber Wrote:

Dragg Wrote:For example, Pimsleur states that you should only do one lesson of their audio series at a time. They say you can repeat the same lesson over and over again.

Pimsleur lessons=/=real Japanese.
Pimsleur lessons are an active recall process; this is completely different from a passive listening situation. Pimsleur limits you to one lesson a day so you aren't overwhelmed by new information, and so the spacing between having to recall a specific word works out nicely. This can be seen in the AJATT method's use of an SRS; if you put every single new sentence you heard in a day into your SRS, you'd never learn anything, and if you did all of your srs reviews too early, you'd never move anything to long term memory.


Listening to audio also serves purposes other than learning new vocabulary/phrases.
In any case, there is almost no way that listening to 'too much' Japanese will damage your path to fluency.

I think you are correct in your distinction between active and passive learning. I agree that listening to a lot of Japanese is probably not a bad thing, but I do wonder how useful or necessary it is. Unless one is very advanced, I doubt he/she would get too much benefit out of listening to background Japanese noise for more than a couple hours a day. I would describe myself as a somewhat low-end intermediate Japanese-learner, and I could probably pass JLPT 3 but not 2. I can honestly say that passively listening to Japanese radio or movies, at least at this point, is almost totally useless without context or chance for word-lookup or interactivity. Therefore, I am mainly interested in active learning. On a different thread, somebody commented (without source) that the human mind can only process about 5 hours of material in one day. Has anybody here actually attempted to learn Japanese, actively or passively, for ten hours or more in a single day on a regular basis? I'm pretty sure that a "sweet spot" exists for an optimal amount of learning time per day, and I doubt it is anything remotely near 18 to 24 hours a day.

There are several things about the AJATT site that, with the best will in the world, just don't seem to add up.

A few have been mentioned above, but here's the thing that gets me. The guy says he learned about 7500 sentences (I'm going on memory here, but that's the rough number) in 18 months and became fluent in Japanese. Ok, so the term "fluent" is not firmly defined but he describes it as something like (not a direct quote)-

..maybe not native-level but definately fluent.

So he's clearly talking about a very high level of ability. Now, I just can't see how 7,500 sentences selected the way he described would include even a single reading for all of just the general use kanji, let alone rare or unusual readings. He doesn't mention anywhere that he selected sentences to cover that material. Now how about names? If his claims are true then he should be able to read proper nouns at a level at last something like that of a native speaker- how on Earth was that accomplished? From 7,500 sentences? I just don't see it.

Nevertheless, I do find that a lot of what he (and the chaps at Antimoon) says makes a great deal of sense. So, despite the fact that I sometimes wonder if he'll shortly reveal himself to be James Rudi carrying out a ruse to demonste how credulous people can be, I have tried to apply some of the methods described there.